Through workshops, conferences, and training sessions, PPS staff work with some 10,000 people annually, in dozens of communities of all sizes. Time and again these people voice the same concerns: "There is no place to walk to." "We have to drive everywhere." "Our kids are not safe riding their bikes or crossing the street." "We have to shop by car - we can't get out of our cars and walk from shop to shop." "We don't feel safe here."

Our recent work in specific neighborhoods has been aimed at ameliorating these concerns by taming traffic, improving lighting, developing new uses and activities, and increasing accessibility. Some examples of how we've worked directly to make healthier community places:

- A former parking lot and traffic island in downtown Syracuse, NY is now a public square with a skating rink - a place so popular it has its own Webcam. Go to Webcam

- On South Avenue in Plainfield, NJ, children can now walk or ride their bikes to school, thanks to better crosswalks and traffic that has slowed considerably. Improvements to the Netherwood Train Station on South Avenue have increased transit ridership, reducing pollution caused by automobile commuters.

- Efforts to rehabilitate transit facilities in eight New Jersey towns are drawing new public transit users and reducing automobile traffic in those places, as well as increasing the number of people who bike to the stations.

- Merchants on Farmington Avenue in Hartford, Connecticut, complained about the speeding traffic, congestion at rush hours, inadequate sidewalks, the lack of bike lanes and alternatives to fast food, and the absence of any comfortable places to sit outside. PPS' improvement plan include traffic calming, better parking, bike lanes, a farmers market, vendors, sidewalks, trees and other amenities intended to encourage outdoor activity.

On a larger scale, PPS is advocating for a broad understanding of the forces that create unhealthy environments in the first place - so that we can begin to undo the decades of planning that have left us automobile-bound and scared, and rebuild communities based around health, sociability, and activity.

- PPS is pioneering the first significant shift in transportation planning since the interstate highway system: Context Sensitive Solutions. This movement influences the way that roads, bridges and other transportation projects around the country are conceived, by emphasizing community input, pedestrian and bicycle uses, traffic calming, and other solutions beyond adding lanes for fast-moving cars. PPS has trained over 600 transportation professionals in Context Sensitive Solutions; we are launching a program (sponsored in part by AASHTO) aimed at training tens of thousands of professionals and community members through a Web resource center, publications and training.

- In 1996, PPS established the Urban Parks Institute, an international resource center on parks and community development. Through workshops, technical assistance, conferences and a database-driven website, the Institute helps to create neighborhood and civic places, involves communities in planning, encourages public/private partnerships and helps to improve the role of parks in neighborhood development and health. Click here and go to Urban Parks Online