Published in the Beacon Hill Times, June 2, 1998

What's wrong with Charles Circle? It's the place where Charles Street and Cambridge Street intersect, the place where the Longfellow Bridge begins its majestic crossing of the river into Cambridge. Not only is it a major crossroads, it also has its own T station.

Yet the area is barren and lifeless, a place avoided by citizens.

One might also ask, "What's wrong with Huntington Avenue?" Huntington begins at one end of Copley Square and stretches the length of the city into Brookline. Surrounded by the Boston Public Library, Boylston Street and Copley Place, one would think lower Huntington would be filled with life.

But like Charles Circle, it's a place best avoided.

What's wrong? Both areas have pedestrian bridges. In Charles Circle, pedestrians bridges are used to shuttle walkers into the T and around the circle. On lower Huntington, pedestrian bridges (described as "gerbil runs" by some observers) keep pedestrians off the street and in the air as they move from Copley to the Prudential.

The two areas offer strong arguments for the notion that pedestrian bridges don't work. By putting people into the air, two things happen. One is obvious: people are no longer on the street, and that makes the street lifeless. Cars take over and maintenance of the area deteriorates.

The second is less obvious: when people disappear, there is no longer any incentive to accommodate them. Thus, it is virtually impossible to walk across Charles Circle. Planners, having created a pedestrian walkway, no longer feel a need to provide for the needs of pedestrians at the street level.

These are the observations that drive opposition to the pedestrian bridge now being proposed for Congress Street. As readers may be aware, the city has been pushing for construction of a pedestrian bridge from City Hall Plaza to Faneuil Hall.

A number of arguments are made for the bridge: it would be safer, it would be easier for pedestrians, it would be more accommodating to the disabled. Those are all the same arguments that were made for the bridges at Charles Circle and at Huntington Avenue.

Pedestrian bridges are easy solutions and are beloved by transportation planners who also see them as a means of helping cars move more swiftly. But they are not the only solution. It is possible to design ground-level mechanisms that allow traffic to move smoothly while at the same time keeping pedestrians on the street where they belong. Walk Boston, a citizens group that lobbies hard for keeping Boston a walking city, has designed a comprehensive plan for the Congress Street area that accomplishes just that. These are the kinds of solutions that city planners should now be contemplating.

Instead of erecting new pedestrian bridges, we should be thinking about how to bring back street-level life to Huntington Avenue and Charles Circle. A new bridge shouldn't be built.