WASHINGTON, D.C. — As more communities successfully reclaim their streets for people, cars are taking to the sidewalks in protest, honking loudly in support of automotive autonomy. The protesters, who also include pick-up trucks and tractor-trailers, claim that they are the rightful kings of the road and refuse to share street space with pedestrians, bicycles, and other modes of transportation. Leading experts at Meineke, Aamco, and Bill’s Auto Body claim to have treated over 80 million automobiles who have sustained scrapes and internal injuries while occupying public spaces in the past month, but the estimate is widely believed to be inflated.

Disgruntled cars protest by squatting on public lands outside the U.S. Capitol.

The protesters have also shifted their lobbying efforts in Washington into high gear, convincing the Michigan Congressional delegation to draft legislation and a Constitutional Amendment that would extend many basic rights to automobiles and “preserve the sanctity of automobile culture in American life.”

The movement is led by the Coalition for Automotive Rights (CAR). According to CAR’s spokesman, a black 1983 Pontiac Trans Am who goes only by the acronym K.I.T.T., “Many of the spaces where cars thrive are threatened in today’s America. Malls, tract housing, and parking structures are becoming less relevant because communities would rather create places that support the needs of pedestrians and local businesses.” K.I.T.T then whirred for a few seconds before adding, “Spaces that accommodate autos no longer get the equal respect they deserve, so cars must take over spaces traditionally reserved for people.”

Recent direct actions by CAR include:

Going on hunger strike to protest the pedestrian environment of New York's South Street Seaport.

Unfurling a giant billboard celebrating the automobile rights movement in Times Square, which cars regard as a sacred gathering place.

Taking over a Ferris wheel in the center of the new Toronto waterfront despite signs that say "no motorized vehicles allowed."

Squatting on failed pedestrian oriented developments like Canary Wharf in London.

PPS President Fred Kent seemed unconcerned by the protests. “It’s nice to see automobiles doing the protesting for once. This is just a sign that Americans are designing our cities around places that people want to be in, rather than for cars to move through.”

But the legislation pending in Congress has received a strong boost from new Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. Flanked by K.I.T.T. and Herbie the Love Bug, Chertoff said yesterday in a televised press conference that “Americans are safest in their cars and should show solidarity with cars as much as possible to support the security of the nation.”

Michael Chertoff and friends.

Some of the legislation being considered includes:

The Clear Roads Initiative. Will provide funding to build roads and parking lots so that the paved spaces of America equal the area of Texas by 2020 (they are now only equivalent to the size of Ohio), in line with projections for demand and expectations for Level of Service. (Projections supplied by AAA.)

The First Amendment for Automobiles. Would permit automobiles to remove their mufflers, add customized horns, and “wear” advertisements wrapped around their chassis’s.

The Universal Automobile Access Act. Mandates access for automobiles to all sidewalks, parks, public areas, and downtown developments.

The Parking Rights Amendment. With only a little over 100 million publicly accessible parking spots in America, this country may be facing what some parking consultants say will be “a crisis where everyone will be driving around looking for parking spots from dawn to dusk.” The Parking Rights Amendment would require every public institution, church, business, and home to provide cars with parking spaces on demand.

But chances of Congress passing these measures are virtually nil, according to Capitol Hill insiders. Leaders of both parties, increasingly aware of Americans’ newfound love affair with public places now that the danger and annoyance of traffic has been minimized in many towns, oppose these pro-car bills.

Rep. Dennis Hastert, Republican Speaker of the House (R-Ill.), has stated on several occasions, “The era of exclusive auto domination of America’s streets and transportation systems is over.” Sen. Harry Reid, Democratic leader in the Senate (D-Nev.), said, “This is that rare occasion when I agree entirely with speaker Hastert.”

Last week Congress overwhelmingly passed a new transportation bill with transit, bicycle facilities, and pedestrian amenities funded at twice the level of roads. President George W. Bush signed the bill yesterday without hesitation, after a meeting where key advisor Karl Rove showed him the latest polls on the rising popularity of pedestrian-friendly public spaces.

Arnold Schwarzenegger announces moratorium on all further road construction.

SACRAMENTO, CA–The California governor proclaimed today that he would not allow any road construction or “improvement” projects to move forward until each project can be scrutinized for their impact on pedestrians and the local community. “I want to be the Number One Placemaker in the whole world,” Schwarzenegger announced. “It’s all about context, baby.”

Arnold pedals his cruiser to the statehouse during the week and saves his recumbent for weekend rides with Maria and the family.

The new policy, announced March 30 at the massive Roseville Automall near Sacramento, is expected to bring all road construction to a halt across the state. Anticipating this move for several months, contractors are now submitting bids for bikepaths, rail projects and pedestrian zones.

Insiders suggest that the governor’s wife Maria Shriver played a large role in this transportation turnaround. Even more surprising, California’s first family is selling all their Hummers and buying recumbent bicycles for family trips around Sacramento and L.A. The governor has even been seen in recent weeks riding Sacramento’s light rail trains.

World Bank and IMF embrace Placemaking as essential tool in sustainable development

WASHINGTON, DC–Placemaking will become even more of a global movement now that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have incorporated its principles into their programs for the developing world. “No loan goes out of this office if it does not in some way enhance the capacity for people around the world to gather together as friends, neighbors, and citizens,” announced Frederick Law Olmsted VI, the IMF’s newly appointed vice-president for Public Spaces, as Tony Goldman, his counterpart at the World Bank (and a PPS board member) triumphantly raised a Luxembourg Gardens-style park chair overhead. These chairs, which can be moved to allow people to sit in the sun all day or draw closer for a conversation, have become a potent symbol for the international Placemaking movement.

All World Bank and IMF programs in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Antarctica will emphasize farmers markets, pedestrian amenities, transit and bicycle transportation, traffic calming, a voice for the local community in all decisionmaking, independent business initiatives, ambitious park programs, and the proliferation of espresso stands and ice cream parlors. “Gone are the days when we pushed freeways, cash crops grown for export, social service cuts, and airports down the throats of the world’s poor,” declared a beaming Olmsted. “We now see that prosperity depends on great public places.”

FLDOT forces Disney World to open amusement park to cars, commercial traffic.

ORLANDO, FL–Under howls of protest from corporate leaders at Disney, as well as families and children’s advocacy groups around the world concerned about safety risks, the Florida Department of Transportation (FLDOT) announced today that Disney World and other pedestrian-oriented tourist attractions would be opened to traffic. The agency said it needs “every right of way it could get” to accommodate the demands of the automobile in this fast growing state.

Engineers expect the new highway to require only slight modifications to Epcot Center.

Citing growth figures that show traffic demands increasing geometrically in the county and across the state, FL DOT officials delivered the news to Disney executives in a closed-door meeting last week. “The needs of the residents of this county and state outweigh the needs of a few shoppers and fun-seekers,” said a department spokesperson, who declined to be identified. “Besides,” said the official, “they can walk just fine on the sidewalks, and now they can have the convenience of driving between Treasure Island and the Country Bears Jamboree, which is an awful long way to walk if you ask me.”

In an abrupt departure from current practice, the McDonald’s Corporation [NYSE:MCD] announced today that its 30,000 franchises will now acquire all their produce from local farmers markets. The shift is expected to generate demand for new farmers markets wherever there is a McDonald’s restaurant.

The switch to local suppliers is the first phase of McDonald’s new strategic plan, which will be ushered in with the marketing catchphrase “Go Local!”

McDonald's is set to launch its new "Go Local!" ad campaign on April 1st.

“We saw the writing on the wall,” said CEO Jim Skinner. “Economies of scale aren’t going to cut it anymore. These days, you’ve got to go local or get out of town.”

Sources within the company say that plans to acquire lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions from local growers have been in place for months, but only recently have logistical hurdles for special sauce and sesame seed buns been cleared. “Actually,” said an anonymous executive, “most Big Macs will probably come on millet bread now. And the fries will be cut from different varieties of heirloom potatoes according to the season.”

Public market experts David O’Neil, Steve Davies, and Chris Heitmann of Project for Public Spaces will oversee the integration of market vendors into the McDonald’s supply chain. “We think phase one of ‘Go Local!’ is great,” said Davies, “but what we’re really excited about is phase two.”

“Big Macs will probably come on millet bread now.”

Leaked memos indicate that phase two will involve converting McDonald’s parking lots into open-air public markets, opening Playland areas to the public, and closing drive-thru lanes to vehicle traffic to form links in a global network of greenways.

When confronted with the memos, Skinner clutched his chest and yelled, “You got me!” before cracking a broad smile. “Yeah, it just doesn’t seem like there’s much of a future in the fast food business. We can’t turn a profit much longer by leasing real estate to our franchisees, so we’re going to lease to market vendors instead. Now that’s where the money’s headed.”

1. Outside the Red Pepper Blues Club

New Orleans, Louisiana

Patrons coming and going to this landmark R&B shrine frequently use this hydrant to steady themselves, especially later in the evening. “This here hydrant has saved many a tourist from toppling over after one, two, or three too-many Hurricanes, cheri,” said Red Pepper manager John “Jean” Lafitte, referring to a highly-charged mixed drink sold on nearby Bourbon Street. The hydrant, which has been in this spot since 1909, was immortalized in the classic New Orleans jazz tune, “Basin Street Plug.”

2. The Corner of Heller & Highwater

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

This unassuming hydrant has transformed the surrounding community in an initiative led by local dogs, who drag their masters to this corner on daily walks. On warm evenings as many as two dozen neighbors gather at a time while their pet dogs raise legs on the well-irrigated hydrant. “I hardly even knew my neighbors before Sparky discovered this spot,” remarked Cleavon Freeman, “Now some of us have a potluck every other Friday.”

3. Frick Pkwy. and Frack Ct.

Schaumburg, Illinois

Jason Kleinmetz was assigned the PPS book How to Turn a Place Around in a college course. After graduating from college with a planning degree, he moved back to his hometown, which he woefully recognized as a “classic and seemingly incurable case of there being ‘no there there.’” Not easily deterred, Kleinmetz decided one night at about 3 a.m. to paint the fire hydrant in front of his parents’ house blue. Pleased with the result, he convinced local officials to relocate a bus stop to the corner and grant him a zoning variance so he could operate a hot dog cart on the corner. Burrito, falafel, schnitzel, tandoori and sushi vendors soon followed. A playground was installed in a nearby vacant lot and a bike path dedicated on the boulevard. “Wow, this is really what we mean when we talk about the ‘Power of Ten,’” exclaimed PPS vice-president Kathy Madden upon touring the vicinity last month. Kleinmetz was elected to the city council two years ago, and is contemplating a run for mayor on a platform of “No More Misplacing Schaumburg.”

4. Back St. and Bacon Ave.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

After figuring prominently on an album cover by famed Halifax band The Ruddy Buddhas, this hydrant became a de rigueur photo shoot for all musicians passing through town. The site became even more famous after appearing on album covers by B.B. King, Outkast, the White Stripes, Tanya Tucker, and the Vienna Philharmonic, and now features dawn-to-midnight musical performances seven days a week during the summer months. “No band in any genre can truly be said to have ‘made it’, until they’ve serenaded that famous little fireplug in Halifax,” enthused Billboard magazine.

5. Calle Zapato and Avenida Pie

Mexicali, Mexico

Under mayor Peña Enriquelosa’s new reform administration, the fire department opens fireplugs on warm summer days to cool off local kids. This hydrant, which adjoins a neighborhood playground, has become the most beloved of Mexicali’s new “swimming holes.”

PPS launches Great Cornfields Initiative

Seeking to shed its image as a big city organization, PPS is planning an ambitious campaign for the heartland. The goal is to work in smaller cities and towns, improving urban cores and traditional main streets. But we don’t want to overlook the power of Placemaking even in places where there are no people.

We've only just begun to tap cornfields' potential as public space.

“Just because there is no one around except for planting and harvesting season, doesn’t mean cornfields can’t be lively places to be enjoyed by crows, raccoons, passing hobos, and teenage couples looking for some privacy,” announced PPS’s Phil Myrick. He added that the group hopes to branch out next spring to soybean fields, winter wheat, cotton and alfalfa.

PPS eschews downtown Manhattan for gated New Jersey office park

Following the termination of our 20-year lease in Greenwich Village, PPS has relocated to the Corporate Square Commons in Parsippany, NJ. “We all got tired of walking to work and the subway is always so crowded,” explained PPS President Fred Kent.

Parsippany Commons: A new medical and professional office center, and now home to PPS.

PPS’s Cynthia Nikitin, a longtime New Jersey resident, offered this angle, “Driving to the post office, to lunch, to the drugstore, and spending 90 minutes per day stuck in traffic really gives you a renewed sense of why auto-dominated development and planning leaves people with no options. It really keeps you focused on your goals. Plus I can smoke in my car and nobody hassles me.”

WEST OVERCOAT, ND – Reaching back decades to the era of public humiliation, participants in a local planning effort to enliven Sidney Carton Square, the downtown park that was once the town common, but lately had fallen into disuse, suggested sentencing petty criminals to a stockade. Demonstrating the power of Placemaking, a participant noted that an old stockade was still in the basement of the Town Hall and, in a matter of hours, it was dragged out into the park for a demonstration project.

The stockades in Sidney Carton Square can make even the sunniest day a little brighter for residents of West Overcoat, North Dakota.

Using the PPS Placemaking process, residents were brainstorming ways to increase use in the once-vibrant square. They later used the same participatory process to discuss what sort of crimes deserve the humiliation treatment. Among the leading contenders at presstime were talking too loud in a cell phone at a restaurant or other public place and use of the word “impacted” when meaning to say “had an impact.” It was unanimously decided that speeders and people who don’t come to a complete halt at stop signs deserve the full brunt of the stockade.

Because Placemaking identifies local partners and resources, a local farmers market in town agreed to relocate to the square, and volunteered to provide crowds with rotten and bruised vegetables and fruit to hurl at wrongdoers.

One workshop participant offered this perspective: “I could stand a few days in jail, but a few hours in the stockade would be horrible. To be there on display in our town common seems like a far, far worse thing than anything I could imagine happening to me in the local pokey.”

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Tuesday that the City has begun negotiations with Christo and Jeanne-Claude on another public art project for New York called “The Grates.”

The couple plans to cover 7500 sewer grates along 23 miles of New York City streets in turquoise fabric for two weeks during the summer of 2006.

This original Christo rendering of The Grates sold for $1.3 million.

“The Gates were so wonderful, so popular,” beamed a joyful Christo on Sunday, “that we can’t wait to do another project. The Grates will be the culmination of all of our efforts to date. The environmental impacts will be fantastic!”

“Oui oui,” agreed Jeanne-Claude.

“The Gates raised so much money we couldn’t believe it,” exclaimed an exultant Mayor Bloomberg. “We’ve got to capitalize on this wrapping craze fast if we’re going to fund the MTA’s capital budget AND build the Jets stadium.”

“The Grates will raise the city’s Sociability levels through the roof,” claims Steve Davies of PPS. “People will congregate at street corners all over town, to schmooze, gossip, and exchange stories. The Grates will become like the office water cooler. And if there’s a Grate, a mail box, a street lamp, and a bus stop, then you’ve got triangulation on a city-wide scale!”

The Grates will be installed by non-union labor, prisoners on work-release, and the cast of “Movin’ Out,” and will be unfurled by NYC’s Sanitation Director in a closed door ceremony.

As with all of Christo’s projects, The Grates will be funded through the sale of his original sketches, models, prints, drawings, and plans, as well as with kickbacks from New Jersey-based trash haulers.