Introduced almost a year ago, the NY Plaza Program (a CoolTown Top 20 post) promised to award eight projects in any of NYC’s five boroughs by funding the redesign and redevelopment of the street into a plaza. The winners have finally been announced, and there are nine of them. Check out detailed descriptions of the winners on the this New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) web page.

Brooklyn
1. Fulton Street & Marcy Avenue - Street narrowing to create 8000 s.f. of new

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New York City may be playing the lead tune when it comes to pedestrian-only/car-free placemaking, but San Francisco is following right along to the point it’s sounding like a duet.

In 2008, Manhattan closed several key streets to cars on Saturdays with Summer Streets, and San Francisco followed immediately with Sunday Streets. On February 25, The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the mayor is considering closing the city’s main thoroughfare to cars, and the next day Mayor Bloomberg

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I think we have definitely hit the pedestrian walk tipping point. First Wired Magazine publishes It’s Time for Cities to Favor People, Not Cars, then San Francisco’s mayor announces the possibility of closing the city’s main thoroughfare to cars. Now New York City Mayor Bloomberg announces on February 26, 2009 that Times Square and Herald Square will go completely vehicle-free, along with 36 blocks of Broadway adding a pedestrian promenade and bike lane while leaving a reduced number of car

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Fitting with the previous entry, ‘People over cars’ begins to hit mainstream media, the City of San Francisco revealed that they’re considering closing the busiest street in the city to cars.

Why?

Perhaps it has something to do with the success of its summer Sunday Streets where miles of downtown streets were opened only for pedestrians and bicyclists, which were all the rage in major cities last year.

Perhaps it’s a realization that U.S. cities need to better compete with

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It’s a 180-degree trend reversal in Japan, where emerging generations no longer find having a car as relevant to their daily lives. Automakers even have a name for it, “kuruma banare,“ or “demotorization”. No more car ownership as status symbol, where auto executives fear the nation’s love affair with the automobile is ending.

“Young people’s interest is shifting from cars to communication tools like personal computers, mobile phones and services,“ says Yoichiro Ichimaru of Toyota.

From a

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So if Copenhagen, Denmark is arguably the birthplace of the modern pedestrianization movement, what’s the leading city as far as a contemporary pedestrianization plan? It’d be difficult to beat what Hong Kong has done since 2000.

As you can see in the plans above, Hong Kong’s newly annointed pedestrian streets aren’t just extensive within city districts, but extensive in districts throughout the city. Streets in green are pedestrianized full-time, blue is part-time, and those in yellow are

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Quite often, a movement will have a starting point and a champion. If one had to at least nominate some credit in regard to the pedestrianization of streets, then Copenhagen, Denmark and resident architect Jan Gehl deserve some of the spotlight, especially in a city known for rainy cold weather where the common mantra was ‘this is the wrong city for this’.

Jan was a principal figure in transforming Copenhagen’s main downtown street, the Strøget, into a pedestrian zone. The traffic

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For those who relish the pedestrian-only districts that are prevalent in Europe, one need venture a little north to Montreal in the summers.

Twelve blocks surrounding Saint Catherine Street, one of the Canadian city’s busiest corridors in the Ville-Marie neighborhood, were opened to pedestrians only (ie closed to cars) for the entire summer, transformed into a grand public square brought to life with outdoor cafes, sculptures and shoppers, creating an overnight cafe society.

What’s most

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For those of you who have casually wondered what an auto-oriented street would be like if it were reclaimed by people, for people, Park(ing) Day is an annual step in that direction. Participants in cities around the U.S. and the world ‘park’ themselves in a parking space for the day, paying the meter of course, and make a third place of it.

Founded in 2005 by Rebar, a collaborative group of creatives in San Francisco, it is now sponsored nationally by the Trust for Public Land (TPL). The list

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In another example of a picture being worth a thousand words, here are three before and after shots of pioneering New York City’s DOT (Department of Transportation) plan to transform auto-oriented corridors into pedestrian places and destinations.

Pearl Street Plaza, Brooklyn (Top) - An asphalt parking lot is now in the middle of a final transition to becoming a restored cobblestone plaza, hosting farmers markets and concerts. Read more about this street-turned-plaza, with wide-angle shot, in

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Parking for cars with every new building has been the law since the 1950s (complementing the 1956 Highway Act which legislated our interstate system), not surprisingly resulting in what are easily recognized post-1950s developments and buildings - they look like cars are the priority. The 2000s mark the era where cities have decided that the great experiment is over, and are now focusing on pedestrians and people once again. Where to start? Removing parking requirements for every new …

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g src=“http://www.cooltownstudios.com/images/madrid-plazadechueca.jpg” style=“padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px” align=left title=“Plaza De Chueca, Madrid, Spain”

Residents in the U.S. revel in block parties, whether they’re urban like Adams Morgan Day or residence-based in the burbs. It’s a time when you can roam the street freely without having to look both ways, and enjoying the street as one giant festive patio.

Still, having a block party in the U.S. is typically a major pain in

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On two glorious days on August 31 and September 14, 2008, the streets of San Francisco belonged to pedestrians, bikers, joggers, skaters, dancers (lots of dancers), picnickers, roller soccer, hula hoopers... you get the idea (and actually get to see all of it in the Streetfilms video above). That’s because San Francisco became the last of the country’s most progressive cities (Portland, NY, Seattle) to host their own Ciclovia, a ‘party on the highway’ originating in Bogota, Columbia where

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As a follow up to the previous entry, Portland Striving to be the U.S. Bike Capital”, the city held its Sunday Parkways on one day, June 22, 2008, where six miles of streets are closed to auto traffic on Sunday from 8 am to 2 pm. It’s Portland’s version of Bogota, Colombia’s weekly Ciclovia.

The video, produced by Streetfilms, and the imagery of the event, reminds me of a Simpsons episode where the childrens’ cartoon show (Krusty the Clown) went off the air and suddenly the kids had nothing

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In the continuing more community less architect series, we take a look at Veterans Field in Silver Spring, Maryland, aka ‘The Turf’, pictured above. The nearly acre-sized lot was covered with a temporary turf field in the three-year interim period before construction began on a new civic building, but since then it has become the most popular gathering spot in the city.

Alas, July 2008 was its last month of existence, but it’s another example of the kind of urban space that people are longing

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Thanks to Streetfilms!

August 9, 2008 will go down in history as the beginning of Manhattan’s transformation in becoming a truly pedestrian-oriented city. Through their Summer Streets program, they held the first of three street closings to cars along seven miles through the heart of the city. How’d it go? Read the quotes below from participants (shown in the film) below and decide for yourself! Once again, any city that has a DOT (Dept. of Transportation) like New York City will be

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Tomorrow marks the first day of NYC’s Summer Streets program when 7 miles of downtown Manhattan are completely closed to cars for six hours. Check out the official PSA above, edited by Streetfilms. Check out this map for other streets that will be closed on the Saturdays of August 9, 16, 23 between 7am - 1pm.

Motivated by NY’s program, Seattle will have Car-Free Sundays during the afternoons in three different neighborhoods at a time on August 24, 31 and September 7. The buy-in by businesses

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Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn’s main street, is pedestrian-only on four Saturdays from July 19th to August 9th, 2008, noon to 7 pm. Check it out at Wiliamsburg Walks. Those in the know are aware this is a NYC DOT led effort through their streets to plazas program, though heavily supported by the local businesses and residents - some quotes:

“It feels a lot more peaceful, people are spread across the sidewalk and road, vs everyone crammed onto the sidewalk.“

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Maryland’s first pedestrian-only street in several decades, Ellsworth Drive, was profiled in the previous entry, but it’s not the only one.  In Bethesda, a town at the edge of Washington DC, Bethesda Lane opened in June 2008. If Ellsworth Drive reminds people of Downtown Disney, then Bethesda Lane conjures up Universal Studios. It features 44,000 s.f. of retail distributed through 16 shops and restaurants, mostly chains and luxury items, topped with 180 luxury apartments.

It obviously does

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Ok, so those who’ve been down Silver Spring’s Ellsworth Drive in Downtown Silver Spring feel like they’re in Downtown Disney, but the takeaway here is that this is Maryland’s first successful pedestrian-only district (on weekends) in decades.

Ellsworth is the lone pedestrian-only street in the 22-acre mixed-use Downtown Silver Spring redevelopment, including 440,000 s.f. of retail. It’s more of a suburban shopping mall with its large-scale national retailers, but it does have a triangular

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A popular item on many a creatives‘ wishlist is to see a car-dominated commercial street transformed into a pedestrian-only plaza brimming with outdoor diners. Some fortunate residents in NYC may not have to wait much longer.

Following a rather astounding recent track record in prioritizing pedestrians over cars, the NYC DOT (Department of Transportation) presented its latest and greatest, the NYC Plaza Program. When was the last time a Department of Transportation issued a statement like

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Emerging generations want more pedestrian areas, less traffic-congested streets. In Manhattan, pedestrians are literally running out of sidewalk room. This August, New York City is conducting a ground-breaking historical experiment called Summer Streets, to provide a bold answer to this growing demand.

On August 9, 16, 23, three Saturdays between 7am - 1pm, the following streets will be pedestrian only, closed completely to auto traffic:

- Downtown Routes - 6.9 miles:  Park Avenue between

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As we gradually evolve from an auto-oriented infrastructure to a more pedestrian-oriented one, other of visiting the best examples around the world, a video is the next best thing to experiencing and understanding the appeal of pedestrian-only streets.

Thanks to Streetfilms, a sort of YouTube meets Discovery Channel, you’ll get an excellent feel for Melbourne, Australia’s myriad pedestrian-only lanes in their film, A Pedestrian Paradise in Melbourne. In the 19th century when city planners

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What’s a carfree conference? That’s probably what most U.S. citizens would wonder since the first six carfree conferences occurred only in Europe**. However, as you read through the list below, you’ll see that’s about to change…

Towards Carfree Cities I: Lyon, France; October 1997;
Organized by EYFA (European Youth for Action) and RVV (Regroupement pour une ville sans voiture, or Group for a Carfree City, Lyon), with 60-80 primarily young participants. This led to the founding of Car Busters,

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La Rambla, which translates to ‘intermittent water flow’, is the iconic hub of Barcelona, a predominantly pedestrian-only plaza stretching nearly a mile through the historic center of the Spanish city.

The central area is filled with outdoor dining areas, merchant kiosks and countless strollers, bordered on either side by traffic-calmed two-lane roads for cars, which are then fronted with restaurants, stores and residences.  Servers (pictured) cross the traffic lanes to cater to customers in

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