Urban Design
Streetsblog Basics
PlanNYC 2030: What makes a Community Sustainable?
A few weeks ago I attended the first of the Community Leader meetings for the PlanNYC 2030 Sustainability initiative. I thought Streetsblog readers might be interested in some reflections on this from a neighborhood environmentalist perspective.
February 20, 2007
DOT Pledged Ped Safety Fixes by 2006 on Deadly Third Ave
New York City's Department of Transportation failed to follow through on a 2004 pledge to build potentially life-saving pedestrian safety improvements along the Third Avenue corridor where a 4-year-old boy was run over and killed last Tuesday.
February 19, 2007
Plan Urged Safety Measures for Intersection Where Boy Died
The May 2003 final report of the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project recommended pedestrian safety measures designed specifically to prevent the kind of collision that killed a four-year-old boy in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn on Tuesday afternoon.
February 15, 2007
Robert Moses’s Fundamental Misunderstanding
In the latest issue of the Regional Plan Association's Spotlight on the Region newsletter, editor Alex Marshall has an outstanding essay responding to the recent burst of Robert Moses revisionism. An excerpt:
February 9, 2007
New York New Visions Tackles “Sustainable” New York Future
After Mayor Bloomberg's December announcement of his PlaNYC
initiative to prepare for a sustainable New York of 9 million people by 2030, New York New Visions, the group of architects and planners originally organized around Ground Zero rebuilding, announced it was expanding its scope to tackle the new challenge. Last night, in a stark white room in the basement of the American Institute of Architects building in Greenwich Village, a collection of almost equally stark white faces began reimagining the New York of the future.
February 6, 2007
StreetFilms: Berkeley’s Bike Boulevards
"Bicycle Boulevards really gives the cyclist the sense of owning the road and being able to take the lane and being able to be in the middle of the street where they can avoid the door zone. Cars are expecting that they're going to have to wait for bikes and that they're going to be seeing bikes. It's not going to be a confrontational thing if a cyclist is the middle of the road because it's expected on these streets."
January 24, 2007
Homemade Traffic Calming in Mexico’s Yucatan
From Wired Magazine co-founder Kevin Kelly’s web site Throughout Mexico “topes” or speed bumps, are ubiquitous. These can be metal pods arrayed across the road, or asphalt humps, or even significant concrete wedges. You really do have to slow down, and almost stop to crawl over them. There is usually a sign warning they are … Continued
January 17, 2007
Traffic Signals Timed for Bicycling
Here is an interesting bike infrastructure story out of Copenhagen, Denmark. 30,000 Cyclists Get the Green Wave:
January 17, 2007
Playable Streets
The New York Times has a story today about efforts underway to develop a creative new playground near the South Street Seaport. The city has been working with David
Rockwell interior designer for Nobu and the Mohegan Sun Casino, on a playground that eschews traditional playground aparati in favor of foam blocks,
water, cardboard tubes, burlap bags, ramps, climbing nets and, most interesting, "play workers" to attend to the facility and guide kids through it. Gothamist, as always, provides a nice synposis.
January 10, 2007