Ithaca, New York is another similar-sized town (population ~31K) that closed some blocks of its downtown "Main Street" (State Street) to make a very pleasant pe

Ithaca, New York is another similar-sized town (population ~31K) that closed some blocks of its downtown "Main Street" (State Street) to make a very pleasant pedestrian business district. This happened in the 1970s. The pedestrianized portion of State Street was part of a New York state highway -- highway traffic was re-routed to be on parallel one-way streets, separated by 2 blocks, that bracket the district. The somewhat scattered wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_Commons) has some of the backstory. (I lived there in the 90s and I think it's exaggerating the downturn in those years, but whatever.)