Quality of Life
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
Fear and Loathing on the Upper East Side
A Curbed tipster sent along this photo of the "controversial" new bike lane going in along E. 90th Street.
August 1, 2007
Meatpacking Plaza Update
Here's another photo from Mike Epstein showing progress on the Ninth Avenue redesign at 15th and 14th Streets. The photo is looking southbound.
August 1, 2007
A Solution to Stroller Rage
The feminine part of "women and children first" has, perhaps, been dropped in our more equitable and less chivalrous times, but the kid side of the sum has not, at least that's my sense of things. As a society, we generally try to put children first knowing they are our world's future, not to mention payers of our future social security checks.
July 31, 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
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