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 of participating cities now numbers over 80 in the U.S. and a few around the world. However, New York City alone had 50 park(ing) spaces throughout the city - which you can see in the video above.
What kind of spaces would you create on Park(ing) Day? What kind of spaces did you see or experience?
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 this NY Daily News article, Plazas are beauty of a plan. DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said at the time in August 2007, “And it’s just the beginning.” She’s right, see the last line of this story.
Ninth Avenue at 14th Street (Middle) - See how this Meatpacking District community-lead process began in this 2006 CoolTown entry, A NYC ‘beta community’ to build a piazza.
Willoughby Street Pedestrian Plaza Brooklyn, 2006 (Bottom) - Check out a link to a video of this street’s transformation along with a larger image and description in this previous CoolTown entry, Hey, let’s try it.
This is indeed just the beginning, as the NYC DOT looks to fund at the very least eight more of these in their new NYC Plaza Program.
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 building.
Milwaukee began easing parking requirements in the 1990s while San Francisco and London changed minimum parking requirements into maximums decades ago. Washington DC is looking to eliminate parking requirements altogether, with some exceptions. This would be a significant asset to a green condo development in Washington DC’s H Street neighborhood that I’m helping to crowdsource. Why? Half the units couldn’t be built if parking were required because there simply isn’t enough room, which means the developer has to charge higher prices to make up for the loss in volume, which is unfortunate especially when you consider that many of DC’s homebuyers don’t even have cars.
Here’s a vignette of this trend in Milwaukee, quoting its former mayor in an AP article, “...a lot sat vacant for decades after a historic building burned down. The required parking made it unfeasible to build anything new there. After officials relaxed the parking requirement, a thriving restaurant sprang up.”
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 the ---, where the city government and police department must be notified and involved. Imagine that though, U.S. citizens have become used to the fact that they need the city government and police department in order to have a neighborhood gathering. Kind of ironic? So what’s the alternative?
See the photo of the Plaza De Chueca, Madrid in Spain. The reason why government entities are involved is the city needs to be legally transformed from a car-prioritized street to a pedestrian-only one, but what about one that’s already pedestrian only? That’s right, not only won’t you need a bureaucracy to approve your party, but you could have one everyday, spontaneously, informally. Isn’t that what life should be about?
Image: Plaza De Chueca, Madrid, Spain by Eduardo Nasi.
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 several miles of car-oriented roads are closed to… cars, on the weekends.
Sunday Streets, open from 9 am to 1 pm, covers 4.5 miles from the Bayview neighborhood, along the Embarcadero waterfront and ending in Chinatown, and is sponsored by the mayor’s office to promote health. As one Sunday Streeter put it, “When there’s no cars and just people, people are friendlier, people are less stressed out.” Really though, it’s become a wildly popular event simply because the crowd thoroughly enjoys it. As Mayor Gavin Newsome, one of the most forward-thinking mayors in the U.S., puts it, “Most importantly, it’s the spirit of folks who come up to you and say, ‘Why aren’t we doing this every weekend?’ It’s just been another vibrant success.”
...and a closing quote, “I think you’re seeing the city wake up to what’s been obvious to some of us, that there are so many other wonderful uses of a street. Streets aren’t limited to just a few people and cars. Streets are for people, and it’s really wonderful to get the people out in the streets playing.”
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, Columbia’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 they wanted to watch on TV. So there they were, playing outside, filling the playgrounds, the streets, the sidewalks, playing games, riding bikes, laughing, having fun. Of course, the show came back on the air and the playgrounds were once again desolate, which leads to this closing quote from the video…
“This is fantastic. As you can see here, we have everybody, the young children, older people. I think it’s spectacular that Portland is doing the sunday parkways. My only problem is I think it should be every Sunday. They need to do this every week, for the rest of the summer.”
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 for, the same kinds of places that have served as the hearts of communities for centuries - an empty stage surrounded by vibrant restaurants, cafes, markets and shops. What people aren’t looking for are places over-designed by architects, hired by developers that don’t understand what creatives desire, assigning permanent places for people to sit, eat and walk rather than letting them choose for themselves, and not only that, but be allowed to do things that may not appeal to architects and developres, such as throw a frisbee, watch a live band or revel in a flash mob.
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 attracting hordes of creatives - Summer Streets is their idea. See the quote by the Commissioner of the DOT below.
“Every day should be Summer Streets day!”
“This is ridiculously fun. They should have done this a long time ago.”
“We’re so lucky to live in a city where Mayor Bloomberg and his team want to show the world that New York city is a sport capital of the world and a model city for healthy living,” Mary Wittenberg, President, New York Road Runners.
“This is utopia New York.”
“The general interest as we can see is that people want to take over the streets. People want to have fun, and people want to meet out as equals, and this creates a sense of belonging, and this is what makes New York the greatest city in the world. I think we have to applaud the Mayor and the [DOT] Commissioner for having the guts. Sometimes it’s much easier to do nothing, and then when you do nothing no one complains. But they are doing things in making the city more human-scale, and I think that’s what’s exciting.” Gil Penalosa, Former Parks Commissioner, Bogota, Columbia, responsible for Ciclovia, the event that started the street closing movement in the U.S.
“The best part is watching people look up, and enjoy buildings from the safety of the street instead of avoiding looking up because they’re trying to avoid collisions with motorists.”
“For eight years we’ve been anxious to come out of the house and sit on the grass. You can sit here and have lunch. It’s a wonderful place to be, but it’s terrible during the day with the cars going along and the fumes, and the noise, and the horns and everything, but today, it’s incredible!”
“We’ve got two more Saturdays to go, and it’s my hope that this becomes an iconic event for New York City for the next 100 years.” Jannette Sadik-Khan, Commissioner, NYC DOT (Department of Transportation)
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 isn’t quite there yet, mainly because the mayor was a bit flippant in his announcement, so it’ll be interesting to see how it all turns out in the end.
Also following with enthusiasm, San Francisco just announced car-free Sundays on August 31 and September 14 from 9 am to 1 pm, covering six miles from the Bayview neighborhood, along the Embarcadero waterfront and ending in Chinatown.
All of these programs were inspired by the Ciclovia Sunday street closings in Bogota, Columbia.
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.”
“Definitely good for business, brings people here, now we get more customers, new customers, people try us out.” Erica Goepel, Business manager
“Tables out, people hanging out in the street… fantastic!”
“When they find out it’s just a fair and it’s whatever they want to make it, they get really excited and ask questions. Can I bring a chess set? Can I bring a picnic? The answer is yes, it’s your street, it’s your space, it’s your happening.” Teresa Toro, Community Board
“We hope that the community wants to see it happen again. Whether it happens again next summer or extended… the end goal for a number of us is that it can be done permanently on Saturdays, and then maybe be a permanently closed pedestrian street one day.” Business owner Jason Jeffries.
