Project for Public Spaces
Streetsblog Basics
Opinion: To Avoid a COVID Resurgence, Mayor de Blasio Must Create Open Streets for Schools
Taking our schools outdoors should not be a revolutionary idea, after our year-long dining experiment. Yet the city has been sluggish at best about moving schools into outdoor space, let alone streets.
September 9, 2021
Transportation Alternatives Wants Mayoral Candidates To Commit to 25% More Open Space
Vision Zero? How about Vision 25 by 25?
March 1, 2021
LOS and Travel Projections: The Wrong Tools for Planning Our Streets
Gary Toth is director of transportation initiatives at Project for Public Spaces. This post first appeared on PPS's Placemaking Blog.
February 7, 2012
Eight Ways State DOT Chief Joan McDonald Can Make New York Better
“By building more and more roads, we have made it almost impossible to solve our transportation problems”
January 18, 2011
The New Gansevoort: Pedestrian Godsend, Nightclubber Nuisance
A DOT team received a mix of gratitude and derision at Tuesday's public forum about recent pedestrian improvements in the Meatpacking District, which attracted an audience of about 100 people to the Housing Works offices on West 13th Street. It was an interesting window onto the competing interests now vying to shape what has been, from the beginning, a genuinely community-based project seeking to put pedestrians on equal footing with vehicle traffic.
January 15, 2009
Streetfilms: Interview With the Transportation Engineer
In his storied career at New Jersey DOT, Gary Toth played an indispensable role changing the culture of the agency, promoting a place-based ethic instead of the auto-centric transportation planning dogma. Today Toth heads transportation initiatives at Project for Public Spaces, where he has written "A Citizen's Guide to Better Streets." The book, which will be published by AARP, serves as a how-to for working constructively with your local transportation and planning agencies. (It is not yet available for purchase.)
September 26, 2008
Broadway Boulevard Confirms: People Will Sit in Well-Placed Seats
Broadway Boulevard takes center stage in a USA Today story on New York City's recent pedestrian improvements. Those who questioned whether people would sit in plazas near passing traffic have their answer:
September 23, 2008
Placemaking on the Upper East Side
Tuesday evening, Project for Public Spaces held a "placemaking" community workshop for Manhattan's Upper East Side, featuring PPS founder and president Fred Kent. Streetsblog regular BicyclesOnly was there and files this report.
September 11, 2008
Streetfilms: Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square
According to the Project for Public Spaces (PPS), Portland, Oregon's Pioneer Courthouse Square
is one of the Top 10 greatest public spaces in the U.S. & Canada. I
couldn't agree more. Affectionately referred to as the city's "living
room" the charming and versatile block was once slated to be a parking garage in the 1960s. Thankfully the residents didn't let that happen.
July 10, 2008
Historic Town Chooses to “Retain Its Charm” By Enabling Sprawl
On Friday, Streetsblog looked at how northern Virginia can't get enough road widening. As a follow-up, Gary Toth of Project for Public Spaces directed us to another example of how smart growth faces hurdles in the places that need it most -- in this case, the Trenton suburb of Bordentown, New Jersey (right: the main drag).
May 12, 2008