by Katy Purviance on
04/09/08 @
10:24:55 pm
Categories:
Urban Planning,
Articles | 233 words | 519 views
I just read this article in The New York Times by Jeff Byles called “Taking Back the Streets.”
“For decades, the Department of Transportation’s job has been to move vehicles as quickly as possible,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, the agency’s commissioner. “We’re taking a look at it a little bit differently now. There is a tremendous hunger for what we can do to make it easier for people to get around, to improve the quality of our streets and plazas, to make it easier for people to linger.”
These street reformers — planners, architects and urban officials from around the globe — are questioning the conventional street-curb-sidewalk motif, challenging the dominance of cars, and devising ways to use street furniture, plants and even radical new vehicles to transform the experience of the street.
While they do not necessarily agree on the particulars, the advocates often share an excitement, a feeling of being present at the creation.
“Let’s go to the next level,” said Ethan Kent, vice president of the Project for Public Spaces, a nonprofit group based in Manhattan, “to create great streets that really draw out the life of the communities they’re meant to serve.”
Here are 10 ideas, some modest and some ambitious, some already in place and others just a gleam in the eye, that the new crop of urban dreamers are proposing.
Read more about the TEN IDEAS.
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