Streets are People Places

By Fred Kent

I have a favorite saying about transportation: “If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.” It sounds obvious, but when I make this point to audiences around the country, it’s a real eye-opener. They love it.

PPS is showing the way forward, helping communities realize a different vision of what transportation can be.

The power of this simple idea is that it reflects basic truths that are rarely acknowledged. One such truth is that more traffic and road capacity are not the inevitable result of growth. They are in fact the product of very deliberate choices that have been made (for us, not by us) to shape our communities around the private automobile. We as a society have the ability to make different choices–starting with the decision to design our streets as comfortable places for people.

Thankfully, over the past ten years, a swelling number of people across North America have stood up and demanded something better. PPS is showing the way forward, helping communities realize a different vision of what transportation can be.

Suppose, for instance, that downtown streets could become destinations worth visiting, not thruways to and from the workplace. Imagine transit stops and stations that make commuting by rail or bus a pleasure. Picture neighborhood streets where parents can feel safe letting their children play.

Streets can be places comfortably shared by transit, bicyclists, pedestrians, and cars, like this street in Brugge, Belgium.

For years we’ve seen this philosophy gain traction in leading cities around the world. Barcelona has built boulevards and Ramblas that give pedestrians priority over the auto. Paris has developed a neighborhood traffic calming program to rival that of any city anywhere. London charges congestion fees for vehicles entering the city center, successfully reducing traffic levels and funding an aggressive program to improve transit. Bogotá now boasts a world-class bus rapid transit system and has established a mandate to eliminate private auto use during the morning rush hour by 2015.

North American communities are discovering new solutions to the problems of transportation.

Not so long ago, ideas like these were considered preposterous in most North American communities. “Public space” meant parks and little else. Transit stops were simply places to wait. Streets had been surrendered to traffic for so long that we hardly considered them to be public spaces at all. But now we are slowly getting away from this narrow perception of “transportation as conduit for cars” and beginning to think of “transportation as place.”

PPS sees signs of this everywhere we go. North American communities are discovering new solutions to the problems of transportation, each in their own way. In Tucson, Arizona, it means revitalizing downtown by creating a network of walkable streets and alleys that connect major public destinations. In New Jersey, it means helping towns solve transportation problems by kicking the habit of sprawl-inducing land use. In New Hampshire’s North Country, it means preserving the small town sense of place by calming traffic and reviving public spaces that have been overwhelmed by car-centric development.

PPS is helping California's San Mateo County relieve gridlock and increase transit ridership by transforming auto-dominated downtown streets into pedestrian-friendly public spaces.

These projects say to me that we can redesign our transportation networks to reflect their true importance as public space. We are poised to create a future where the greatest priority is given to pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit. To be sure, cars will have their place, but the newfound ease of walking and “alternative transportation modes” will make driving less prevalent in most towns and cities. As a result, we will see significantly more people on the streets, which will turn into public forums where neighbors and friends can connect with each other. The street itself will fulfill the critical “town square” function that is missing in most communities today.

That may sound like a far cry from where we stand now, but at PPS, we are helping these ideas take root today. From suburban New Jersey to the high-tech corridor of California’s San Mateo County, communities large and small all over the U.S. have stepped forward to say the old way of doing things isn’t acceptable any more. The stories in this newsletter chronicle the first wave of a revolution in how we approach transportation and public space. I encourage you to read on and feel inspired, as I do, by the knowledge that the best is yet to come.

Our place in the world

Cover: Ode, June 2005

From: Ode Magazine, June 2005

In praise of streets, parks, squares, coffeeshops, and other beloved hang-outs

By Jay Walljasper

It’s a dark and wintry night in Copenhagen, and the streets are bustling. The temperature stands above freezing, but winds blow hard enough to knock down a good share of the bicycles parked all around. Scandinavians are notorious for their stolid reserve, but it’s all smiles and animated conversation here as people of many ages and affiliations stroll through the city center on a Thursday evening.

A knot of teenage boys, each outfitted with a slice of pizza, swagger down the main pedestrian street. Older women discreetly inspect shop windows for the coming spring fashions. An accomplished balalaika player draws a small crowd in a square as he jams with a very amateur guitarist. Earnest young people collect money for UNICEF relief efforts. A surprising number of babies in strollers are out for a breath of fresh January air. Two African men pass by, pushing a piano. Several stylishly-dressed women sit at the edge of waterless fountain, talking on mobile phones. Candlelit restaurants and cafes beckon everyone inside.

“Cultures and climates differ all over the world,” notes architect Jan Gehl, “but people are the same. They will gather in public if you give them a good place to do it.” Gehl, an urban design professor at the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts and international consultant, has charted the progress of Copenhagen’s central pedestrian district since it opened in 1962. At that time cars were overrunning the city, and the pedestrian zone was conceived as a way to bring vitality back to the declining urban center. “Shopkeepers protested vehemently that it would kill their businesses,” he recalls, “but everyone was happy with it once it started. Some now even claim it was their idea.”

The pedestrian zone has been expanded a bit each year ever since, with parking spaces gradually removed and biking and transit facilities improved. Cafes, once thought to be an exclusively Mediterranean institution, have become the center of Copenhagen’s social life. Gehl documents that people’s use of the area has more than tripled over the past 40 years. The pedestrian district is now the thriving heart of a reinvigorated city.

Copenhagen’s comeback gives hope to growing numbers of citizens around the world who want to make sure that lively public places don’t disappear in this era of rampant traffic, proliferating malls, heightened security measures, overpowering commercialization and the general indifference of many who think the internet and their own families can provide all the social interaction they need.

While only a century ago streets almost everywhere were crowded with people, many are now nearly empty; especially in the fast-growing suburbs sprouting all over the globe, but in some older towns and cities, too. Walking through the center of certain North American communities can be a profoundly alienating experience, as if the whole place had been evacuated for an emergency that no one told you about. Even in the crowded urban quarters of Asia and Africa, public spaces are suffering under the onslaught of increasing traffic and misguided development plans imported from the West.

The decline of public places represents a loss far deeper than simple nostalgia for the quiet, comfortable ways of the past. “The street, the square, the park, the market, the playground are the river of life,” explains Kathleen Madden, one of the directors of the New York-based Project for Public Spaces, which works with citizens around the world to improve their communities.

Public spaces are favorite places to meet, talk, sit, look, relax, play, stroll, flirt, eat, drink, smoke, peoplewatch, read, soak in sunshine and feel part of a broader whole. They are the starting point for all community, commerce and democracy. Indeed, on an evolutionary level, the future of the human race depends on public spaces. It’s where young women meet and court with young men, an essential act for the propagation of the species. Numerous studies in fields ranging from social psychology to magazine cover design have proved that nothing grabs people’s attention more than other people, especially other people’s faces. We are hard-wired with a desire for congenial places to gather. That’s why it’s particularly surprising how much we overlook the importance of public places today.

“If you asked people twenty years ago why they went to central Copenhagen, they would have said it was to shop,” observes Jan Gehl, sitting in the former navy barracks that houses his “urban quality” consulting firm Gehl + Associates. “But if you asked them today, they would say, it was because they wanted to go to town.”

That small change of phrase represents the best hope for the future of public spaces. Historically, Gehl explains, public spaces were central to everyone’s lives. It’s how people traveled about town, where they shopped and socialized. Living in cramped homes, often with no yards, and certainly no cars or refrigerators, they had little choice but to use public spaces. Walking was most people’s way to get around. Urban families depended on markets and shopping districts for the day’s food. Parks were the only place for kids to play or see nature. Squares and churches and taverns were the few spots to meet friends.

But all that changed during the 20th century. Cars took over the streets in industrialized nations (and in wide swaths of the developing world too), putting many more places within easy reach but making walking and biking dangerous. Towns and cities spread out, with many merchants moving to outlying shopping malls. Telephones, refrigerators, television, computers, and suburban homes with big yards transformed our daily lives. People withdrew from the public realm. No longer essential, public spaces were neglected. Many newly constructed communities simply forgot about sidewalks, parks, downtowns, transit, playgrounds, and people’s pleasure in taking a walk after dinner and bumping into their neighbors. Today, many folks wonder if public spaces serve any real purpose anymore.

“Some places have gone down the drain and become completely deserted.” Gehl notes, brandishing a photo to prove his point. “See this, it’s a health club in Atlanta, in America. It’s built on top of seven storeys of parking. People there don’t go out on the streets. They even drive their cars to the health club to walk and get exercise.”

“But other places have decided to do something about it; They fight back,” he adds, pointing to another photo-a street scene in Norway, where dozens of people are enjoying themselves at an outdoor cafe alongside a sidewalk filled with people.

Gehl ticks off a list of places that have revitalized themselves by creating great public places: Copenhagen, Barcelona, Spain; Lyon, France; Bogota, Colombia [see Ode, October 2004]; Vancouver, Canada; the American city of Portland, Oregon; and the small Danish city of Vejle. His definitive book New City Spaces (2000, Danish Architectural Press) , written with partner Lars Gemzoe includes more success stories from Cordoba, Argentina; Melbourne, Australia; Curitiba, Brazil; Freiburg, Germany; and Strasbourg, France.

Melbourne made great efforts to keep its streets pedestrian-friendly by widening sidewalks and adding attractive features, which ignited a spectacular increase in people going out in public. Cordoba turned its riverfront into a series of popular parks. Curitiba pioneered an innovative bus rapid transit system that prevented traffic from overwhelming the fast-growing city. Portland put curbs on suburban sprawl and transformed a ho-hum downtown into a bustling urban magnet, starting by demolishing a parking garage to build a town square.

Barcelona and Lyon best illustrate the power of public spaces. Once thought of as dull industrial centers, both are now widely celebrated as sophisticated, glamorous places that attract international attention and instill local residents with a sense of pride.

Barcelona is now mentioned in the same breath as Paris and Rome as the epitome of a great European city. The heart of Barcelona-and of Barcelona’s revival-is Las Ramblas, a pedestrian promenade so popular it has spawned a new Spanish word: Ramblistas, meaning the folks who hang-out in the area. In the spirit of liberation following the end of the Franco dictatorship, during which time public assembly was severely discouraged, local citizens and officials created new squares and public spaces all across the city and suburbs to celebrate the return of democracy and heal the scars of political and civic repression. Some of them fit so well with the urban fabric of the old city that visitors often assume they are centuries old.

Lyon, taking a cue from Barcelona, embarked on an ambitious campaign in 1989 to enliven itself. Grand public projects in the center of town were paired with initiatives in less affluent communities on the outskirts to make sure that the whole city benefited. Sweeping pedestrian plazas and dazzling fountains figured prominently in the plans. “Fifteen years ago Lyon was nothing,” Gehl notes, “now it’s a showcase of Europe. The mayor of Lyon says he recovered all the costs of the city’s transformation thanks to increased economic activity and all the new companies that have moved there.”

The key to restoring life to our public places-and our communities as a whole-is understanding that most people today have more options than in the past. A trip downtown or to the farmer”s market or the local library is now recreational as much as it is practical-the chance to have fun, hang out with other folks, and enjoy the surroundings.

“People are not out in public spaces because they have to but because they love to,” Gehl explains. “If the place is not appealing they can go elsewhere. That means the quality of public spaces has become very important. There is not a single example of a city that rebuilt its public places with quality that has not seen a renaissance.”

But Gehl, along with Project for Public Spaces (PPS) and other advocates for better community places, do not want to be misunderstood here. When they say “quality” they mean the quality of a public space as a whole, not just the artistic quality of its design.

At the same time as many public spaces around the world are deteriorating, there has been something of a boom in lavish new projects masterminded by big-name designers. Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, launched the trend, which has been continued by high-profile projects like Rem Koolhaas’s Euralille project in Lille, France, Millenium Park in Chicago, and the new public library in Seattle (also by Koolhaas). While very successful in generating buzz in architectural circles and the media, none of these places stand out as a particularly great spot to hang out and enjoy yourself . The emphasis on aesthetic style too often overshadows the basic function of serving people’s needs. Indeed, PPS’s website featured staff member Ethan Kent’s photos documenting the opening scenes of a mugging in a grand but empty plaza outside the Bilbao Guggenheim museum; hardly the mark of a welcoming and hospitable public space.

Aesthetic quality is just one on a list of 12 steps Jan Gehl devised as a guide to evaluating public spaces (see accompanying sidebar), which includes such prosaic but important matters as providing shelter from inclement weather and offering a spot to sit. PPS’s influential handbook How to Turn a Place Around devotes chapters to public participation, management strategies, and the importance of planting flowers but none to the latest design principles. “There are new building materials today that I think can help us create attractive new public places,” notes PPS’s Kathleen Madden, “but the process of creating great place is just as it’s always been: make a nice place with lots of things for people to do. Design is important to the extent that it promotes those goals.”

Matt Blackett, one of the guiding lights behind Toronto’s Spacing (perhaps the only local magazine in the world devoted to public space), represents a new wave in the push to preserve and promote public places. He’s not out of the architecture field like Gehl+Associates or neighborhood organizing traditions like PPS. Actually, he became interested in public spaces issues in a highly unusual way: he was teargassed. It was at an anti-globalization rally in Quebec City where protesters were beaten back by police. “That galvanized me. I saw how the powers that be operate,” Blackett remembers. “And it made me wonder: whose space is public space; How could they force us out of what was supposed to be public property””

A second galvanizing experience occurred when he was fired from his job as art director at Hockey News, a prestigious position in country crazy about ice hockey. The reason: tardiness. The real reason: his streetcar was often delayed by backed-up traffic along the tracks.

Taking the free time as an opportunity, he headed off to Europe and came home discouraged about his hometown. “Toronto didn”t seem to feel the same as these historical and romantic European cities. So I decided to study more about Toronto history, to walk its alleys and eavesdrop on conversations in the streetcar” and to help improve things here. That old adage, “Think globally, act locally” really started to resonate with me.”

Blackett soon fell in with the Toronto Public Space Committee, which was formed in response to the city council”s plans to ban people from hanging posters on all but a few lampposts and telephone poles around town. “At the same time they were trying to curtail community expression, notices about yard sales and music shows,” Blackett notes, they wanted to approve huge video billboards, which even city staff said causes traffic accidents.”

The newly formed group won the fight against the poster ban and has broadened its focus to a whole range of issues: better transit, pedestrian rights, bike transportation, and homelessness as well as the overcommercialization of public places. They emphasize positive solutions rather than just carping about what”s wrong, and recently weighed in on an issue dear to Blackett”s heart: supporting efforts to give streetcars priority over autos on the line that runs near his house. Not that he has any plans to ask for his job back at the hockey magazine. He”s having too much fun with Spacing, which now treats 3500 readers to fascinating commentary and photos about life in Toronto. It”s spirited and smart, with rebellious energy matched with a sincere commitment to improving the city.

Blackett sees mobile phones, instant messaging, laptop computers, blogging and wireless internet as a boost to people”s use and enjoyment of public spaces. Indeed, they are sparking an evolution in our use of public places. Throughout the 20th- century technological innovations” telephones, radio, record players, television, VCRs, and computers” fueled the retreat from public places into our homes and cars. But new technology makes it increasingly simple to be plugged into the world via phone or internet while still enjoying ourselves in a park, café, or walking down the street. In fact, these new modes of communication actually stimulate face-to-face public life; Most people who first connect in cyberspace inevitably want to meet in person.

Both the Public Space Committee and Spacing magazine symbolize a growing interest in public space issues on the part of younger people. Blackett, 31, notes that fewer career and family demands, along with smaller apartments and less money, means young people spend more time out in the streets, parks, and bars than older folks. More than previous generations they seem conscious of the need to defend their favorite public spaces against encroachment from traffic, advertisers, unwanted development, and overblown security measures. Some are even calling this newfound recognition about the importance of public spaces as the beginnings of a social movement”a point Project for Public Spaces also frequently makes in its work.

If the idea of a new movement rising up to change the face of communities all around the planet strikes you as far-fetched, consider the Crossroads mall in Bellevue, Washington. A standard-issue, auto-dominated suburb east of Seattle, Bellevue seems way off-the-radar of any upsurge to promote lively public spaces. Especially Crossroads, a “70s-era enclosed mall surrounded by acres of parking a mile south of Microsoft”s sprawling campus.

But look again. Whimsical public art dots the parking lot, and cafe tables and sidewalk merchandise displays flank the entrances”just like in a classic downtown. An impressively well-stocked newsstand greets you in the hall of the main entrance, right next to a used bookstore. Wandering through the mall you find the local public library, a police station and a branch of city hall, where I am told “you can do nearly everything they do at the main office.” There are even comfy chairs stationed right outside the bathrooms and a giant-sized chess board where kids can push around pawns and bishops almost as big as they are. Some of the usual franchise suspects are here: Bed, Bath and Beyond; a JoAnn fabrics superstore; a Pier One home furnishings store, but you”ll find locally-owned businesses too, like a wine shop and ceramics studio. The food court” where you can choose among Indian, Russian, Thai, Mexican, Korean, Greek, Bar-B-Que, Vietnamese, Italian, a juice bar or a burger joint; features local restaurateurs. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner arrive on a ceramic plate with metal (not plastic!) cutlery.

Many of the tables face a stage, where on this particular Thursday Black History Month is being observed with an impressive program of music, theatre and dance-all of it first rate. The audience is multi-ethnic, reflecting the changing demographics of American suburbia. The loudest applause comes from a delegation of pre-schoolers visiting from a nearby daycare center.

Ron Sher, who transformed Crossroads from a failing mall into a spirited gathering place, sits down with me for lunch and, in between greeting customers and conducting mini-meetings with shop owners, outlines the next phase of his vision. “I want a mix of upscale and affordable housing built on a part of the parking lot, so this could become a true town square that some people walk to.”

I pinch myself to make sure this is all real, that I am actually talking to a shopping centre developer who is telling me, “ I want to get people together with the city to discuss how to step this up be even more of a community center.”
Now, of course, I would prefer to hang-out in Copenhagen, or Barcelona, or the famous Pike Place market in downtown Seattle. So would many of the people in Bellevue. But the fact is they live in Bellevue, and it’s a great thing they have a mall where they can take care of their errands, meet their neighbors, and have some fun. If a lively public place can take root here, it can happen anywhere.

The power of place goes global

It’s easy to dismiss rising interest in public spaces as something that only the wealthy can afford to worry about. But take a look at any bustling place anywhere in the world-from the markets of Africa and Asia to the squares of Latin America to the street corners of Europe and North America-and you’ll find it’s poor people who depend on public spaces the most.

Enrique Peñalosa-former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia-notes that rich people enjoy the pleasures of big homes, backyards, private clubs and country houses. Poor people have only their local street to hang out in-and if they’re lucky, a park, library or playground nearby. He made public spaces the centerpiece of his administration, creating or refurbishing 1,200 parks and playgrounds, establishing 300 kilometres (186 miles) of bike trails, building 13 libraries and inaugurating the world’s longest pedestrian street running 17 kilometres (10 miles) through the city. Since leaving office he has become a globe-trotting ambassador helping out cities from Jakarta (Indonesia) to Dakar (Senegal) improve life for their citizens. “Public spaces are not a frivolity,” he asserts. “They are just as important as hospitals and schools. They create a sense of belonging. This creates a different type of society. A society where people of all income levels meet in public spaces is a more integrated, socially healthier one.” (See Ode, October 2004, for a profile of Peñalosa.)

Public spaces also play a key role in countries learning the ins and outs of democracy. The New York-based group Project for Public Spaces (PPS) promotes squares, parks and other community places as a symbol of civic participation in Eastern Europe, where Communist regimes kept strict tabs on public gathering spots. In the Czech Republic, PPS’s efforts to help citizens reclaim the public realm led to the formation of a sister organization, the Partnership for Public Spaces, which works throughout the country on projects ranging from cleaning up streams in small villages to refurbishing a major square in Prague.

In the war torn Balkans, revitalized squares and markets offer hope that communities can be brought back together. Croatia is planning a nationwide public places program, similar to that in the Czech Republic, while in Serbia citizens of Novi Sad created their first organic farmers’ market with PPS’s help. Public place workshops were also held in Montenegro for the first time last November.

In Capetown, South Africa, the Dignified Places Programme is developing a public spaces strategy to help heal racial wounds and promote a sense of unity in the city. Louise Grassov, a project manager at the Copenhagen urban consulting firm Gehl+Associates, has been involved in the far-reaching initiative, which hopes to instill blacks with a sense of ownership in a city where for many years they were not allowed to enter without permission. The immediate goals, Grassov says, include, “getting more affordable housing in the centre of the city and giving back some dignity to people who walk rather than drive cars.”

The proliferation of autos, and the low social rank afforded anyone who doesn’t drive is an issue all across the developing world. Lisa Peterson of the New York-based Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) notes that bicycles are being banned from roads in China and cycle rickshaws banned in India and Bangladesh. “Cars are seen as status for people. Big, fast roads are seen as status for cities. That is still the idea of progress in many places.”
ITDP and the Utrecht, Netherlands-based Interface for Cycling Expertise are two international organizations challenging this view by showing the benefits of better balanced transportation policies. Peterson sees a number of signs in Asia, Africa and Latin America that people are realizing it’s a mistake to pursue the same kind of auto-dominated development that has created environmental problems and eroded the vitality of public life in the West-especially in countries where the great majority of people can never afford a car. The World Bank has recently backed off from its auto-oriented development guidelines, while cities like Bogotá and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania provide new models of urban development with a strong emphasis on transit and bicycles. A number of places are also creating pedestrian districts. Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in China and Cartagena as well as Bogotá in Colombia offer successful examples; Delhi, Jaipur and Hyderabad in India are in the planning stages.

“People in the U.S. now recognize there are problems with building cities for cars and not for people,” Enrique Penalosa says, “and we in the Third World need to know that.”

Ode executive editor Jay Walljasper has written extensively about urban issues and consults with Project for Public Spaces.

June 1st, 2005 | Go to Placemaking Blog Home

Finding a Place for Parking

Posted by: Project for Public Spaces

Despite what you may have heard, nobody goes to a place solely because it has parking. In fact, the current obsession with parking is one of the biggest obstacles to achieving livable cities and towns, because it usually runs counter to what should be our paramount concern: creating places where people enjoy spending time. As long as the myth persists that economic prosperity depends on parking, local governments will continue to waste public money and distort the public planning process.

The realization that creating a place where people want to come and spend time is more important than parking unfortunately eludes many municipalities. Worrying about and wasting public money on parking is taking over the public planning process and subsequently parking is taking over our communities. So how can we put parking in its place and draw people back to public spaces?

Planting yourself in the street is a bold way to reclaim parking spaces, but there are more effective alternatives.

One big step forward is to assess the supply of parking in relation to what is actually needed. PPS often works with towns that have excess parking capacity, where the growing number of surface lots and parking structures has choked out the very reason people drove there in the first place. In Salt Lake City, for instance, PPS’s land-use map highlighted the excess parking spaces within 1/4 mile of downtown, showing that the real shortage was of places for people to go, not spaces to park.

The hang-up on parking is an indicator that a community has no broader vision for itself.

This state of affairs arises when businesses compete with each other to maximize their own parking spaces–to the detriment of the surrounding community and, inevitably, themselves. The hang-up on parking is an indicator that a community has no broader vision for itself. Get businesses and other parties to cooperate creatively with each other, and you can create the kind of parking infrastructure that supports public spaces. Here are some questions to get businesses and public officials talking about creative new ways to accommodate parking needs with the public’s desire for lively public places:

10 Questions to Help Us Get the Most Out of Parking

Is it a destination worth creating parking spaces for?
Public dollars are often spent on large parking areas that provide no tax revenue and serve businesses that either compete with existing downtown businesses or would better serve the community if located downtown. But why should municipalities use public funds to subsidize parking spaces for destinations that don’t enhance the community as a whole? Spending the same money to instead make development more attractive and connected to downtown means taxes better spent, space better used, and communities better served.
Do the parking spaces really make more people want to go there?
Think of the most popular district in your region – places like downtown Cambridge, MA, or the French Quarter of New Orleans. Is it easy to park there? No way! But do people go? You bet! They’ll walk six blocks from their car to a store, and LIKE it! Which is to say that people don’t come to an area for the parking, they come for what’s distinct and special about that place. Why should towns create excess parking spaces if all that asphalt detracts from the qualities that attracted people in the first place? Many communities that have parking shortages are actually thriving.

This old piazza in the Italian city of Brechia has been given over to parking. It is probably no coincidence that the city center no longer attracts pedestrian activity and businesses.

Are parking regulations being obeyed?
When there appears to be a parking shortage, the most likely explanation is that people are simply not obeying parking laws. In the business district of Poughkeepsie, NY, PPS found that more than half the on-street parking was illegal. Parking turnover studies are an easy, inexpensive way to show where violations are happening and suggest how to enforce existing regulations more effectively.
Are there opportunities to share business parking lots that have demands at different times of day or week?
Parking areas for churches, theaters, restaurants and bars often sit vacant during peak hours, when demand is highest. Can these businesses and institutions be encouraged to let go of their dedicated parking areas and take advantage of existing nearby parking which is available on evenings and weekends? Put another way: Would people be more likely to go to church or the theater or a restaurant if they saw their destination as simply “downtown” and could easily visit more than one place per trip?

Parking lots for private institutions, like this church in downtown Arvada, Colorado, don't even get used most of the time.

This Mexico City church is surrounded by active plazas that have recently reduced parking spaces to make way for vendors and markets.

Where do employees park? If they have the same shifts, can they carpool?
Merchants and their employees consistently take on-street spots early in the morning and feed the meters all day. They should be encouraged to instead park in municipal parking lots, carpool, or take transit. These alternatives can be made more attractive by designating off-street spots, creating employee incentive programs, or implementing shorter meter times.
Is the timing and pricing of meters optimized for each location?
Different sections of the same street may have varying parking needs. The meters in front of a post office, for instance, may provide two whole hours of parking time, but only require ten minutes. Some parking spaces should be more expensive to encourage high turnover. Again, parking turnover studies can inform more appropriate regulations that fit the context of the street.
Are there adequate sidewalks and pedestrian amenities connecting off-street parking areas to downtown streets?
The walk to downtown shopping areas from many municipal parking lots and garages is so abysmal that many people won’t park there. Though such lots may provide significant quantities of parking, they will be underutilized if the walk from the car is poorly lit, dull, uncomfortable, or outright hazardous.
Are there opportunities for angled parking?
Lane widths in downtowns and on commercial streets need only be 8-10 feet, rather than the standard 12-plus feet. This means that many commercial streets are wide enough to accommodate angled parking in some sections. Angled parking can fit almost 50 percent more cars than parallel parking, and it calms traffic, creating a safer environment that’s more conducive to pedestrian use.

Angled parking--like on this street in San Bernardino, California--creates a more pedestrian-friendly environment than parallel parking.

Can curb cuts be consolidated and narrowed?
Frequently, parking lot entrances and exits can be combined, narrowed or made one-way to make room for more on-street parking and a safer, more pleasant pedestrian environment.
Are there opportunities to share business drop-offs that have demands at different times of day?
Some truck or passenger drop-off areas are only used for predictable early morning or weekday periods and can be used for parking the rest of the time.

Once you start asking the right questions, ingenuity and cooperation will follow. In Littleton, New Hampshire, for example, PPS worked with the town to address its nagging parking problem by making downtown streets more walkable. Following a series of small, inexpensive traffic-calming experiments, the town is now partnering with several business owners to improve the pedestrian environment, reduce lane widths (and therefore automobile speeds), and expand the pedestrian-friendly downtown area. The improvements will increase the availability of parking spots from which people will feel comfortable walking to downtown by at least threefold. How? By enabling people to consolidate their car trips and visit more places from the same parking spot.

In downtown Littleton, destinations feel separate from each other, and people drive from place to place searching for parking spots in close proximity to each location...

Creating a more cohesive pedestrian district links destinations to each other, leading to more walking and less demand for parking.

Of course, the biggest benefit of this plan is that more people go out on the sidewalk, which creates the very streetlife that makes other people–and businesses–want to come downtown. But that doesn’t happen automatically. In order to create a more desirable street environment for pedestrians, businesses, and drivers, you need to take full advantage of the opportunities presented by rethinking parking. These opportunities include:

Pedestrian amenities: Street corners with more sidewalk space, seating, and plantings can become the focal points necessary to bring back pedestrians and streetlife.

In Laguna Beach, California, expanded street corners and plantings create a better pedestrian environment.

Improved safety: Curb extensions make sidewalks and pedestrians more visible to drivers. Narrower lanes slow vehicles and reduce risk to pedestrians and bicyclists. Replacing parking lots with in-fill development eliminates space that is perceived as unsafe and makes possible anonymous criminal behavior.
Shorter crossing distances: Curb extensions at intersections create shorter crossing distances for pedestrians, and therefore shorter wait times for automobiles.

Curb extensions improve safety and reduce crossing times.

Retail kiosks and cafés: Temporary or permanent retail stalls can be placed at the street edge of parking lots or in reclaimed parking spaces.
Programming and multiple-use spaces: Existing parking lots can be converted–whole or in part–into public squares with markets, performance spaces and seating areas.
Transit compatibility: By reducing the supply of parking, demand for transit goes up and new destinations form around transit stops.

Spending money on such public amenities instead of parking may seem radical, but in fact it is a wise investment. Pedestrians feel more comfortable walking because of the slower vehicle speeds and reduced number of curb cuts. Businesses get more passersby and first-time walk-ins. Drivers make fewer trips, waste less time in the car, get more exercise walking, and even enjoy the experience of driving downtown more — because it is a pleasant place to be, not a parking lot.

Consider the city of Copenhagen, which has instituted a policy to reduce parking by two percent each year. The risk has paid off many times over by the number of people who now walk and bike to the city center–all of whom, you can be sure, feel at least 50 percent more devotion for their home city.

In the pedestrianized center of Copenhagen -- people everywhere and not a parking space in sight.

Town Square

By Jay Walljasper

I started out my writing career as a music critic, cranking out reviews of rock, blues, jazz, and folk bands in Iowa City, Minneapolis and Chicago. That was a long time ago and seems a far cry from my current work with PPS chronicling the state of our communities today. I mean what do Bruce Springsteen or Muddy Waters have to do with the richness of American places?

Well, maybe more than it appears at first glance.

Music is the art form perhaps most deeply rooted in particular locales. Jazz is strongly associated with New Orleans and New York. The blues with Mississippi and Chicago. Country music with the South and West, particularly Texas and Tennessee. Cambridge and Greenwich Village were famous for their folk music scenes. Memphis for R&B and rockabilly. Rap was forged on the streets of New York City. Disco was initially known as the Philadelphia Soft Soul Revolution. Even a lot of the finest classical music is inseparable from Vienna.

A sense of place is a key ingredient in most of the best music.

And the history of rock music is really a story of local music explosions making enough noise to be heard around the world. It starts in Memphis, then to Cleveland (where it got its name) and on to Surf City, Swingin’ London, San Francisco for the summer of love, L.A. for ’70s soft rock, back to London for punk, Seattle for grunge, and on and on. Can you really think of the Jersey shore without thinking of Bruce Springsteen? Chicago without the blues? Detroit without Motown? Dublin without U2?

A sense of place is a key ingredient in most of the best music. That’s because great musicians–from Louis Armstrong in New Orleans to the Beatles in Liverpool to Grandmaster Flash in the Bronx–generally get their start by performing for hometown audiences, where they develop their skills and gain a following. Some start right on the sidewalks, busking for change from passers-by. Others wait for their chance to play the local clubs. When not on stage they are out on the town, hanging out in coffee shops and record shops and bars, listening to other players, exchanging ideas and songs, jamming, and making the connections that lead to new musical breakthroughs.

Would Greenwich Village have such a lively music scene without public spaces like Washington Square Park?

But all of this depends on a vital public realm–a particular part of town where musicians can bump into each other with a minimum of planning and effort. That’s why the East Village in New York, 6th Street in Austin, Capitol Hill in Seattle, Wicker Park in Chicago, and Sunset Blvd. in L.A. have turned out so many bands. You don’t take classes to become a pop star. Lively neighborhoods are your university. The more concentrated social activity and nightlife in a place, the more opportunities for talented performers. And the more fun for music fans. That’s why you rarely hear of hot music scenes in auto-dominated suburbs.

So from this perspective, it makes perfect sense that my new role as a chronicler of Placemaking began way back in the smoky bars of the Midwest, in the wee hours of the morning, as I happily pursued my passion for musical authenticity.

June 1st, 2005 | Go to Placemaking Blog Home

Going Places

Posted by: Project for Public Spaces

Ever since the first train lines ripped their way through the heart of American and European cities in the mid-19th Century, transportation development has been viewed as a necessary evil–an economic asset but a threat to safe, quiet, comfortable communities. Tens of thousands of North Americans have lost their homes to highway projects in recent decades, and tens of millions have seen the life sucked out of their neighborhoods as residents and businesses follow these new, wide roads to the outskirts of town.

It’s entirely possible to undertake transportation projects that bring life to a place rather than take it away.

It’s easy to see why so many people now view transportation “improvements” as the worst that can happen to a place they care about. Too often, that has been the case. But transportation modes can also enhance and enliven a community. Imagine Paris without the Champs Elysees or Staten Island without its famous ferry. Indeed, a growing number of communities have discovered how to use transportation funding to create great public places (see the story in this issue about how Dayton, Ohio used transit funds to revive its downtown).

Portland, Oregon's MAX light rail system makes Pioneer Courthouse Square a better place.

Using the principles of Placemaking, it’s entirely possible to undertake transportation projects–involving foot, bike, transit and even automobile traffic–that bring life to a place rather than take it away. That’s been PPS’s experience over 30 years of work. You can see the possibilities in the following spots around the world, each of which we have identified as a Great Transportation Place.

A Train Station that Rivals the Taj Mahal

(New York City)

“We used to stride into the city like emperors,” lamented the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, describing the Old Penn Station in New York City before it was demolished to make room for Madison Square Garden. “Now we scurry in like rats.” Luckily New Yorkers can still experience the thrill of arrival and departure at Grand Central Terminal, (saved from burial by a sweeping U.S. Supreme Court ruling), which has been restored to its historic grandeur through the work of the Grand Central Partnership. Nowhere does the pulse of the city beat faster than in the grand concourse where vaulted ceilings and soft sunlight illuminate the comings and goings of economic life at one of the most elegant, and celebrated, transit hubs in the world.

A Pedestrian Paradise

(Copenhagen)

The remarkable network of pedestrian streets in the Strøget district of Copenhagen offers a valuable primer in how to reclaim urban space from traffic. Beginning in 1962, at the urging of local architect and planner Jan Gehl, a few center-city streets were given over to pedestrians. Though initially met with skepticism by car-loving Danes who claimed that public street life was strictly for southern Europeans, the pedestrianized area soon became very popular with Copenhagers of all ages. Gradually, over the years, the pedestrian network has expanded, offering an important lesson according to Gehl. Big changes all at once fuel a backlash; small changes over a period of time are much better accepted.

The Trams that Transformed a Town

(Zurich)

The story of Zurich, Switzerland mirrors the incremental successes of Copenhagen, with a focus on transit instead of pedestrian streets. About 30 years ago, the city introduced its first bus network. Over time, bus routes were gradually given special lanes, and later on these lanes were converted to tram lines. The whole city is now easily navigable by public transit, and has gradually weaned itself from automobile dependency. The upshot is that Zurich now has, in addition to its world-class transit system, a wonderful network of streets to walk on with little hassle from vehicles.

A U.S. City that Takes Bikes Seriously

(Minneapolis)

In Minneapolis and nearby suburbs, a web of trails expanding along old rail corridors and reclaimed riverfront is turning into a separate-but-almost-equal road system offering bikers the opportunity to scoot through town with a speed and ease that motorists sometimes envy. Local officials have been slow in opening up critical connections between these trails, but the growing system is impressive–and even well-used during the chilly winter months.

A Bus Stop So Lively You Won’t Mind Waiting

(Corpus Christi, Texas)

Don’t worry about missing the crosstown express in Corpus Christi, Texas. in That’s because, thanks to the foresight of local leaders and the Placemaking expertise of PPS, the Staples Street Bus Transfer Center is a great place for bus riders, not just buses. It’s easy to spot a friendly face here, since the plentiful seating and colorful artwork–which people love to get close to and touch–have made this place a favorite meeting spot for downtown residents and workers.

A Boulevard Where Walkers Rule the Road

(Barcelona)

Yes, pedestrians and cars can co-exist peacefully, and in an exhilarating public space to boot. That’s exactly what you’ll find at Barcelona’s Las Ramblas, a sequence of three pedestrian-oriented boulevards that also accommodate four lanes of traffic. The center medians of Las Ramblas are more accurately described as promenades–60 feet wide and filled with throngs of people throughout the day, not to mention a huge number of commercial and cultural enterprises. A row of trees separates the central walkway from automobile traffic – two lanes on either side (plus one parking lane). The arrangement succeeds because people on foot have precedence: Cars must accommodate pedestrians.

A Town that Shows the Way to Go

(Missoula, Montana)

Carpoolers, bus riders, and cyclists have it good in Missoula, Montana. In return for choosing an option other than drive-alone commuting at least once a week, locals can join the “Way to Go! Club” and receive gifts, access to special events, and free taxi rides home from work when necessary. Established by the public/private partnership Missoula in Motion, the Club now boasts 3500 members. Kudos also go to the Missoula Parking Commission, which plans bike routes and supports transit instead of just building parking spaces.

A Street for All Users

(Borås, Sweden)

Bicyclists, moms with strollers, people in wheelchairs, transit riders, window-shoppers, and even cars all have their place on Alleg Street in Borås, Sweden. This works because of the careful design of the street, notably the diversity of paving surfaces that help define different functions at various spots. Sidewalks are smoother where foot traffic is fastest, for instance, just as curbs disappear where vehicular traffic should be slowest. All told, no fewer than six different types of paving surfaces differentiate sidewalks, waiting areas, curbs, bike lanes, crosswalks, and car lanes.

The Square that Became a Downtown Living Room

(Portland, Oregon)

Planned at the same time as Portland’s MAX light rail system, Pioneer Courthouse Square is both the city’s favorite “living room” and a bustling transit hub, served on all four sides by buses and light rail. With all the transit options available, it’s little wonder the parking lot the square replaced has gone completely unlamented.

A Bridge that Takes Us to the River

(London)

Many cities can boast of impressive riverfronts, yet few allow you to walk across the water without vehicles rumbling by your side. That’s one reason the new Millennium Bridge in London, a pedestrian-only crossing that glides you above the Thames, is an instant classic. The sleek structure is an attention-grabber from afar, but of greater importance is the well-used connection it provides between both banks of this great city.

The Pedestrian Mall that Refused to Die

(Charlottesville, Virginia)

Pedestrian malls, so often prescribed for struggling downtowns in the ’70s, are now viewed as a complete disaster that actually hastened the ruin of central business districts. But not so fast… While many of these malls didn’t work out, there are some cities where blocking off the main shopping street from traffic resulted in lively public places: especially in college towns such as Burlington, Vermont; Boulder, Colorado; and Charlottesville, Virginia. In Charlottesville, for instance, the mall attracts strolling crowds day and night who come downtown for the restaurants, bookstores, galleries, street vendors, bars, and general atmosphere of conviviality. It’s worth taking a closer look at why pedestrian malls like these have succeeded, and what we can learn about creating a North American equivalent of Europe’s beloved pedestrian zones.

A Street that Gives New Meaning to the Word “Bustling”

(Delhi, India)

The word “chaos” doesn’t do justice to the amazing array of attractions in Chandni Chowk, a network of streets that forms the transportation spine of Old Delhi. Here, in Northern India’s largest trading center, everything is for sale and everyone is out on the street. Elephants rub ankles with scooters, and the air is filled with a mixture of succulent aromas and sour odors. Exciting, but not for the faint of heart.

A Demolished Freeway that has Sparked an Urban Revival

(San Francisco)

“Build it and they will come.” And so they did–traffic swarming like cockroaches along the San Francisco waterfront when the double-decker Embarcadero Freeway was erected in the 1960s, cutting the heart of the city off from its historic origins as a port. The good news came from an unlikely event in 1989 when the Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the ugly structure beyond repair. “Tear it down and they will go away,” urged civic leaders hoping to free the waterfront from this great crush of traffic. It was, and they did. Now hosting both light rail and vintage trolleys, the Embarcadero is a pedestrian-friendly, tree-lined transitway that comes alive at certain points (such as Fisherman’s Wharf) and has the potential to grow into a world-class grand boulevard.

The Parking Spaces You Can’t See

(Santiago, Chile)

You won’t see any parked cars on La Avenida Providencia in Santiago, Chile, because they’re all underground. In their place: commodious sidewalks perfect for strolling with seating aplenty, not to mention great shopping.

The Little Bus System that Could

(Coimbra, Portugal)

Ever seen a bus go down steps? Make the trip to Coimbra, Portugal and watch in amazement as the city’s mini-buses wend down narrow streets, through public squares, and yes, over a set of stairs. The stairs in question are part of a steep slope leading from a narrow side street to a public square, and the mini-bus straddles the steps with its wheels planted on smooth surfaces to each side. A unique lesson in just how flexible public transit can be.

The Streets are Alive

(Los Angeles)

In an interesting exhibition of the endless diversity of humankind, Venice Beach in Los Angeles offers a public stage for artists, religious preachers of every stripe, and of course, half-naked muscle-bound exhibitionists headed for the beach. The street markets add a whole other dimension of social contact and exchange. “A human circus where no one holds back,” says Fred Kent.

The Streets are a Fashion Show

(Miami Beach)

A more stylish showcase for beautiful people than its counterpart in Los Angeles, South Beach, Miami features streets that double as catwalks. It’s the closest you’ll ever come to watching an haute couture fashion show in public.

A Great Train to Visit

(Chicago)

Subways are marvelous at getting you from point A to point B as fast as possible, but you don’t see anything along the way. Elevated trains are much better for actually experiencing the city you are passing through. In Chicago, the world’s most classic el system offers a great view of all the city’s lively neighborhoods for a buck and some change.

Subway Stations Fit for a King

(Moscow)

While Soviet Communism produced dismal results in most endeavors, you can’t deny its one shining achievement: the world’s most beautiful subway system. Each of the stations, built with marble and other gorgeous stone, is a palace constructed for the pleasure of everyday transit riders.

A Rail Line Reborn as a Community Hang-Out

(Washington D.C.)

What future was there for an old rail line, once used to transport lumber to the village of Georgetown in the nation’s capital and provide coal for its power plants? Reborn in 1996 as a 11-mile linear urban park, the Capital Crescent Trail is now the most-used rail-trail in the nation, transporting one million walkers and bicyclists a year to destinations as varied as suburban Bethesda Row, a trendy restaurant hotspot, and Fletcher’s Boathouse, an angler’s hangout. A green oasis in the midst of traffic-clogged suburbia, the Capital Crescent trail connects suburban Maryland to the Potomac waterfront with many natural and historic destinations in between. Whether you’re a serious lycra-clad biker, student of America’s industrial heritage, a nature-lover, or just out for a hike, this beloved rail corridor is a cool place to hang out on a hot summer day.

A Small Boat to Pleasure

(Vancouver)

One of the coolest ways to get around any city anywhere are the small passenger boats called “aqua buses” that carry commuters and tourists to Vancouver’s Granville Island, site of a world-class public market. Looking like mini-tugboats, these vessels run regular routes between stops on both sides of False Creek–which as its name suggests is not a creek at all but a fairly wide oceanic inlet that divides downtown from Granville Island (actually a peninsula) and neighborhoods to the west.

Transit to the Rescue

By Benjamin Fried and Cynthia Nikitin

California’s San Mateo County is fighting a battle against traffic. As in many other American communities, longer commutes and worsening air quality are taking a toll here. Local businesses, school districts, law enforcement agencies, and hospitals are finding it more difficult to retain quality employees, especially since the area faces an unrelenting housing squeeze. Even in the aftermath of the dotcom bust–which hit these towns on the peninsula south of San Francisco especially hard–congestion worsens and housing costs continue to escalate.

Traffic-plagued communities can reduce congestion and create robust, walkable downtowns supported by transit.

The conventional solution would be to tack on more road capacity, perpetuating the vicious cycle of ever-escalating supply and demand. But here that cycle has come to an abrupt end. Instead, the San Mateo County Transit District (SamTrans) asked PPS to help them make transit an attractive alternative to driving. Beginning in 2001, PPS has been guiding the development of a new vision for San Mateo County as a series of public space destinations linked by transit. A broad coalition, from business groups to traffic engineers, has joined together in this venture, and there are more partnerships in the works. The result is a groundbreaking model that demonstrates how traffic-plagued communities can reduce congestion and create robust, walkable downtowns supported by transit.

With commuter rail stations and bus stops located in several downtowns in San Mateo County, transit should be a popular option. The problem is walking to the transit stops. Each rail station and bus stop is situated alongside El Camino Real, an historic road-turned-drab asphalt strip that most pedestrians would rather avoid. SamTrans realized that boosting ridership on its trains and buses depended on not only improving transit stops, but also making El Camino Real a more inviting place for people.

Today, most pedestrians would rather avoid El Camino Real...

...yet it could become a walkable boulevard connecting people to transit stations and public spaces.

“We’re sitting in the center of what I believe is one of the most beautiful places on earth,” said Mike Scanlon, SamTrans’ general manager, in a recent issue of Governing magazine. “And we’ve got this butt-ugly road that goes right through it, with hodgepodge development and sleazy types of things — it’s a major disconnect, an elephant in the room.”

El Camino Real passes through the hearts of twelve cities in San Mateo County. The first step towards transforming the road was to approach stakeholders in these cities and ask for their input. Samceda, an organization that represents local business interests, and its subsidiary, the Peninsula Policy Partnership (P3), acted as the liaison between PPS and local communities, fostering a bottom-up decision making process.

“It’s growing out of the desires of the community rather than being imposed on the community,” said Samceda/P3 President Deberah Bringelson. “I think that’s extremely important and the key to success.”

These strategies will fundamentally change how the Peninsula Corridor works, replacing the big box pattern of development with clusters of mixed-use destinations linked by transit.

With local businesses, nonprofits, and public officials on board, SamTrans and PPS approached the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to join the effort. The cooperation of Caltrans was a crucial step towards realizing the project, which became known as the Peninsula Corridor Plan.

The Plan is based on four related strategies:

Turning Transit Stops and Stations into “Places”
San Mateo’s commuter rail stations and bus stops should be attractive, mixed-use destinations that give people an extra incentive to take transit.
Transforming El Camino Real into a Grand Boulevard
As the common link between the towns of San Mateo County, El Camino Real can be reborn as a walkable boulevard with housing, retail, and transit stops that connect a series of improved public spaces throughout the region.
Creating Balanced Access
When transit facilities are designed and located with only automobile access in mind, they become isolated from town centers. A balanced approach takes pedestrians and bicyclists into consideration and improves connections between transit stops and other civic destinations.
Adding Housing and Creating a Lively Downtown Mix
With San Mateo County facing a severe lack of affordable housing, the Peninsula Corridor Plan presents an excellent opportunity to create new mixed use residential neighborhoods near transit stations and downtowns.

Implementing these strategies will fundamentally change how the Peninsula Corridor works, replacing the disperse big box pattern of development with clusters of mixed-use destinations linked by transit. Local governments have always been attracted to the sales and property tax revenue provided by big box retailers. Under the Peninsula Corridor Plan, that revenue will not only be matched by the new development along El Camino Real, but fewer car trips will be required and more land will be available for housing.

To make transit an attractive alternative to driving, bus stops have to be more than just waiting areas...

...they should be attractive, mixed-use destinations.

This vision for San Mateo County received a huge boost from the Transportation Equity Act recently passed by Congress, which earmarked $3.5 million for the “Grand Boulevard Initiative” to revitalize El Camino Real. Now PPS, Samceda, and P3 are embarking on a campaign to increase public awareness of the Initiative and build the political will to make it a reality.

PPS is also reaching out to new partners who stand to gain from the rebirth of El Camino Real as a grand boulevard. Affordable housing advocates, for instance, are a natural ally. And public health authorities should rally around the Initiative because it promotes walkable streets that encourage physical activity and reduce air pollution from traffic.

The most important constituency to win over is of course the public who use El Camino Real on a daily basis. That’s where the beauty of Placemaking becomes apparent. Local residents have contributed to the Peninsula Corridor Plan from the very start, so there is already a segment of the population that feels invested in the idea of a Grand Boulevard. That group will surely grow as the process moves forward and the people of San Mateo County are encouraged to shape a more livable peninsula.

June 1st, 2005 | Go to Placemaking Blog Home

Big Things in Littleton

Posted by: Project for Public Spaces

By Benjamin Fried

For insight into what it means to plan transportation as place, look to New Hampshire. There, in a largely rural section of the state known as the North Country, transportation planning and Placemaking have converged to help local residents re-imagine main streets as walkable public spaces where social life and business can flourish. And that’s just the beginning. The state Department of Transportation (NHDOT) recently embarked on a remarkable initiative to have ordinary citizens shape its strategic plan. This means the rest of New Hampshire is poised to join the renaissance underway on the streets of the North Country.

Northern Exposure

PPS came to New Hampshire in answer to a call from the town of Littleton, the economic hub of the North Country and home to about 6000 people. After decades of growth and pressure to expand, Littleton’s downtown core remains surprisingly intact, with a genuine Main Street and a critical mass of civic buildings.

Littleton’s historic Main Street is a potential asset that could be much better.

Despite these strengths, the town’s successful qualities had eroded over the years. In some areas, the small-town sense of place has given way to wider streets, unsightly parking lots, and buildings that could look at home in any strip mall across America. Main Street’s historic core is walkable for only a few blocks before it reverts to car-oriented development. Meanwhile, one of Littleton’s great assets, the rushing Ammonoosuc River, is practically invisible as you pass through town.

When the town won a highly sought-after grant from the federal Transportation and Community and System Preservation Pilot Program (TCSP), they turned to PPS for guidance. The PPS team, in turn, sought out town residents to get a lay of the land. They met with everyone from prominent businesspeople, like the owners of the Jax Jr. movie theater and the Littleton Diner, to teachers and students from Littleton High School.

Littleton High School students and community leaders meet to formulate plans for improving the intersection of Main & Pleasant Streets.

Then they widened the circle further, talking with larger groups of citizens about what they envisioned for Littleton’s future. Together, participants analyzed places along the whole length of Main Street, as well as locations by the river and on other downtown streets. They met in every conceivable venue–the opera house, the Coffee Pot diner, the community house, the senior center, the elementary school. Sometimes it seemed as though the entire town was involved.

“The fact that the community was engaged at a high level early in the game with a lot of conversation, I think was a very strong positive,” said Ansel Sanborn, Administrator of NHDOT’s Bureau of Planning.

Sometimes it seemed as though the entire town was involved.

The process opened up avenues of discussion that were previously unthinkable. Adults and young people, for example, shared their similar concerns about benches on Main Street. The town had removed most public seating years ago, fed up with a few teenagers who would perch on benches and antagonize passersby. As it turned out, most young people shared this apprehension about aggressive behavior in public spaces, but they also pointed out that scarce seating meant “there’s only enough space for the bad kids to sit down.” Giving young people a space of their own, rather than engineering them out of the picture, came to light as a mutually desirable solution.

As the initial stages of the Placemaking process neared completion, a vision emerged to significantly expand downtown Littleton’s walkable core without constructing new buildings. By providing frequent crosswalks, wider sidewalks, better streetscape amenities, and more gathering places for people to stop and rest, the town sought to create a renewed sense of place in areas currently dominated by asphalt and cars. (Though parking remained a top concern, merchants agreed that the solution was to use existing parking resources more creatively and efficiently rather than add new spaces.)

Top: The Veterans’ Memorial Bridge, which spans the Ammonoosuc River, as it would appear with PPS’s recommendations.

To give people a sense of how the proposed changes would work, PPS collaborated with engineers from the state transportation department, NHDOT, to install inexpensive traffic calming experiments around town. One experiment simulated the effect of a traffic median, for instance; another approximated wider sidewalks and bump-outs. Before and after the experiments were installed, volunteers from the town measured traffic speeds to gauge the traffic calming plan’s impact. Construction of PPS’ long-term traffic-calming recommendations is slated to begin in 2006.

The Spin-Off Effect

Thanks to a provision in the TCSP grant, PPS’s work in Littleton spun off to several other North Country towns. Representatives from throughout the region observed the workshops in Littleton, then returned to their hometowns to start their own initiatives with PPS and NHDOT. In small villages like Chocorua and Meredith, whose main streets were driven to the brink of extinction by excessively fast traffic, these projects signaled a welcome reversal in the relationship between the town and NHDOT.

An engineer from NHDOT talks with residents of Chocorua about their local streets.

“There was a general desire to leave behind what was viewed as a turbulent past of DOT-Town miscommunication and begin a new era of collaboration and cooperation,” said one participant in Meredith. A Chocorua resident echoed that sentiment after the installation of a traffic-calming experiment on the town’s main street: “We are excited by this concrete beginning… We never thought working with DOT could be so great!”

A Statewide Plan

Soon many more New Hampshire residents will get to experience the satisfaction of shaping their own streets, because this new way of doing transportation planning is going statewide. NHDOT has convened an advisory committee consisting of PPS, the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, the Conservation Law Foundation, and Easter Seals (a non-profit that provides services for people with disabilities) to help develop a citizen-based, community-driven Long Range Transportation Business Plan.

These partnerships underscore just how far some state transportation agencies have evolved since the “design and defend” days.

“The committee is working to challenge us at the DOT to think about things differently,” said Sanborn. “Our default value is talking about things like Level of Service and ride quality and stuff like that, and people are saying that those are probably very important for you when you’re doing your business, but they don’t mean much to us. Can you translate this into our terms? Can we come to an agreement about what’s really important?”

PPS and consultant Tom Warne have also been retained to conduct a comprehensive training program with NHDOT in Context Sensitive Solutions–an approach to transportation planning that meets community needs–along with their consultants and several client communities.

These extraordinary partnerships underscore just how far some state transportation agencies have evolved since the “design and defend” days, when seemingly every road project bred more antagonism than the previous one. Now cooperation is common, and Placemaking will soon be a core strategy of transportation planning in New Hampshire. NHDOT is putting transportation planning in the hands of its “customers” — embracing the communities it is meant to serve and setting a precedent for other states to follow.

Putting the ‘there’ there in downtown Tucson

New hope for countering sprawl in the heart of the Sun Belt.

Just like in the small towns of New England, the key to bringing life back to sprawling Sun Belt cities is rethinking transportation issues through the lens of place. The necessity of this strategy was on vivid display during PPS’s recent work in Tucson, a booming city of 500,000 and the economic hub of southern Arizona.

Tucson’s rapid growth has been concentrated on its edges or outlying Pima County, leaving the city center behind. To bring more economic activity and street life to downtown, Tucson officials recently hired PPS as part of a multi-disciplinary team to develop a revitalization strategy for the Congress Street corridor, a network of streets ripe for rebirth.

In its heyday, Congress Street was the heart and soul of downtown–the place to go for family shopping trips or a night out. But Congress Street’s remarkable variety of shops, theaters, and music venues have been in decline since a fire destroyed one of its major retail anchors in the mid-1960s. Over time the street has lost more and more retail establishments–with their awnings, historic signs (some neon), and human touch–that together made it a rich experience. While a core of civic buildings and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure remains, individual destinations are separated by empty stretches that feel neglected, or even dangerous.

Participants in PPS’s Placemaking workshops identified nine key places along Congress Street–such as Veinte de Agosto Park, the Ronstadt Transit Center, and the historic Fox Theater–that could be linked together by a cohesive pedestrian-friendly environment. They re-imagined Congress Street as the central corridor in a network of walkable streets and alleys, and hit the streets to determine how each place could serve as a focal point of activity for the improved streetscape. Recommendations included adding mixed-use development, making existing parks more welcoming, and identifying opportunities to hold special events (including a mercado at the transit center).

The goal is to establish Congress Street in the minds of Tucson residents as more than a traffic artery–it could be viewed as a prime destination. When the streets downtown are places worth going to once again, Tucson will have recovered its heart and soul.

For more information on PPS’s Transportation Program, email Andy Wiley-Schwartz or Shin-pei Tsay, or call (212) 620 5660.

Lessons from Paris

By Juliette Michaelson

Over the course of the 20th century, Paris, like many cities, fell victim to the ever-growing presence of the automobile. Unlike many other cities, however, Paris has embarked on a major campaign to turn the tide. The Greater Paris Region’s Transportation Master Plan has no qualms about its three-pronged goal of reducing car traffic particularly in the areas that are well served by buses and trains; improving public transit; and encouraging walking and biking as important modes of urban transportation. These aren’t just empty words. Thanks in large part to the leadership of Bertrand Delanoë, Paris’s mayor since 2001, the Master Plan is actually leading to some of the most progressive urban transportation efforts in the world.

At this intersection, a sign explains traffic-calming improvements planned by the Mayor's office.

For Delanoë, dealing with the city’s traffic is the most important quality-of-life issue faced by the city today. Bumper-to-bumper traffic jams, cars parked every which way, slow buses and dangerous cycling and walking conditions have tarnished the traditional beauty and comfort — and therefore the competitive edge — of the City of Lights. If Paris wants to compete in a globalized world, it must provide a high quality of life for its residents, workers and visitors.

When he was elected, Delanoë pointed out that “private motorists, who make up a quarter of road users, use up 94 percent of Paris’s road surfaces.” Much of his transportation work since then has focused on better balancing street space between motorists and transit-users, pedestrians, bicyclists and even rollerbladers. Across Paris, sidewalks have been widened, bike lanes striped, and trees planted. There are currently almost 200 miles of dedicated bike lanes in Paris. A new light rail line is being constructed around the periphery of the city, linking together a dozen subway and express train lines. The first section of the tramway will open in 2006, with an expected daily ridership of 100,000 passengers. Trains will be four minutes apart and nearly 40% faster than the existing buses.

More than 80% of Parisians approve of the changes and want more.

The most controversial of Delanoë’s projects so far, however, has been the construction of 25 miles of dedicated bus lanes along some of the city’s most important boulevards. Bus users love the new corridors since they allow buses to move much faster (twice as fast on the corridors, 25% faster city-wide) and more regularly — so regularly, in fact, that the city is now installing a panel with real-time bus information at every bus shelter. Drivers, though, hate the new bus lanes because they are a whopping 13 feet wide and aggressively separated from the rest of the street with an imposing concrete barrier. (The lanes are 13 feet wide in order to comfortably accommodate bicyclists and buses.)

That’s not all. Delanoë is also consciously making it more difficult for people to drive in Paris. The city’s “red axes,” dedicated in the 1980s for express traffic on one-way boulevards with no on-street parking, are slowly being turned back into narrower, slower, two-way streets with bike lanes. Even the expressway on the Right Bank along the Seine will eventually be eliminated if Delanoë has his way (right now, it is already closed one month every summer for Paris Plage, when the expressway turns into a public beach covered with tons of hauled-in sand — also a Delanoë project). Several “Paris Respire” (Paris Breathes) zones have been designated, where driving is not allowed on Sundays or holidays.

Paris Plage transforms an expressway by the Seine into public beach for residents who can't afford to vacation outside the city.

Paris’ parking policy has also recently been redesigned to discourage car use. Every year, 55,000 on-street parking spots are being eliminated. Free parking will also soon be a thing of the past. The city’s goal is to make it easy and affordable to park in Parisians’ home neighborhoods (75 cents a day), but very expensive and difficult to park in other areas (up to $4 dollars an hour).

Another idea on the drawing board is to turn the traffic-choked heart of Paris into a car-free oasis. Under this plan, by 2012 only residents, buses, delivery vans and emergency vehicles will be allowed inside a 2.2-square-mile zone of the Right Bank that includes the Louvre, the Opéra, the Marais, Les Halles and the Ile de la Cité.

Paris has joined the ranks of major cities aggressively pursuing new ways to balance the needs of pedestrians, cars, and transit.

So far, City Hall’s transportation management efforts have been successful. Car speeds have remained stable at about 7.5 miles per hour, but bus speeds have increased significantly. Air pollution also appears to be decreasing. Paris had two pollution alerts last year, down from nine in 2001. Meanwhile, the use of public transportation in the greater Paris region rose by 5.5% last year. According to a survey conducted last year, more than 80% of Parisians approve of the changes and want more.

They are certainly going to get more — a lot more if Delanoë’s first four years in office are any indication. The city is now in the early stages of its most ambitious project yet to reclaim public space from automobiles: sinking the Périphérique–the highway that goes around the city–and covering it with a huge park.

After lagging for a time, Paris has joined the ranks of Bogotá, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and London — major cities intent on improving public space by aggressively pursuing new ways to balance the needs of pedestrians, cars, and transit. Though Delanoë’s sweeping changes may be imperfect (our source says that Paris’s low-income suburbs need more transit links to the city center now that auto access has diminished), from PPS’s vantage point in the U.S. there is much to applaud and little to criticize. The Mayor has realized that traffic management, done in the name of reclaiming city streets for people, is a political winner. The same could be true in American cities, but such speculation will remain idle until Delanoë’s counterparts in the U.S. dare to value people more than cars.

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In praise of streets, parks, squares, coffeeshops, and other beloved hang-outs

The power of place goes global

Resources

Work With Us

Stay in Touch

Blog Categories

Five Ways to a Great Place

The Big Experiment

“Successful Public Spaces with Fred Kent,” San Francisco, June 30

PPS Awarded $1,655,000 by W.K. Kellogg Foundation to Support Public Markets

Streets are People Places

Our place in the world

In praise of streets, parks, squares, coffeeshops, and other beloved hang-outs

The power of place goes global

Finding a Place for Parking

10 Questions to Help Us Get the Most Out of Parking

Town Square

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The Little Bus System that Could

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A Great Train to Visit

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Subway Stations Fit for a King

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Transit to the Rescue

Placemaking Pioneer: New Jersey Transit

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A Statewide Plan

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Lessons from Paris

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