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December 7, 2007

'The party that everyone attends'... on the highway

Speaking of closing down streets in the two previous entries, several months ago I profiled how El Paso, Texas began blocking off several miles of major roads to cars every Sunday, allowing only cyclists and pedestrians. Believe it or not, the primary reason was that the city wanted to shed its reputation as being one of the four fattest in the U.S.

The wildly popular event is known as Ciclovia, but the original Ciclovia and inspiration come from Bogotá, Colombia in South America, with 2 million people on 70 miles of car-free streets from 7 am to 2 pm every Sunday. Other cities are following its lead.

While many people have heard of it, it's not entirely convenient to travel to Bogota to experience and learn more about the event. One thing missing was a concise documentary to assist city officials in not only understanding how it works, but motivating them to raise the bar for their own Ciclovia. Thanks to here.

Some of the highlights:
- An entertainment area, the Reclovia, with 20 stages of free dance (ie rhumba) and aerobics classes. I would hope El Paso has these as well :) Of course, there are food and drink vendors everywhere.
- The founding organizing team for Ciclovia, expecting 200 resumes, received only 20 rwhen they first advertised for Ciclovia volunteers. Because Columbia at the time was so enraptured with Baywatch, they promoted 'Bikewatch' during the program and attracted 1500 resumes. Who knew Baywatch would help improve quality of life in cities?
- In addition to a dozen Latin American cities, Paris, Ottawa and El Paso, Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago, Portland, and New York are considering the Ciclovia. Organizers there should watch this video with potential supporters.
- A resident quote, "The Ciclovia is marvelous. It is the best thing to come to Colombia."

In the end, it's probably best to just go ahead and hire Gil Peñalosa, Executive Director of Walk and Bike for Life (not sure if that's even possible, but it would be a coup). His impassioned statement in the video, which sums it up quite nicely:

"The obesity rates in the U.S. have skyrocketed. Almost every state has obesity, not overweight, obesity. And how else can you get thousands and thousands of people doing physical activity. So then, the infrastructure is there, it's free. The roads are already there. All you gotta do is close it. You need operation and cost to set it up, and then you can get this fantastic idea which is like a party that everyone attends.

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December 6, 2007

'Live art' among living streets

As profiled in the previous entry, Buenos Aires' bohemian neighborhood of San Telmo becomes a pedestrian-only arts district (the Feria) on Sundays, and I thought I'd provide a photo of the crowd favorite wind-blown 'live art' couple I mentioned in that story.

It's not like you see this kind of art in every neighborhood, but perhaps it's worth looking at why San Telmo is a popular host for not only this weekly version of live art, but many others.

- The neighborhood-wide, half-mile long arts festival is every Sunday (as opposed to once a year like in most U.S. cities), so it's worth investing in higher levels of art if you know you'll have a vast audience every week.
- Other than the intimate square of Plaza Dorrego, people are constantly flowing like a river through the main pedestrian street. That's a lot of potential customers for what constitutes a very brief art experience.
- The scale of the street (narrow and pedestrian scaled, not-wide, auto-scaled) and buildings (no higher than a few stories) make for a much more picturesque scene. Art and craftsmanship just plain look better in a human-scaled environment, and the 'live art' almost has a larger than life quality about them as a result. Again, heavy emphasis on the scale of the street width and building heights.
- The neighborhood, San Telmo, already has a city-wide reputation for being home to the city's edgiest artists and musicians, so it's not a stretch for them to display their work in their 'front yard'. In fact, all artists should be so fortunate.

How many of these characteristics does your city have for an arts fair?

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December 5, 2007

The mother of Sunday street closings

Six days of the week this street (Defensa) in the bohemian neighborhood of San Telmo, Buenos Aires, Argentina is full of cars, adding to the city's reputation as the second noisiest in the world (next to New York).

However, every Sunday it's a remarkably different place when what seems like at least half a mile of the street is closed to auto traffic and replaced completely with people, as you can see. In fact, there were so many people walking through the streets that it felt like they just wanted to be there to experience life with just other people and no cars.

Of course, there are plenty of attractions to draw people, from the restaurants and shops along the streets, to the local crafts (art, clothes, mate gourds (mate seems great for spring allergies)) and antiques, to the street performers (including a windblown couple that was one of the most creative live art performances I've ever seen in a street).

The one thing I kept wondering is, with so many people so tightly packed for half a mile, why they only close the street for only one day of the week.

Read more about Sundays in San Telmo here.

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December 4, 2007

Evidence in favor of TODs (transit-oriented development)

Believe it or not there are still parties out there that argue against higher-density developments built around transit stations, predicting they will cause traffic congestion as a result of more housing units present.

Thankfully, research for the Transit Cooperative Research Program provides some evidence for the logic that assumes fewer auto trips will result simply because people will take transit or walk more often, and drive less. The numbers are pretty convincing proving this is the case.

From 17 surveyed TOD-housing projects, the study found the following results for three different times of the day:

Weekday (non-rush hour) - 44% fewer vehicle trips.
A.M. peak (rush hour) - 49% fewer vehicle trips.
P.M. peak (rush hour) - 48% fewer vehicle trips.

The ramifications are multifold:

- TOD developers have reason to pay lower traffic impact fees per unit.
- Transit officials have more evidence that people drive less when living near transit stations.
- Nearby residents have one less reason to argue against high-density development. However, the main reason neighbors fight against such projects often has more to do with a misguided perception of socioeconomic differences (ie poor people live in high-density housing).
- Cities can lower minimum parking requirements which are often way too high, resulting in too much parking, unnecessary costs and a less attractive development.
- All the above helps lower housing costs.

For more details, check out this Planetizen report.

Image source: Reconnecting America.

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December 3, 2007


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'Augmented reality' - Experiencing future places... live

Many of us walk down a street with a vision for what it could be in the future - a congested street of noisy cars replaced by a pedestrian walk filled with outdoor diners, an abandoned warehouse transformed into shops and lofts; a parking lot as a green building...

Thanks to the field of augmented reality, others can experience that vision too. Augmented reality is best explained by watching the video above, or this one here - it essentially projects computer generated images onto live video imagery in real time. Think of the first down line in football, then apply it to everyday life, even as a pair of glasses you wear when walking down the street.

It used to be that there were only a few people - visionaries - who could see the potential of a derelict building or neglected neighborhood as the collective vision of many who could only describe in sound bites what would inspire them. Now others can experience that too.

Thanks to Kennedy Smith of The Clue Group for the reference, who is working on applications for urban design and historic preservation.

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