PPS offers “Streets as Places,” a two-day transportation & Placemaking training seminar intended to introduce participants to new ways of thinking about streets and how Placemaking can be used to build great streets and great communities.
Click here for more information.
A two-day PPS training course on April 16-17, 2009, How to Turn a Place Around introduces new ways of thinking about public spaces and how Placemaking can be used to bring communities together and revitalize underperforming spaces.
Click here for more information.
DOT's sketches for the proposed redesign
Many more people will soon get their chance to be on Broadway. In a bold and exciting development, Janette Sadik-Kahn, the head of NYC DOT, announced that the city will close several sections of Broadway to car traffic as early as May. The street closures will be filled with tables, seating and other pedestrian amenities from 47-42nd St., and from 35-33rd St. The public space improvements are being billed as an experiment that, if deemed successful, will become permanent.
From the NYCSR exhibit, click for larger image
PPS and its partners in the New York City Streets Renaissance have advocated for a similarly bold vision for Broadway, one of the biggest opportunties for public space improvement in NYC. The concept of Broadway being built around destinations was something we originally introduced in the NYCSR exhibit in 2006, as well as in PPS’s New York City commentary. During the exhibit, we also held a panel discussion with a number of local visionaries including representatives from the 34th St. Partnership, and the Times Square Alliance. The Times Square Alliance subsequently hired PPS to perform the groundwork and initial visioning for today’s plan.
More information:
Streetsblog: The Great Pedestrian Way: First Look at the Car-Free Broadway Plan
NYT: Mayor Plans to Close Parts of Broadway to Traffic
What: A park with rose gardens and a greenhouse.
Why it Works:
Located in the culturally stimulating Latin Quarter of Paris, Jardin des Plantes is a hidden gem of a park, containing a spacious and well-plotted rose garden, as well as a very large tropical greenhouse. This is the type of place that one could spend a whole day in, for the sprawling grounds feature many user-friendly amenities, such as benches, food kiosks and climbable sculptures. Jardin des Plantes provides all the amenities one could hope for: food kiosks, public restrooms, a warm retreat (the greenhouse), and ample seating. As is the case with most Parisian parks, Jardin des Plantes is immaculately clean, with many wastebaskets scattered throughout. Due to its highly populated neighborhood, security is never an issue, and the park is open to foot traffic only.
Read the entire profile here.
Click here to nominate your favorite public space!
The new Gansevoort Plaza and the bollards some find unsightly
A partnership between PPS, Transit Alternatives and Streetsblog formed in 2005 called the NYC Streets Renaissance fueled a number of projects aimed at reclaiming street space for pedestrians. One project was the redevelopment of Gansevoort plaza in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Last month, NYC’s DOT hosted a meeting for community members to hear feedback on how the new plaza was fitting in. Some visitors had gripes with the bollords around the plaza which bear a striking resemblance to nipples. Others complained that it was too much of a nuisance to get home when traveling by cab or limo because now they had to get dropped off a little further from home. Still others supported the new plaza saying that it makes them feel much safer when crossing the street. One of the most popular and constructive pieces of criticism was the issue of livery traffic, and the popular support for taxi stands in the area to keep drivers from stopping around the plaza itself, which contributes to congestion. There are currently plans to add three taxi stands around the area.
Read more about the new Gansevoort Plaza at eyebeam.org or streetsblog.org
Read more about the New York City Streets Renaissance here and PPS’ work with Gansevoort Plaza by clicking here
One of the tent vendors at the market
Why it Works: An amazing market by the Amazon River. The market has more than 2000 tents. It is a historical site, and was recently renewed. Located in the city center, the market is densely occupied with friendly people and local products. The market used to be relatively unsafe but since the revitalization project in 2000, the market is cleaner, safer and structurally in much better shape.
Read the entire profile here.
Click here to nominate your favorite public space!
Via Wired, a transportation planner makes an impassioned plea for overhauling our car-centric mindset. Our cities have become places where “cars have a right to housing and people don’t,” lamented Timothy Papandreau at a recent symposium called Expanding the Vision of Sustainable Mobility.
Just think of the space required to support our car habit, he said: “You have to have a place to park at home, a place to park at work, and a place to park at retail establishments.” Not to mention how inefficiently our freeways use space — the 200 people that are carried (on average) by 177 cars could be carried by just three buses instead. “All that road space could become something else,” he said, advocating for a comprehensive government initiative to disincentivize driving.
There’s a lively debate raging in the Wired comments section over that conclusion. It’s inspired plenty of fervent “hear, hear!”s, but also some skepticism over the wisdom of disincentivizing driving without first improving people’s alternatives. And improving those alternatives will be especially problematic outside of dense urban areas. “I have lived [in the Twin Cities] all of my life,” one commenter says, “and more than half of the work force drives in from over 30 miles away. You would need so many public depots… it would be insane.”
The latest in urban planning, placemaking and citizen action:
The latest in urban planning, placemaking and citizen action:
Romance blossoms in NYC's Bryant Park
Chances are, you’ve played out some part of your romantic life on the stage that is public space. Meeting, courting, kissing, dancing, dining — love happens where people are free to enjoy the company of others!
To celebrate Valentine’s Day, PPS is partnering with Romantic Ribbons to collect entries on the most romantic public spaces in the US. Romantic Ribbons, a UK-based organization run by Rethinking Cities, organizes walking tours that focus on romantic locales in downtown areas.
How To Contribute:
Visit www.romanticribbons.net starting Saturday, February 14, 2009 to nominate a romantic place. Entries are created in the form of postcards written as though the entrant was writing from the nominated locale.
The nominations will be featured in an exhibit at the 2009 Walk 21 Conference, to be held October 7-9 in New York City.
A revealing video discussion between architect William Alsop and landscape architect Martha Schwartz illustrates one of many professional divides encountered in the creation of public spaces. PPS advocates that community and professionals work together for the best outcomes.
What: It is Pittsburgh’s version of the East Village in NYC. An awesome main street with tons to do and see.
Why it Works: The main part of South Side’s Carson Street is 21 blocks of everything you ever could want in your neighborhood. It is a truly urban setting that has dozens of shops, restaurants, bars, and everything else in between. East Carson Street is one of Pittsburgh’s premier places to work and play. Carson Street is conveniently located just minutes away from downtown and Oakland, our city’s two largest areas. It is a large mix of life long residents, college students, families, and young businessmen and women. It is not unusual to see a young tattooed twenty-something year old walking with an elderly person out for an afternoon stroll. The overall mood of the people I would say is energetic and proud. It takes a special kind of person to live on Carson.
Read the entire profile here.
Click here to nominate your favorite public space!