The New York City Streets Renaissance

The New York City Streets Renaissance (www.nycsr.org) is a consortium of nonprofit organizations that are working to transform New York City streets into safe, productive and livable settings. Project for Public Spaces is working in partnership with the two other founding members of the campaign, The Open Planning Project and Transportation Alternatives, and a growing coalition of community groups, elected officials, business leaders, and concerned citizens from across the five boroughs to bring long-overdue, common sense improvements to their neighborhood streets.

The NYC Streets Renaissance Campaign (NYCSR) aims to:

Promote a rebalancing of streets to meet community needs
Educate New Yorkers about the potential for policy change to improve their quality of life
Demonstrate the widespread public support for reform on these issues
Tap the potential of New Yorkers to re-imagine their own streets

A photo simulation of Grand Street in SoHo shows how the wide street can be reconfigured to create a pedestrian- and bicycle- friendly environment.

PPS is participating in the three key aspects of the NYCSR: neighborhood demonstration projects, research, and an educational exhibit. The demonstration projects are occurring in some of New York City's most important yet auto-dominated areas, including Times Square, Hells Kitchen, Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, and Pelham Parkway in the Bronx. In the Meatpacking District, PPS worked with community members to create a vision for transforming a cobblestone intersection of five streets into a flexible plaza.

Neighborhoods across New York face unique challenges, and as a part of each demonstration project PPS is engaged in, various research is conducted on topics such as traffic calming, pedestrian amenities, Context Sensitive Solutions, etc. PPS is also conducting research on how several U.S. and European cities are implementing cutting-edge ideas to create safe, pedestrian- and bicycle friendly-streets, including Copenhagen, Paris, London, and Chicago.

The Livable Streets exhibit appeared at the Municipal Arts Society in the spring of 2006. This photo courtesy the Municipal Arts Society

Much of this research was presented in the third component of the campaign, Livable Streets: A New Vision for New York, an educational exhibit that appeared at the Municipal Arts Society. In conjunction with the exhibit, many events were coordinated with MAS, including walking tours, panel discussions, and lectures. Over 3,000 people visited the exhibit at MAS, and many more viewed it in the gallery space of the Conde Nast building in Times Square.

Momentum is building for New York City to tackle these important issues head on. If we continue planning our streets for cars and traffic, we will get more cars and traffic - but, if we start planning for people and places, we will get more people and places.