What: Situated in the heart of Madison, a market whose fame extends well beyond the city.

Why it Works: On Saturdays this market surrounds the Capitol Square. The vendors are friendly Wisconsin growers. On Wednesdays the market is on a street that runs from the Square to the Monona Terrace. The Capitol Square is on the isthmus in Madison. There are parking garages near the market, but many people either walk or bike to the market. Capitol Square is connected to the University of Wisconsin by State street. State Street provides additional shopping - clothing, music, restaurants, etc. - and traffic is restricted to buses and commercial delivery vehicles. Everybody shops here. It is clean and beautiful - summer in Madison, Wisconsin is amazing and green. The setting of the market around the Capitol building is idyllic. During the market the area is really dominated by pedestrians and cyclists. Vendors sell cheese (goat cheese, cheese curds, and more), produce (every apple you can imagine in the fall), flowers, poultry, fish, bread, nuts, jams, honey, and more. The crowd is as diverse as Madison - you will see many families, college students, and even politicians.

Read the entire profile here.

Click here to nominate your favorite public space!

The latest in urban planning, placemaking and citizen action:

- Massachusetts is going to make its transportation data available to software developers in an effort to make the state’s transportation system more user-friendly [Washington Examiner]

- Houston’s City Council takes steps to create walkable places near light rail stops [Chron.com]

- LA celebrates 30 years of Farmers Markets [LAist]

- Central Florida small towns cope with high-speed roads running through their downtowns [Orlando Sentinel]

- Kids lead the way on making a swimming pool the centerpiece of a planned park in Irrigon, OR [East Oregonian]

- More food for thought in the private-influence-in-public-space conversation, focusing on advertising [Infrastructurist]

- Sand in the City in Olympia, WA brings beach fun to the center of the city [The News Tribune]

- Chicagoans, be sure to vote for your favorite place in the city in Placemaking Chiacgo’s “What Makes Your Place Great?” contest [Placemaking Chicago]

- A look at downtown Cheyenne, WY and the role of the local Downtown Development Authority in its recent development [WyomingNews.com]

What: Egyptians say “Alexandria is Asafra”: the beach that runs parallel to the city’s main street.

Why it Works: Asafra is a long beach that is shaped in waves so that as you are walking, the road appears to end; yet you are surprised to see another wave still ahead of you. You can see the sunset quite clearly from each wave.  Some important buildings like the Alexandria Library are located across from the beach. The interesting thing about Asafra is that although it is a very long and not very fancy or designed, it is always full of life and people all day long until late at night. If you decide to take a walk, you may be surprised to find that you have walked for hours without noticing. Maybe it is the many places to sit down and relax, or the different items you can buy from all the carts that are scattered along the beach. Perhaps it’s the Egyptian people who are full of life and enthusiasm. It’s just a place where you may lose track of time.

Read the entire profile here.

Click here to nominate your favorite public space!

Abu Dhabi, a rapidly-growing city

The third in a series of reflections from the travels of a 34-year veteran Traffic Engineer from the New Jersey Department of Transportation.  Gary Toth, who had previously never been abroad, spent a week in the United Arab Emirates capital city of Abu Dhabi. He found the city to be rapidly positioning itself to become one of the most progressive and sustainable transportation networks.

Abu Dhabi is a city of almost 900,000 people. It has grown remarkably since 1960, when it was a village of 25,000 based on camel herding, pearl diving fishing and farming.  Then it was learned that Abu Dhabi – currently one of the seven emirates comprising the nation of the United Arab Emirates – was sitting on one tenth of the world’s oil reserves.

Abu Dhabi grew slowly at first.   With most of its growth after 1975, Abu Dhabi is a modern city that grew during the height and glory of the automobile era.  With endless and cheap oil, it was logical that the city planners saw no need for transit, walkability or other non automobile modes.  Interestingly, availability of cheap and abundant energy fueled Abu Dhabi’s growth much in the same way that it did for America in the 1950s and 1960s, when America was the world’s leading oil producer. Transit was deemed irrelevant, inconvenient and restricting, and the city was built on a backbone of wide, modern boulevards laid out on a super block type grid.   The downtown core consists of a multitude of 20 story or more buildings fronting on these boulevards.

Although their super blocks are very porous and contain low density buildings laid out on a grid, the grid is not connected well across the broad boulevards and much of the carrying capacity of the internal streets has been clogged by illegal but municipally tolerated parking.  The net result is the same as it has been for every other automobile oriented city in the world: cars and more cars, queued up 18 hours a day.

Inside a downtown superblock. Note “illegal” row of parking in middle of the street.

With the downtown core at capacity, smaller satellite centers started springing up wherever there was space.  To its credit, Abu Dhabi recognized the unsustainability of continuing to base its growth solely on the car and cheap energy without planning to minimize congestion, conservation of natural resources and energy. The city is now planning for a sustainable new future.  In September 2007, it released Plan Abu Dhabi 2030, which calls for new national performance measures that respect natural resources, the fragile environment, air quality and livability.  A nation that has abundant oil has called to “…cautiously use existing wealth, to actively explore renewable energy production, to reduce the consumption of non renewable resources…”

This release was rapidly followed by the development of a new Urban Street Design Manual (SDM), due for publication in August of this year.  I was fortunate to have played a small part in it this past June, with the lion’s share of the work having been done by their Department of Transport, their Urban Planning Council and a consultant team led by Otak International and Nelson Nygaard.   The SDM pays homage to the AASHTO Green Book – America’s universally accepted design reference and highway design guidelines.  While thanking them for serving as the foundation for design of the current transportation network in Abu Dhabi, they found it lacking to serve as a guide for “…urban streets where modes of transportation other than the automobile are present.”

The new SDM will be founded on the following community based principles:

1. Good street design starts with pedestrians. The world’s great cities are delightful and safe for walking, resulting not only in reduced rates of driving but also improved public health.
2. Street design supports reducing Abu Dhabi’s CO2 emissions, urban heat island effect and water consumption.
3. Street connectivity enhances capacity and allows smooth traffic flow.
4. Street design follows from place. Streets are not just for movement, but for supporting the land uses along them, including the enjoyment of residents and economic success of businesses.

Wow!

A city with abundant oil and the ensuing wealth to accomplish whatever it pleases has decided to turn the corner.  A city that continues to grow in leaps and bounds in spite of escalating congestion and inadequate infrastructure has decided to reinvent itself based on placemaking and sustainability. Why can’t we do the same in the US?

Of course, I am not naïve, and there are some obvious answers that others will offer:

1. Abu Dhabi does not have to face the political gauntlet to get things done.  Although my experience working with Abu Dhabi government in June reveals that they are open to ideas and input, the truth of the matter is that they don’t have navigate the grueling politics of America to get things accomplished.
2. Abu Dhabi is in a much sounder financial position based on the nationalization of their oil reserves.  This will make a difference when it comes to rightsizing, retrofitting and traffic calming existing roads, as well as creating the transit backbone of the future Abu Dhabi.
3. Abu Dhabi is so new as a major city that its bureaucracies have not had the time to develop an entrenched culture.

While the Untied States will certainly have to face these obstacles, there is no doubt in my mind that many can turn the corner here in America as well.  To do so, it will be necessary for those of us who recognize the need to change start working together to frame the issues in a way that encourages our political system to line up behind the national interest.   The myriad of non profits, philanthropic funders and private sector folks who are all pushing the proverbial cart in the same direction will have to roll up our sleeves and find a way to finally and totally align our missions.  We will have to work together to take advantage of the Federal Highway Administration’s Livable Communities Initiative.

If we sit back and watch Abu Dhabi, the Netherlands, Denmark and other countries of the world adapt to the new world order and position themselves to be world leaders, by default, America will be relegated to the “second world.”

Shared Space in the Netherlands

The second in a series of groundbreaking reflections from the travels of a 34-year veteran Traffic Engineer from the New Jersey Department of Transportation.  Gary Toth, who had previously never been to Europe, spent a week touring the Netherlands with fellow PPSers Fred Kent and Kathy Madden.  Their mission was to learn more about the Dutch approach to Sustainable Safety, bikeped accommodations and community-based transportation to support our Building Community through Transportation campaign.

Below is what they learned about the emerging concept of Shared Space, from seeing it first-hand and spending time with Willem Foorthuis and Wiebe Wieling of the Shared Space Institute.

What is a Shared Space?
Shared Space is more a way of thinking than it is a design concept.   It is most readily recognized as a street space where all traffic control devices such as signals and stop signs, all markings such as crosswalks, and all signing have been removed.  Curbing is removed to blur the lines between sidewalks and motorized travel way.  The philosophy is that absence of all of those features forces all users of the space — from pedestrians to drivers — to negotiate passage through the space via eye contact and person to person negotiation.

This is all premised on the idea that traditional streets allocate distinct spaces to the different modes, and in doing so create a false sense of security to each user leading them to behave as if they have no responsibility to look out for other users in “their” space.  This obviously works best for operators of motor vehicles, who are sitting within the protection of a ton and a half of steel.

How did it originate?
Shared Space was pioneered by the late Dutch traffic engineer and PPS friend Hans Monderman.   Monderman spent the early part of his career as a “traditional” traffic engineer.   As his experience grew, he became concerned that many of the engineering “improvements” that government was making in the interest of safety actually made some road segments more dangerous.  He observed that this was particularly true in urbanized areas, from villages to cities.   These were the areas that brought high volumes of pedestrians and bicyclists into conflict with cars and trucks.  In urban areas, the allocation of space is heavily regulated by signing, traffic lights, crosswalks, sidewalks, etc, all of which create the sense for each user that the space is their own and they can behave as they choose therein.   Responsibility for one’s own behavior was eroded; users simply had to stay within the limits prescribed by speed limits, white stripes and red or green lights. Monderman is quoted as saying: “We’re losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior …The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people’s sense of personal responsibility dwindles.”

Monderman developed a simple, if counterintuitive solution.  If he removed the traditional cacophony of signing, striping, and traffic lights, people would stop looking at signs and start looking at each other.   Particularly with respect to drivers, this returned them to the mindset of a fellow citizen, inducing them to regain the manners that they possess when crossing paths with a fellow pedestrian while passing through a corridor at home or at work.   One nods to the other, “go ahead;” they smile at each other and move on their respective ways.   On our roads, motorists have been groomed to feel as if they have absolute priority and there is no need to respect the passage of pedestrians or bikers, at least until the traffic light turns red.

This concept is often misunderstood in American traffic engineering circles.   Monderman has occasionally been vilified in the US as “the Dutch nut who wants to remove all signs, curbs and traffic signals on roads.”   Early on, he was thought to be a dangerous fool by his fellow engineers in the Netherlands.   Thanks to his remarkable persistence and professionalism, he was able to overcome ingrained views on road safety engineering on arterials and streets in urban areas.

A Balanced transportation system
Monderman believed firmly that in order for Shared Spaces to work, they needed to be part of a system that consists of well-organized, well-regulated highway systems.   He was known to say, “The slow network needs the fast network to work.”   We heard the same from Willem Foorthuis of the Shared Space Institute while touring the Haren Shared Space (photos below).   When I asked Willem whether government has been receiving pushback from motorists, he answered, “No. Folks traveling longer distances from village to village have ample options to exit the road before reaching the Shared Space, and use the parallel high speed through road.  It is what they would have likely done anyway, Shared Space or not.”

Monderman also made no claim that his Shared Space principles would apply universally.   Like any good traffic engineer, he advocated an “engineering” study of a particular site to determine what would work best.

The role of land use in creating a successful Shared Space
All of the Shared Spaces that Monderman – or the Shared Space Institute (the organization that he helped to create) – have helped organize have been in “urbanized” areas.    Like many American traffic engineers, Monderman and the Shared Space Institute believe that the adjacent land use – the relationship of the buildings to the street, the presence of shops and other activities, etc — significantly influences motorists behavior.   “If you want people to behave like they are in a village, then build a village,” he was often heard saying.

The two photos at right from Ejby in Denmark demonstrate the effect of land use on the effectiveness of shared space.

1. A Shared Space was created on both sides of a regional rail line that has bisected the town in an attempt to counteract the bisecting effect.  This photo is from the least successful of the two spaces, which doesn’t have the land use to support the Shared Space concept.  As a result, when we were at the site, cars continued to speed through this space with little regard for pedestrians:

2. The next picture is from the western side of the tracks in Ejby.  Here it can be seen that a village setting has been created and the site worked more effectively:

continue…

The latest in urban planning, placemaking and citizen action:

- Culturally booming downtown LA celebrates with its own film festival [MovieMaker]

- A Washington, DC bike-parking center could help increase safety for bike commuters [Washington Post]

- Johannesburg prepares to open its BRT offering free rides [News24]

- In Kansas City, local parks reap the benefits of robust public-private partnerships [MidwestVoices]

- A new public plaza in Seoul experiences growing pains [Korea Herald]

- NYC’s Dept. of Buildings is hosting a competition to rethink construction scaffolding, potentially having a huge impact on how New Yorkers experience sidewalks and streets [City Room]

- Speakers at a transportation seminar in Jakarta advocate for understanding roads as public space and increasing public transportation options in the city [Jakarta Post]

- Are you living in one of the top US cities for saving money through public transit? [Examiner.com]

- A study highlights the popularity of smoking bans in public spaces [PostStar]

- Good is holding a competition to redesign your farmers market [Good]

Can you see this sign? (Photo Credit: Marc Stiles, Daily Journal of Commerce)

The battle over the right to use public spaces on private property has been played out throughout the US over the last half century. Many developers, in exchange for a more favorable floor-to-area ratio (FAR) allowance, were required to build ground level public plazas.   Unfortunately, most of these plazas were public only in name; all too often, property owners and building managers discouraged people from using them, in direct violation of the law.  The problem, which continues to this day, is exacerbated by the fact that the spaces often feel private and univiting, and as a result are heavily underused.

PPS got its start in the late seventies working on many privately owned public spaces, convincing owners to make them more inviting and then adapting them to actually work for people. Rockefeller Center remains one of our strongest examples of accomplishing this transformation.  When PPS was established,  it was thought that the organization would not need to exist after a few years when everyone saw the value of making public spaces truly public and understood the simple principles for designing and managing them to be inviting to people.

Of course, the struggle continues today.  A group of city officials in Seattle recently organized a tour of these Privately Owned Public Spaces–or POPOS–to spread awareness of the issue to both the public and property owners.  During the tour, the issues at stake arose almost immediately; as reported by an article in the Daily Journal of Commerce, the group was asked by a security guard to leave the premises.  The officials politely informed the guard that they were on public property.

A press conference of the event (Photo Credit: Catherine Anstett)

Cities that have offered similar incentive programs, including New York City and San Francisco, have also continued to wrestle with this issue. Early successes there, as well as in Seattle, include new signage that clearly identifies these spaces as public areas. This is, of course, a long way from realizing the full potential of creating gathering spaces on privately owned property, for both social benefit and private economic gain.  And at PPS, we will keep working untill the last of these spaces is actually a public asset.

Tomorrow, a group of bicyclists in Vancouver BC will meet at David Lam Park in Yaletown and ride for an hour and a half through the city, ending at Vanier Park. As the press release for the event states, “Members of the general public will likely not notice the Critical Manners cyclists as they will be staying in bike lanes or on the far right side of the road, obeying all traffic signals and otherwise doing their best to share the road effectively with all other vehicles and pedestrians”

Yes, that’s Critical Manners, the just-launched, well-behaved alternative to Critical Mass, the monthly bicycle event where cyclists ride together on city streets in a mixture of party and protest.

Of all the cities where I’ve participated in Critical Mass, the ones in Vancouver have been the most fun. They’re the biggest, have the best weather, and there is a sense that everyone is going to be there: all your friends, the cute mechanics at the bike shop, kids and grown-ups.

photo by Dave Harvey

photo by ItzaFineDay

Of course, not everyone shares in this joy. Though Critical Mass riders often shout “We’re not blocking traffic, we ARE traffic!” the huge numbers of cyclists do disrupt the regular flow of cars and pedestrians and buses. In order to keep the mass together, participants take turns “corking” or blocking intersections during red lights so that the pack can go through them. This is where a large amount of face-to-face animosity brews, as drivers stopped at greens shout at the corkers, and the people doing the corking shout back.

And it seems that lately things are getting worse. A recent article in the Vancouver Sun reported that at the end of July, police “took the unusual step of warning motorists away from the city’s downtown core in an effort to ease tensions generated by a planned “Critical Mass” bike ride” because a month prior, a driver had been arrested for assault of a cyclist.

Friends of mine who were die-hard critical mass enthusiasts have stopped going, saying that it no longer feels like a celebration and citing incidents where riders have gone out of their way to yell at motorists, break laws, and ride the wrong way on one-way-streets. It has become too aggressive and disorderly, and not enough fun.

Photo by Ariane Colenbrander

For some, the anger seems particularly out of place given that Vancouver has been increasing the infrastructure available to cyclists. Most recently, they’ve given over an entire lane of traffic to cyclists on the Burrard Street Bridge–one of the major bridges going into downtown.
Fortunately, the well-established last-friday-of-the-month Critical Mass rides will no longer be the only option for non-spandex group cycling. Tomorrow’s Critical Manner’s ride–the group’s first–will cycle peacefully, legally, and inconspicuously along city streets.

People are beginning to get excited about the ride, as my friend Kalin tells me,

“I don’t know if everyone else feels the same way, but personally I think that the nerdiness of having a large group ride where everyone assiduously follows the rules of the road is actually going to be really fun, and pretty hilarious. It’s actually political performance art to have hundreds of cyclists put their arm down to indicate that they’re stopping. I’ve almost never even seen anyone doing that.”

Bicycle Performance Art--not just the BC:clettes anymore! Photo by Random Dude

Critical Manners, along with things such as Transportation Alternatives’ new Biking Rules Street Code For Cyclists, are campaigns for better bicycling behavior that comes from cyclists themselves. If what cyclists want is the recognition that they are allowed to be on the road, the follow-the-rules movement is a very different approach than what Critical Mass is aiming for.

There’s no real reason why you can’t believe in both, though. Just because you spend the last Friday of the month taking over city streets, doesn’t mean that the other 353 days a year you blaze through stop signs, listen to headphones, ride on the sidewalks, and go the wrong way down one way streets. Cyclists deserve respect, even if Critical Masses sometimes do get out of hand.

Tomorrow, though, on the Critical Manners ride, you can follow the rules as a group, which is certainly more fun than following the rules alone.

Bogota's Transmilenio is leading a transformation in urban mobility, but can it do more to transform urban places?

By Tom Peyton and Ethan Kent

Bogota’s Transmilenio Bus Rapid Transit System (BRT) has been receiving a lot of attention recently. PPS was actually touring Transmilenio headquarters (while there to speak at a conference) the morning the New York Times featured the system on its front page. Bogotá has a history of implementing innovative public projects throughout the city including its Ciclovia program, hundreds of great new parks and widened sidewalks and pedestrian-only streets. These improvements, many initiated during the same three years as Transmilenio by then Mayor Enrique Penalosa and his brother Guillermo (Gil), have created a more civil and vibrant city.

While the positive aspects of Transmilenio as a model are significant and easily transferable, our many trips to Bogotá (and several other cities in Latin America where BRT has been implemented) have also shown that there is still great opportunity for BRT to shape development, create public destinations, spur economic vitality and support social activity. The areas along the Transmilenio lines, and particularly around the stations, are not yet meeting their full potential to help create and connect places where people want to be.

"Transmilenio" was chosen because it sounds sexier than "Bus".

Transmilenio’s manifold benefits need to be stated, as it has fundamentally changed how the residents of Bogotá are capable of moving around the city. By dedicating multiple lanes exclusively to buses along major thoroughfares throughout the city, the integrated system has created an attractive public transportation option that has drawn in new riders and drastically decreased travel time for existing users. In some cases, commutes that used to take 2 to 3 hours now take 40 minutes. The impact of Transmilenio on Bogotanos’ quality of life is fundamental. Since its opening in 2001, the system has made a transformative contribution to energy efficiency and the environment. As mentioned in the New York Times piece, Transmilenio has helped reduce the amount of bus fuel used in the city by 59% over the period it has been operating.

Generalized benefits of Bus Rapid Transit include:
•   lower construction cost, as much as only 1/5th of light rail and 1/20th the cost of subways;
•   ease of incremental implementation;
•   faster loading and travel times that allow more frequent service and higher speeds than regular bus service;
•   the option to leave the guideway thereby offering scheduling and routing flexibility;
•   capacity advantages over regular buses and street cars;
•   compatibility with intraregional service, acting as a potential bridge between local service and regional service.

Transmilenio facilities are modern, clean and efficient, but could be nicer places to be.

Along with BRT’s ability to achieve these efficiencies in mobility, BRT can do more for riders and the communities that BRT systems serve and intersect. The spaces that the public uses to get on and off Transmilenio buses could become vibrant places with small additions of amenities and programming. Waiting platforms, overpass walkways and areas where passengers get picked up by cars are focused on system efficiency rather than human comfort, social interaction or flourishing commerce. There is great potential for these numerous points throughout Transmilenio to become community and retail hubs that further reduce the need for car trips and make the city significantly more compatible with walking and other modes of transit.

An average of 1.5 million Bogota residents take part in the city's weekly Ciclovia event.

A testament to Bogota’s resourceful use of public space and the latent demand for their use, Ciclovia succeeds every Sunday in creating active and engaging public spaces. Ciclovias have been a part of life in Bogota since the 70s but the event took its current form in the mid-90s. Every Sunday and all holidays, 70 miles of roads usually dominated by automobile traffic are closed to cars from 7am to 2pm. The streets are flooded with cyclists and pedestrians moving freely about the city. Along the route of Ciclovia there are various activity destinations including free exercise classes and vendors selling food and drinks.

Similar to how city decision-makers have added visionary programming to already existing large-scale urban infrastructure with Ciclovia, there is the potential to improve the vast public spaces of Transmilenio.   Transmilenio stops and their surrounding areas are more than simply areas for moving. They are social focal points where residents from all over the city come in contact with one another and share a common experience.

Where Transmilenio connects to the street can be some of the city's best public spaces.

PPS has utilized Placemaking strategies to work on train stations and bus stops around the world but has not yet had the opportunity to work on BRT systems.  In applying Placemaking to BRT systems, questions might include:
•   Can platforms become more comfortable for waiting?
•   Can retail opportunities on the platforms, along walkways and at entry plazas make the system safer and more engaging while bringing in new revenue sources and serving the needs of riders?
•   Can station and roadway design help create boulevards that reduce the impact of traffic and improve pedestrain accessibility (as accomplished with non pre-boarding versions of BRT in Paris, France and Eugene, OR)?

The plazas and streets of Transmilenio are ready to become great places.

One relevant project we worked on was in Santiago, Chile, where a series of empty and unfriendly plazas around a busy transit station were transformed into one of the best new public squares in Latin America. Marcello Corbo (who was also in Bogota on PPS’ recent visit) and Rodrigo Jullian, co-founders of Urban Development, worked with the city and local stakeholders to invest significantly in these public spaces while also achieving significant returns from the implementation of adjacent retail.  As Corbo observed in Bogota, many of the Transmilenio stops could benefit from a similar transformation.

What other strategies can help turn BRT stops into places for community engagement? How can BRT be leveraged to shape growth, create places and tame streets while still creating the efficiency and mobility gains it is known for?

For more background, watch the Streetfilms pieces that PPS helped to coordinate on Transmilenio and Ciclovia as well as a video on further lessons from Bogota.

What: Scotland’s principal shopping street, and the heart of Glasgow.

Why it Works: Buchanan Street has been Glasgow’s premier street for the past two centuries and is an integral part of the fabric of Glasgow’s historic city centre. With its richly ornamented Victorian and Edwardian commercial buildings as a backdrop, Buchanan Street is Glasgow’s grandest promenade. Along its length it contains numerous shops, two arcades, two major shopping centers, a museum and library, and a design centre. The entrance to the city’s main concert hall both terminates the street’s axis and helps turn the corner into Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow’s other main shopping artery. The street is pedestrianized and attracts numerous visitors. There are several intersecting routes and public spaces, which offer a variety of activities. There are regular displays of street theatre and a monthly farmers market. In 2003 it was voted Scotland’s favorite street in a BBC / CABE poll. In summer 2004 it was awarded a Congress for New Urbanism award for excellence.

Read the entire profile here.

Click here to nominate your favorite public space!