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Outdoor “Living Rooms” in Central Los Angeles

By mkodransky@pps.org on May 8, 2008 | Add Comment

Photo Source: Monica Almeida/The New York Times

The New York Times reports on new colorful outdoor benches being used in several Los Angeles neighborhoods to improve the street environment. These neighborhoods, comprised of low-income immigrant residents, have lacked basic street amenities for too long, especially at bus stops.

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Before + After: NYC’s Gansevoort Plaza Welcomes Pedestrians

By Robin Lester on Apr 28, 2008 | Add Comment

Just a few weeks ago, the Meatpacking District’s Gansevoort Plaza was an urban wasteland.  Cars and cabs pealed through the area without regard to their surroundings, creating dangerous conditions for pedestrians and cyclists.

In 2005, PPS met with local community leaders to develop a vision for the area.  Recently, several simple changes were [...]

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New Gansevoort Plaza in Meatpacking District

By mkodransky@pps.org on Apr 14, 2008 | Add Comment

 

   Photo Credit (left): Lily Bernheimer

The NYC DOT appears to be moving ahead with changes that will make Gansevoort Plaza, a massive intersection at the heart of the Meatpacking District, into a comfortable pedestrian area.

While everyone is wondering how the space will shape [...]

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Taking Back the Streets in NYC

By mkodransky@pps.org on Apr 7, 2008 | Add Comment

Photo: Woonerf in Copenhagen, Denmark

The New York Times reports on ten progressive street designs that are challenging the traditional “street-curb-sidewalk motif,” which has defined so many streets in NYC and around the world by giving priority to automobiles. The ten designs are:

Woonerfs Play Streets  Bicycle [...]
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U.S. Presidential Candidates Ignoring Urban Issues

By mkodransky@pps.org on Apr 3, 2008 | 1 Comment



Despite the large number of Americans now living in cities, urban issues have been astonishingly absent from the U.S. presidential debates. PPS did a spoof article for Faking Places, the annual April Fool’s Newsletter, in which Hillary, McCain and Obama make promises for more livable [...]

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Paris on Two Wheels

By mkodransky@pps.org on Apr 2, 2008 | Add Comment

 


The ambitious bicycle sharing program in Paris is a model for smart transportation policy. It is revolutionizing the city’s street culture while also tackling rising energy costs and global climate change.

Renting stations are quickly becoming places to meet friends and strangers. Jay Walljasper, PPS  Senior Fellow [...]

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Removing Traffic Lanes to Lounge Around in Wodonga, Australia

By mkodransky@pps.org on Mar 31, 2008 | Add Comment

David Engwicht is a livable streets philosopher and author. Creator of the Walking School Bus, Mental Speed Bumps and many other innovative ways of taming traffic and increasing pedestrian safety, he has taken on “the challenge of a lifetime” to revitalize the downtown district of Wodonga, a small city in Australia [...]

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Street Vending in Jamaica

By mkodransky@pps.org on Mar 21, 2008 | Add Comment

“Urban planner and lecturer at the University of Technology, Earl Bailey, says the chaos being created by vendors on the streets could be lessened if market areas were designed with pedestrian traffic more in mind, rather than motor vehicular.

‘The reason why street vending is such a bad thing is because we are planning [...]

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Parks and Squares Are An Essential Feature of Urban Infrastructure

By mkodransky@pps.org on Mar 19, 2008 | 1 Comment

“Public space is central to the political and social life of a city. Streets and squares are marketplaces for trade, places for discussion and demonstrations, for formal and informal meetings. Public spaces are democratic in essence: in them citizens have rights, defined only by national laws. They are places in which cities define their character, [...]

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Envisioning A More Livable Columbus Avenue

By mkodransky@pps.org on Mar 19, 2008 | Add Comment

Streetsblog reports on the changes that have been taking place along Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. PPS worked with the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District (BID) to develop a new vision for a 15-block area last year. Some of the improvements suggested include improved parking management, higher quality design [...]

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Completing NYC Streets For The Next Century

By keenan on Mar 18, 2008 | Add Comment

“For four decades, activists for greener, safer NYC streets have scrounged at the margins of this automobilized streetscape. A few feet of traffic lanes converted to bike lanes, the occasional sidewalk extended to relieve a dangerous intersection — all important changes, but all within the context of streets that serve cars, first and foremost. But [...]

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Are you ready, feet? Start walking

By keenan on Mar 6, 2008 | Add Comment

Orange County’s oldest and arguably most urban cities – Anaheim and Santa Ana – outpace every other town in the O.C. when it comes to being a good place to take a walk, according to a new study published in Prevention magazine.

Anaheim and Santa Ana made it among the Top 10 walkable cities in [...]

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