Shared streets

While Staten Island and Rockaway, Queens also suffered devastation from Superstorm Sandy; Broad Channel, an island in Jamaica Bay, Queens, may be the lowest lying area in the City and endures tidal flooding regularly, not just from storm surges.

July 12, 2013 - The New York Times - N.Y. / Region

WAMU's Michael Pope reports on an Alexandria, VA's plan to level the playing field for bikes, pedestrians and cars by taking out curbs.

December 28, 2012 - WAMU

It may seem counter-intuitive, but "shared space" advocates say cars and bikes will get in fewer accidents if barriers and traffic lane markets are removed. London's Exhibition Road will open next month using this design concept.

November 17, 2011 - GOOD Magazine

Chuck Wolfe says that urbanism that can readily occur in urban neighborhoods "without really trying" as people naturally come together in impromptu ways.

September 12, 2011 - myurbanist

Chuck Wolfe explains how the fusion of laundromats and dining are evidence of the evolving city and the ongoing need for regulatory reform.

July 17, 2011 - Sustainable Cities Collective

Want to prevent crime and keep people safe in traffic? Jan Gehl says the solution is to mix up pedestrians, bikes and cars into "shared spaces."

June 15, 2011 - Streetsblog

Shared streets -- the idea that pedestrians, bikes and cars can all navigate together in the same space -- is a fundamental rethinking of the underlying philosophy related to the design and operation of transportation facilities, write Norman W. Garrick and James G. Hanley.

December 16, 2010 - Norman Garrick

Designers and "movement specialists" in Great Britain are pioneering various street designs that aim to bring traffic speeds down to teens, which they claim is the speed range that allows vehicles to safely share a space with pedestrians.

December 6, 2010 - New Urban Network

English architect Ben Hamilton-Baillie sees possibility in a section of Harvard Square that has all the qualities of a "woonerf"; mainly, that cars, bikes and pedestrians all share the street equally.

October 15, 2010 - Lincoln Institute of Land Policy blog

Shared streets, the contemporary vernacular used to describe streets that have been intentionally redesigned to remove exclusive boundaries for pedestrians, bicyclists, cars, etc., work well within a special set of conditions.  It is, in reality, just a new way of describing the original use of streets (see this previous post for more on that).  The most promising candidates for shared streets are those where traffic volumes are not too heavy, the route is not a critical corridor for vehicular through-traffic, activities and attractions along the street are plentiful, short distance connectivity is viable, and a critical mass of pedestrians (perhaps enough to pack sidewalks at certain times) exists.  A shared street may also be suitable in places where there is a desire to induce such conditions; however, care must be taken to understand the larger network effects of shifting or slowing down vehicular traffic.  But in some instances, seemingly unrelated changes to traffic patterns or the effects of a coincidental collection of the above conditions sometimes go unnoticed until a street that may have been all about cars gradually shifts into something I refer to as a “de facto shared street”.

May 14, 2009 - Ian Sacs

 At a company presentation about environmental impact the other week a colleague included a historic photograph of Scollay Square in Boston.  You are pardoned if, even after visiting or living in that city, this doesn’t sound familiar because all prominent characteristics of the area were summarily obliterated in the mid-twentieth century to make way for a potpourri of brutalist-style administrative buildings and renamed Government Center.  Urban redevelopment arguments aside, the photograph reveals a particularly interesting detail about the function and use of streets virtually erased from our minds over the last century.   

April 20, 2009 - Ian Sacs