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I've looked up or modeled max throughput for various transportation modes, e.g. 1 car every 2 seconds = 1800 cars/hour for a car lane, 900 if stopping for cross traffic. Pedestrian and bike capacities have been murkier, though. But today Burnaby had a "Hats Off" street fair, closing Hastings, and I collected some data.
Standing as a traffic counter, I got 72 people/minute over 2.5 minutes, only counting people in one direction. That was involving all of Hastings, though. When I tried to count just one lane... well, it was murky, because people kept going at diagonals, but I got maybe 40 people/minute for the lane, or 2400/hour. But it was hardly a crush.
Perhaps more useful was walking near people in a lane, and estimate that 4 people could walk abreast without much trouble. 2 seconds following distance respects personal space nicely; this gives 2 people/s, or 7200 people/hour. And might allow enough space that intersecting streams could cross without hassle, though I'm not sure.
A stream of people going to one place could do 1 second distance safely, and 14,400 people/hour. And dense streams do interleave rather than using pedestrian stop lights, though I feel it might curb the people-per-second passing a point.
People in a crush probably do more than 4 people abreast; OTOH to avoid *feeling* crowded, I'm not sure if 4 might be too high (unless you're friends) with 3 better.
Going really conservatively we might have 3 people abreast, with 3 seconds following for easier interleaving, and 3600 people/hour per lane. Still a lot better than cars unless you're filling all the cars, and no parking space needed either.
Standing as a traffic counter, I got 72 people/minute over 2.5 minutes, only counting people in one direction. That was involving all of Hastings, though. When I tried to count just one lane... well, it was murky, because people kept going at diagonals, but I got maybe 40 people/minute for the lane, or 2400/hour. But it was hardly a crush.
Perhaps more useful was walking near people in a lane, and estimate that 4 people could walk abreast without much trouble. 2 seconds following distance respects personal space nicely; this gives 2 people/s, or 7200 people/hour. And might allow enough space that intersecting streams could cross without hassle, though I'm not sure.
A stream of people going to one place could do 1 second distance safely, and 14,400 people/hour. And dense streams do interleave rather than using pedestrian stop lights, though I feel it might curb the people-per-second passing a point.
People in a crush probably do more than 4 people abreast; OTOH to avoid *feeling* crowded, I'm not sure if 4 might be too high (unless you're friends) with 3 better.
Going really conservatively we might have 3 people abreast, with 3 seconds following for easier interleaving, and 3600 people/hour per lane. Still a lot better than cars unless you're filling all the cars, and no parking space needed either.