Livable Streets
Streetsblog Basics
Melbourne, Australia After a Decade of Focus on Public Spaces
With apologies for my carbon footprint, I recently returned from a working tour of eight cities Down Under. The trip included an invitation to Melbourne to work with the staff of the city's successful new public space development, Federation Square, and to help lead a Placemaking training course that included many city staff, local developers and "place managers." In the process, I had the opportunity to learn a few things relevant to my hometown, New York City.
August 2, 2007
Famed Danish Urbanist Jan Gehl in Town to Consult on PlaNYC
The Urbanist Musketeers: Alex Garvin, Jan Gehl and Fred Kent in Copenhagen, Denmark, Sept. 30, 2006.
August 2, 2007
Tonight: Park(ing) Day Planning Meeting
Tonight, you are invited to a planning meeting to prepare for the previously discussed parking spot squat in New York City as a part of Park(ing) Day 2007. If you want to get involved, this is the place to be. Let's show those San Franciscans who's boss.
August 2, 2007
Cool New Thing: What’s Your Walk Score?
As if USA Today featuring the "Complete Streets" movement on its front page weren't enough to make one realize that walking is the biggest new way to earn your "green" points, a cool web site, Walk Score, rates the walkability of any location in the United States on a 0-100 scale. Based on the number of retail businesses and amenities near an address, this site analyzes how frequently one is likely to need to drive in the daily course of life. The closer things are to the places you're likely to need, the better your score. Finally, a site that attempts to quantify the economic, environmental and social benefits of living in a city.
August 2, 2007
Accidents Halved As Street is Stripped of ‘Safety’ Features
The results are in on one of urban designer and "shared space" proponent Ben Hamilton-Baillie's London projects. Kensington High Street is twice as safe now that all of the traffic engineering "safety features" are gone. The Standard reports:
July 25, 2007
Welcome to Davis, California: A Bicycle Friendly Town
StreetFilms' Clarence Eckerson has been in Davis, California the last few days, filming one of the premier bicycling cities in the United States. Clarence has a preliminary report and some photos up on the web site with a StreetFilm yet to come. It's worth a quick look.
July 25, 2007
Microbuses and Bike Sharing: The New Parisian Street Scene
Luc Nadal of the Institute for Transportation Development Policy sends along these photos showing some of the exciting new things happening on Parisian streets these days.
July 24, 2007
Congestion Pricing: What’s the Deal?
Nobody knows whether the convoluted and difficult congestion pricing "deal" reached by political leaders yesterday will actually result in anything. The deal is complex even by Albany standards. A few things, however, are clear:
July 20, 2007
Kids Demand Respect in the Streets of Brooklyn
A rendering of a mural proposed for Butler St. and Third Ave., one block from the Brooklyn intersection where a 4-year-old boy was killed by the driver of a Hummer in February.
July 20, 2007
CB8 Shoots Down Upper East Side Crosstown Bike Route Plan
On Monday, July 9 the transportation committee of Community Board 8 on Manhattan's Upper East Side took up the issues of congestion pricing and a new pair of crosstown bike lanes.
July 19, 2007