Project for Public Spaces » Aurash Khawarzad

Using Ciclovia to Plan Your Streets

Aurash Khawarzad — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:40:53 +0000

Pedestrians and cyclists enjoy a new perspective of Grand Central Station during Summer Streets, NYC. Credit: Aurash Khawarzad

As spring comes to north American cities, so will a series of Ciclovia events that will not only get communities active and using the largest public spaces in their cities – their streets – but will also capture their imagination by giving them a new perspective to experience their city.

At least, those are the most commonly cited benefits of Ciclovias.

But Ciclovia events can also be powerful transportation planning tools to facilitate discussion around bike-ped issues, catalyze demonstration projects for context sensitive streets, and lay the groundwork for long-term multi-modal investments that can improve mobility and turn streets into quality public spaces.

Ciclovias are also an important example of a lighter, quicker, cheaper approach to bottom-up transportation planning. These events, although temporary, create lasting impacts on city streets without large capital investments in infrastructure.

What is Ciclovia?

A Ciclovia, which in Spanish translates to “bike path,” are events that temporarily close streets to automobiles to provide safe space for walking, bicycling, and social activities.

In New York City, for example, several miles of road in the heart of Manhattan are shut off to automobile traffic for every Saturday in August as part of DOT’s Summer Streets initiative. Bogota, the iconic Ciclovia city, on the other hand, has their Ciclovia event every Sunday of the year. PPS was an early advocate for bringing Civlovia to NYC as part of our broader NYC Streets Renaissance Campaign. After experiencing it ourselves, we convinced Streetfilms to go to Bogotá with PPS Senior Associate Gil Penalosa, who was behind the success the weekly 70 Mile event. The Streetsfilm that emerged helped Ciclovias go viral around the world.

Currently, there are 46 Ciclovia events throughout the U.S. and Canada… and many many more around the world. There are events in Seattle, San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, El Paso, Tuscon, Portland, Miami, Los Angeles, and Durham.

This is what happens in LA when you take the cars off the streets on a sunny October day! Flickr photo by waltarrrrr

Using Ciclovia Events to Build Consensus around Long-Term Change

For many, Ciclovia is not just a one-time event but it’s also an exercise in community building. As Gil Penalosa, former Commissioner of Parks and Recreation in Bogota behind Ciclovia’s amazing success there says that Ciclovia turns a city’s streets into a festival: “It is like a gigantic paved park that is open 7 hours a week, and people of all ages and backgrounds take over the otherwise car dominated space and have fun.”

Tactical Urbanism (TU), a new guide to innovative community-led planning methods, describes the benefits of Ciclovias, which TU terms an example of an Open Streets Initiatives, as “facilitating social interaction and activity between people of all ages, incomes, occupations, religions, and races in public space.” Mike Lydon, one of the authors of Tactical Urbanism, says Ciclovia enables “people to experience their city’s public realm in a different way, which helps build broader political support for undertaking more permanent pedestrian, bicycle, and/ or other livability improvements.”

This potential to build off of the momentum created by Ciclovia’s can be an incredibly valuable tool to build consensus around an agenda that would otherwise be greeted with intense skepticism and friction from the community or conservative transportation agency staff.

Ciclovia as a Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper Planning Tool for Both Agencies and Communities

Some Ciclovias are led and coordinated by city officials, but others, like Open Streets Chicago, got their start when community groups established a broad-based local partnership that led the planning and implementation of the Ciclvoia – with the city playing a supporting role.

Quick, temporary events like Ciclovias show both local stakeholders and actors in the public and private sector the benefits of increased biking and walking throughout a city, and introduce the potential for permanently shifting infrastructure and culture to embrace biking and walking as viable means of daily transportation.

And because the events are only temporary and don’t require big infrastructure investments, it’s easier to convince officials and stakeholders to give it a shot. That’s one of the biggest benefits of a lighter, quicker, cheaper, placemaking approach to transportation projects.

Successful Ciclovia events that are born out of collaborations between local governments and community groups can actually help establish productive, collaborative relationships in which both groups work together to produce positive changes in their city.

CicLAvia: L.A.’s Ciclovia Event

Ciclavia is for everyone... even if you can't reach the pedals yet. Photo of L.A.'s CicLAvia event by Flickr user lasubwayblog

Los Angeles is beginning their Ciclovia season this Sunday with the reprisal of CicLAvia. Last year’s event was a stunning success, with 150,000 Angelinos getting a perspective on their city they could never safely see before. CicLAvia is one of the many projects that LA’s forward-thinking mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, has implemented to build consensus around a new people-friendly vision for LA’s streets.

The Mayor hopes “that CicLAvia is not just a one-time event, but merely the beginning of a shift in the culture of Los Angeles away from the single-passenger automobile and towards healthy and environmentally friendly modes of transportation.”

In Los Angeles, CicLAvia is organized by a coalition including the City, Los Angeles County Bike Coalition, LA’s transit agency – Metro, and a group of independent artists, community advocates, and business owners. This is an important coalition that can keep working together to change the paradigm of transportation in LA- one of the Mayor’s goals.

If you’re in LA, or close by, check out the opening this weekend, April 10, 10AM-3PM.

Here is a StreetFilm on L.A.’s CicLAvia

CicLAvia, Let’s Go! from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Ciclovias Turn Streets into Places for Pleasure, not just Traffic

Ciclovia events such as the ones listed above are in line with the radical rethinking of public space, including the use of streets, that PPS promotes as part of its Streets as Places campaign. Our vision of Streets as Places is for streets to be recognized as public spaces that foster healthy cultural interactions, economic development, and physical activity – characteristics that are necessary for any community to thrive. Learn more about our Streets as Places approach here.

Ciclovia events are not just about biking and walking: during NYC's Summer Streets, this sidestreet in SOHO became a tennis court. Credit: Aurash Khawarzad

Without community engagement, transportation projects, no matter their effectiveness, will be greeted with unnecessary hostility and skepticism. By organizing Ciclovia events, agencies can foster healthy activity, while generating participation and buy-in into a new vision for transportation infrastructure and amenities.

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Meg MacIver contributed to this post.

Right-Sizing the Street: Not Just for the DOT Anymore

Aurash Khawarzad — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:00:19 +0000

In Oak Cliff, Texas, community members initiated the process of right-sizing their street by orchestrating a temporary street re-design event. Photo from Go Oak Cliff.

It used to be that only transportation professionals decided how wide a street should be. Not anymore. Communities of all shapes and sizes are beginning to play a larger part in determining the design and network of their street system.

This new, active role helps ensure that transportation projects contribute to broad community outcomes, including local social, economic, and environmental well-being.

One primary way in which communities are playing an active role in the planning process is through grassroots efforts to “right-size” local streets. These right-sizing efforts take the form of low-cost experiments that are intended to demonstrate potential benefits of place-based transportation and informing long-term decision-making.

What is Right-Sizing?

Right-sizing is a technique to re-design streets to make them context sensitive. Through right-sizing, streets can be transformed so they are safer, sustainable, and more functional from a mobility and a community perspective.

For more detail on some examples of right-sizing techniques, read this recent post on Safer, More Livable Streets through Bike Lanes, featuring PPS Transportation Initiatives Director, Gary Toth.

Community-led and Action-Oriented Approaches to Right Sizing

When it comes to right-sizing a street, there are several approaches that range in cost, time commitment, and impact. Of all these approaches, community-led and action-oriented tactics are consistently lighter, quicker, and cheaper than traditional, capital-heavy alternatives.

Around the country, and with a little help from organizations such as PPS, The Street Plans Collaborative, and Go Oak Cliff, community members are realizing that the network of streets permeating their neighborhoods are not sacrosanct territory, but are public space that they can play an active role in planning and shaping.

Build a Better Block: A Great Example of Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper Right-Sizing for Lasting Change

One example of community-led right-sizing is the Build a Better Block project in Oak Cliff, Dallas, TX. By leveraging local creative talent, creating a retail space program, engaging the public, and cooperating with local government, the organizers of the event held a very successful right-sizing and community revitalization event – but with the long-term impact of demonstrating a new permanent vision for that particular block, and for similar streets throughout the community.

The middle turn lane (which is only needed at the intersections but runs the entire length of the block) was reclaimed with 100 shrubs that gave an extra layer of safety. Photo from Go Oak Cliff

Oak Cliff is not alone in leading right-sizing efforts. Communities in disparate places have mobilized to launch similar community-led right-sizing events such as Houston, Waco, Memphis, and Oyster Bay, Long Island.

In fact, in Fort Worth, Texas, the experimental traffic and bike lane configurations that Fort Worth’s Build a Better Block effort first showcased are now being made permanent in four areas of the city’s Near Southside. More than just street fairs, Build a Better Block events can demonstrate the power of temporarily re-envisioning a particular block and provides inspiration for streets around the community- and country.

Each event has focused on a different issue, with varying degrees of success. But one thing each event had in common is that they brought the community together around a visible demonstration project that helped to communicate their goals to fellow community members, and to local agencies.

The Benefits of Right-Sizing

This new trend of community-led right-sizing has a great deal of potential to change the results of traditional street planning/design. By allowing the community to alter the street, even temporarily, a high-yield experiment is carried out that in one short period of time. And the positive impacts aren’t limited to improving traffic flow.

Community-led right-sizing has the added benefit of:

providing a visual representation of what a context sensitive and community appropriate street can look like
demonstrating how a new street design would impact the flow of traffic, not only for cars, but also for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit
cultivating buy-in from community members and practitioners alike
bringing together diverse group of participants to problem solve transportation issues
planting seeds for future change

PPS and Right-Sizing Projects

Recently, PPS helped facilitate a community-driven right-sizing effort in Brunswick, Maine. As part of our project with the city to develop a Placemaking master plan for downtown, we worked with the city and an involved group of citizens, to temporarily right-size Main Street in order to test concepts that had been floated in community workshops we facilitated earlier in the week.

Citizens in Brunwick, ME experiment with street widths to measure traffic impact, as well as a potential increase in usable public space.

By using orange cones – so, not exactly what you’d call heavy and expensive infrastructure – the community narrowed Main St. by two lanes to see how the flow of traffic would be altered, and to help visualize how the street could be redesigned so it worked towards the Placemaking goals for Main St., while also providing adequate throughput for cars.

We want to hear from you!

We’ve seen Dallas do it. We’ve seen Brunswick do it. Other communities are planning an event as we speak. So, how can you improve your streets?

Do you want to learn about how right-sizing can advance your livable transportation agenda?
Are you working on a right-sizing effort in your community?
Do you have lessons to share?

From One-Way Rotary System to Modern Roundabout

Aurash Khawarzad — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:33:26 +0000

It turns out that roundabouts may be part of the panacea for our greatest traffic woes. Across America, towns and cities of all shapes and sizes have been choosing modern roundabouts over antiquated signalization equipment and expensive grade separated interchanges. The choice of a roundabout, or a modern roundabout, rather, makes sense for several reasons: they have proven to improve the flow of traffic, reduce cost, improve safety, and enhance the quality of place.

The idea of a “one-way rotary system” was first proposed in 1903 for Columbus Circle in New York City by William Phelps Eno, “the father of traffic control.” The Columbus Circle roundabout was built in 1905, and the idea quickly caught on in Western Europe. The first modern roundabouts in the US were installed in Nevada in 1990; but it has been a slow progression, after 104 years we only have about 1000 modern roundabouts in the entire country. France, on the other hand, leads the world with an estimated 15,000 modern roundabouts, and has been building them at a rate of about 1,000 per year.

One of the most touted benefits of modern roundabouts is their ability to improve traffic flow. Studies by Kansas State University have measured traffic flow at intersections before and after conversion to roundabouts. In each case, installing a roundabout led to a 20 percent reduction in delays. The proportion of vehicles that had to stop – just long enough for a gap in traffic – was also reduced. Because of their ability to reduce congestion, the Department of Transportation (DOT) of New York, Arizona, Wisconsin, Washington State, and Oregon, are at some point in the process of developing a modern roundabout program.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but modern roundabouts can actually improve safety while improving the flow of traffic. In March 2000, a report was published by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety entitled A Study of Crash Reductions Following Installation of Roundabouts in the United States, which demonstrated that roundabouts reduce crashes by 75 percent at intersections where stop signs or automated signals were previously used for traffic control. According to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), there are several reasons why roundabouts are safe: 1) Low travel speeds – because drivers must yield to traffic before entering a roundabout, they naturally slow down, 2) no red lights to run – roundabouts are designed to keep traffic flowing without requiring vehicles to stop, so the incentive for drivers to speed up to make it through a yellow or red light is removed, and 3) less potential for serious crashes – since vehicles all travel around the center island in the same direction, head-on and left-hand turn (T-bone) collisions are eliminated.
Congestion and safety are often discussed, but what’s not often discussed is the ability of modern roundabouts to greatly improve public space. Increased safety promotes biking and walking, which increases the vibrancy of the place, activates the street, and has several other multiplier effects that can create a destination. Therefore, roundabouts can play important roles in creating a destination, not just an area people drive through.

In many instances, the roundabout itself can become a place. By adding a sculpture, water feature, benches, or other architectural feature that will attract attention, the roundabout can become a community focal point and even a gathering space. When you’re giving directions, meeting friends after work, or walking your dog, you may find yourself heading towards the roundabout. Now, how often have you walked your dog to the grade separated interchange?

Traditional intersections can serve as points of identification for a community, but they do not add to the sense of place. They are often dangerous places that are to be avoided. Modern roundabouts, however, afford opportunities for streets to be places, and allow the community to reclaim intersections as community space.

Below is an image of a Michael Wallwork designed roundabout that PPS proposed for a project in British Columbia. The image is an overlay of our roundabout proposal, on top of a traditional “jug handle” design, which proposes long and wide on and off-ramps. As you can see, the roundabout preserves a significant amount more land than the alternative design. The land preserved by the roundabout includes a park, residential development, and a community arts center; all very important community assets that would be severely compromised if the jug handle were built.

Several areas in the US have fully embraced the modern roundabout. Vail, Colorado was the first; they built a series of 5 roundabouts that eliminated 37 stop signs in the Vail Valley. But it’s the town of Carmel, Indiana that wins the title for implementing the most successful roundabout program. The suburb of Indianapolis has built over 40 modern roundabouts, with several more proposed.

Here is a short video of the Mayor of Carmel presenting the town’s roundabout program. I’ve also included several other links where you can find the roundabout information referenced above.

http://www.carmellink.org/index.php?act=plan1
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/nchrp/nchrp_syn_264.pdf
http://www.ksu.edu/roundabouts
http://www.contextsensitivesolutions.org/

Design that’s Environmental

Aurash Khawarzad — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:00:15 +0000

Stormwater management can no longer be looked at as simply a utility to manage environmental resources. It’s now also become an important tool in the placemaking process.

For decades, localities have relied on stormwater infrastructure that was costly, utilitarian, and damaging for the natural environment. But recent innovations in the field of sustainable stormwater management have made the old way of doing things obsolete. New techniques can reduce our footprint on the hydrological cycle, and enhance our public spaces simultaneously.

PPS, in partnership with the FHWA website, ContextSensitiveSolutions.org, recently hosted a webinar discussing the field of sustainable stormwater management. One of the presenters, Clark Wilson, with the USEPA Office of Smart Growth, stated that “A green streets strategy not only addresses environmental goals, but just as importantly, creates attractive, safe, and walkable streets that enhance a community’s sense of place.”

The following sequence of slides demonstrates how implementing sustainable SWM infrastructure can completely change the functionality and image of a street. In this photo-simulation, the SWM infrastructure includes chicanes, which slow down cars, making the street safer for all users, and plantings, which serve the SWM purposes. The result is a sustainable, safe, and beautiful public space.

To see the full presentation on the ContextSensitiveSolutions.org website, click here.
To learn more about creating Streets as Places, click here.

Images courtesy of: WRT, www.wrtdesign.com, Paul Rider Photography, paul.rider@gmail.com

High-Speed Rail: Thinking Beyond the Station

Aurash Khawarzad — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:57:09 +0000

By: Renee Espiau and Aurash Khawarzad

“Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination,” was a visionary statement made by President Obama during the April 17th announcement of America’s first national high-speed rail initiative. Obama calls for high-speed rail in 10 regions across the US that will become “a system that reduces travel times and increases mobility, a system that reduces congestion and boosts productivity, a system that reduces destructive emissions and creates jobs.”

What is missing from the President’s statements are the potential of rail to improve our communities, and to contribute to better places. In cities where quality transit exists, rates of car ownership tend to decline, which means less land is required for road space and parking, and more land can be devoted to residential and retail development, which combined with quality public spaces, creates great communities. When thoughtful land use, urban design, and public space management are coordinated with transit investment, transit stops can become corner stones of cultural activity and economic growth. An example is along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor in Arlington, Virginia, where development has been focused around several transit stops since the early 1980s. As a result, 73% of riders in the corridor travel to and from Metro stations on foot. The corridor is now a regional destination that has a current assessed real estate value of over $10 billion, and accounts for over 32% of Arlington’s real estate revenue from only 7.7% of its land area.

Alternatively, communities that do not coordinate development with their transit systems do not experience the full benefits of transit. They often plan for cars and traffic rather than people and places. As the picture above illustrates, many transit stops are surrounded by fast moving highways, blank walls, and a sea of parking. The economic value of the land around transit facilities should not be underestimated. Portland, Washington, DC, NJ, Dallas, and many other cities, have realized this value and have developed transit villages that allow for a variety of travel options.

PPS, in partnership with Reconnecting America, has undertaken a major initiative called “Thinking Beyond the Station” that addresses the challenges of integrating transit and development into communities by promoting a philosophy of “community-supportive transit” to guide transportation and community planning decisions. This approach focuses on planning and designing transit facilities and station areas in order to create valuable public places, including opportunities for Placemaking and capturing the value of public transportation investments for local communities. In addition to building capacity in municipalities and transit agencies, PPS is also working to apply these principles in specific transit corridors and transit-oriented developments.

As we embark on a new era of American transit, we need to think beyond the station to the communities that host them. We have an unparalleled chance to improve mobility, but we must first focus on accessibility and connecting people with goods, services, and each other. President Obama has set the train in motion, but it’s up to all of us to hop on board and reap the full benefits of a 21st- century transportation system.

Click here to begin Thinking Beyond the Station.

More information:

www.pps.org/pdf/bookstore/Great_Corridors_Great_Communities.pdf
http://www.pps.org/info/Thinking_Beyond_the_Station/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/04/16/A-Vision-for-High-Speed-Rail/
http://www.dullescorridorrail.com/pdf/TOD_Leach_ArlCo.pdf

An Environmentally Sensitive Transportation System Begins with Places

Aurash Khawarzad — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:37:29 +0000

According to the scientific community, our society is at an ecological tipping point. Humanity is faced with urgent decisions that will determine the health and well-being of future generations, and the window for action is closing fast. One key opportunity we have is to make better decisions about how we invest in our transportation system. Will many streets remain the embodiment of pollution and danger, or will we reclaim them as public spaces that enhance the community?

Since the 1950s, America’s myopic focus planning for the automobile, coupled with land use regulations that have prevented mixed use neighborhoods, has devastated our natural environment. Calculations by Richard T.T. Forman of Harvard University indicate that nearly 20% of the US’s land area is affected by roads and associated vehicular traffic. Streets and parking are usually the single largest category of impervious surface in developed areas, which contributes to the erosion and pollution of our bodies of water. In the United States, 87% of daily trips are by car, at an average distance of 40 miles per day. That amount of driving causes 50% of the nation’s air pollution.

Furthermore, transportation accounts for 1/3 of US greenhouse gas emissions, making the transportation sector the leading US contributor to climate change. Despite more efficient vehicles, the transportation sector used 17% more energy in 2005 than it did in 1995; our current trend of rising vehicle miles traveled in the US will negate, if not overwhelm, future improvements in automobile fuel economy.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Improving our transportation system, beginning with the street in front of your house, can prevent the many dangers posed by climate change.

The good news is that America is experiencing a sea change. Communities are quickly recognizing the benefits of livable communities and a comprehensive transportation system. Virginia, for example, recently passed legislation aimed at preventing cul-de-sacs in new subdivisions, which will promote connectivity and walkability. New York City has added hundreds of miles of bike lanes over the past few years alone. Phoenix just opened a brand new light-rail system, while Portland continues to expand theirs. San Francisco will launch their Sunday Streets program this spring, where several streets will be closed one day a week to cars for sole use by pedestrians and cyclists. And our office is working with officials and communities in upstate New York to develop a community based transit system on one of the state’s most congested corridors, along with many other similar projects.

The widespread excitement about these projects clearly demonstrates a latent demand for a new approach to transportation in America and a strong need for higher and better uses of the public realm. We are pleased to know that dozens more projects like these are planned for the near future, perhaps in your community. If your community is not active in reducing the ecological footprint of its transportation system, perhaps you can begin the process now.

The federal government has also signaled they are now a willing partner. The Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development recently announced their Livable Communities initiative, which will coordinate federal housing policies with federal transportation investments to provide transportation alternatives for Americans spanning the socioeconomic spectrum. And despite the current economic climate, federal spending on Safe Routes to School programs is also on the rise, as is spending on bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Federal Complete Streets legislation is also pending, which, if approved, would ensure an increase in the number of sidewalks, bike lanes, and public space improvements across the country. Complete streets are a commendable first step, but creating great streets requires a greater set of partners thinking about land use, architecture, and public space management. This type of partnership is especially important for getting the most benefit from limited resources.

All of these large and small changes at the local, state, and federal levels are needed to reduce the ecological footprint of our transportation system. Numerous studies and modeling efforts have revealed that walkable communities with high-quality destinations, connected street networks and comfortable pedestrian accommodations can reduce the amount we drive by 25-60%. But aiming to create more walkable neighborhoods also presents a greater opportunity. If we approach the changes to our transportation system with places in mind, we can revitalize our communities, health, economy, and overall quality of life.

To learn more about how you can think differently about transportation, visit www.pps.org/transportation.