Aaron Naparstek@[email protected]
Streets are for PeopleBuilding a Livable Streets Movement in Denver
CNU ColoradoTuesday, March 19, 2013
Tattered Cover, Denver
Let's start with the French Revolution...
"I promise to fight, with all the means at my disposal, against the harmful, ever-increasing and unacceptable hegemony of the automobile."
-- Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, 2001.
Paris:The Mobilien bus rapid transit system.
Local merchants hanged the mayor in effigy before deciding they loved it.
Paris:The Vélib' bike-sharing system.
London:Make motorists pay a fee to drive into Central London.
And use the funds to improve mass transit, biking and walking.
London:Removed motor vehicles from Trafalgar Square
Before:
After:
London:Car-free holiday shopping day on Oxford and Regent Streets
London:Turning Exhibition Road into a "Shared Space."
Before After
Copenhagen: More than forty percent of commuters travel by bicycle.
Before After
Seoul: Removal of an elevated expressway
Bogotá, Colombia:Bus Rapid Transit
Bogotá, ColombiaCiclovia: Car-free streets every Sunday.
Essentially transforming the entire city into a park.
"We like traffic, it means economic activity, it means people coming here."
-- Mayor Michael Bloomberg, August 2, 2006
New York City transportation policy was stuck in gridlock
The result of 80 years of car-oriented planning, design and engineering
Estimated $13 billion per year in lost productivity in NYC, 2007. And misery.
Source: Partnership for New York City
I launched Streetsblog in 2006.
The New York City Streets Renaissance Campaign
NYCSR invited influential thinkers and leaders to NYC.
Enrique PenalosaMayor of Bogota
Donald ShoupUCLA parking guru
Jan GehlDanish urban designer
The campaign put forward a new vision for NYC streets
What if we thought of our
streets as public spaces
rather than transportation
corridors?
City streets weren't always just for cars
Mulberry Street, Manhattan’s Lower East Side, circa 1900.
Source: Library of Congress Photocrom Collection
Park Avenue was once…
Looking north from E. 50th Street circa 1996.
… a park!
Looking north from E. 50th Street circa 1922.
Streets were once vibrant, mixed-use public spaces
Today, kids often have to be driven to their play areas.
"Erosion of cities by automobiles entails so familiar a series of events that they hardly need describing. The erosion proceeds as a kind of nibbling."
-- Jane Jacobs
1913
2005
Plan your city for cars and traffic…
…You'll probably get cars and traffic.
Plan your city for great places filled with people…
…You'll probably get great places filled with people.
The Strøget in Copenhagen, Denmark.
1. Cover a daily beat around sustainable transport and livable streets issues.
2. Watchdog and reform the New York City Department of Transportation.
3. Show and spread new ideas for NYC’s streets.
4. Create a community forum for high-quality discussion.
Daily headlines.
Headline round-ups are a great way to define your beat and provide valuable service to readers.
Bring new ideas and best practices to your community
Streetfilms (and web video, in general) is a great tool for this.
This Streetfilm helped to change policy in multiple cities.
Streetfilms' Bogota Ciclovia video
Hold government officials accountable
Put them on notice: We are watching what you say and do.
Hold the local media accountable
"A Second Avenue bike lane is next to the Israeli consulate,
leaving many wondering what would happen if a man on a bike
were a terrorist!"
Local media often suffers from "windshield perspective."
Do rapid-response fact-checking.
In fact, the exact opposite of that New York Times story is true.
Try to make wonky, complex policy issues more accessible.
Make stars out of your local activists…
The annual Streetsie Awards: Activists of the Year
Celebrate the innovators
Chicago's new DOT Commissioner Gabe Klein
Don't be afraid to point out the villains
Remember you're telling stories.
Have fun! Try to be entertaining.
All blog posts about Mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner
must include a photo of the Oscar Mayer weinermobile
One of my first examples of the power of Streetsblog
Brooklyn's Fifth Avenue.
In April 2007 Streetsblog got a hold of this secret plan.
NYC DOT planned to convert 5th Avenue to one-way operation.
Streetsblog put a face and a name on these car-oriented policies
No one had ever paid much attention to NYC's Chief Traffic Engineer
700 people showed up to a local meeting that normally would have attracted 35.
Streetsblog mobilized an unprecedented response
This is what livable streets advocacy looked like before the Internet
“Digital networks have acted as a massive positive supply shock to
the cost and spread of information, to the ease and range of public
speech by citizens, and to the speed and scale of group
coordination.”
- NYU Professor Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody.
The Internet is your competitive advantage.
Use social media.
The #BikeNYC hashtag on Twitter
Social media is incredibly powerful for advocacy
The Prospect Park West bike lane group on Facebook.1,800+ members!
May 2007: Change comes to New York City.
Janette Sadik-Khan takes over NYC DOT.
"Sustainable Streets" strategic plan
Janette Sadik-Khan takes over NYC DOT.
NYC DOT didn't "study." They implemented. Experimented.
Before After
DUMBO, Brooklyn
Busy intersection transformed into a public plaza.
Ninth Avenue at 14th Street, Manhattan.
Busy intersection transformed into a public plaza.
Ninth Avenue at 14th Street, Manhattan.
Highway-like avenues transformed into "complete streets."
Before
After
Ninth Avenue,Manhattan redesign:
Reduced injuries to all users by
56%
Herald Square, Broadway and 34th Street.
Before
Herald Square, Broadway and 34th Street.
Before
Car-Free Broadway at Times Square
Before
Car-Free Broadway at Times Square
Before
Projects that had been "impossible" for 40 years…
Broadway at Times Square, Before
… started happening
Broadway at Times Square, After
Summer Streets
Giving New Yorkers a taste of more humane streets.
Summer Streets
Dumpster swimming pool in front of Grand Central Terminal
Street yoga
Midtown Manhattan street scene, 2012
Livable Streets are also happening in outer borough neighborhoods
Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn. "Williamsburg Walks."
Street space is reallocated to more efficient modes of transportation
Dedicated bus lanes, off-board fare collection, signal priority
Build-out of the citywide bicycle network
Protected bike path on Prospect Park West in Brooklyn.
These wide avenues aren't all that different than Denver's
First Avenue and E. 6th Street, Manhattan.
This infrastructure is creating a boom in biking
The new protected bike path or “cycle track” on Manhattan’s busy 8th Avenue.
A 4x increase in bike commuting since 2000
Biking is becoming mainstream
Increasingly viewed as "real" transportation.
Biking is increasingly seen as fashionable, cool, sexy, freeing.
Being stuck inside a car is the opposite of that.
All the cool kids are doing it
Leonardo DiCaprio and Blake Lively
Beyonce
"I'm 90-years-old and I ride this thing around everywhere."
Families are ditching the minivan.
Liev Schreiber, Naomi Watts and their Workcycles Fr8 in NYC
"My sons would rather go on a bike than any other form of transportation.”
-- Liev Schreiber
Led to the largest increase in ground-floor retail rents in NYC in 2010
21% Increase in ground-floor retail rents in
Times Square
4% Citywide average
Source: Crain's New York
Livable Streets are good for business
Source: NYC DOT
Livable Streets provide substantial bang-for-the-buck.
Source: NYC DOT
Streets with bike lanes are safer, better for business.
Source: NYC DOT
New transit-oriented streets are also improving retail sales.
Source: NYC DOT
All blogs ≈ 450High-frequency local blogs ≈ 125
Monthly unique visitors > 390,804 Monthly pageviews > 1,375,909
It's not just a New York City phenomenon.
The popular CicLAvia in car-loving Los Angeles
Chicago's Dearborn Street redesign
A two-way protected bike plane through the heart of downtown.
Chicago's Dearborn Street redesign
A two-way protected bike plane through the heart of downtown.
Seattle vs. Chicago
"I expect not only to take all of [Seattle's] bikers, but I also want the jobs that come with this."
-- Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn's response
"We're updating our Bike Master Plan with a focus on cycle tracks and a network of safe neighborhood greenways.
Amazon will construct a separated cycle track on 7th Avenue because that helps them attract employees.
Mayor Rahm Emmanuel said he wanted our bikers and our tech jobs. We're going to work to keep them here."
-- Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn
Seattle's Broadway complete street plan
Seattle's 7th Avenue protected bike lane plan.
Where is Denver in this conversation!?
Five tipsfor building
a localLivable Streets
movement
1. Bring everyone together as one campaign.
2. Get out on the street. Make your presence felt.
350 people rally on a weekday morning to support a bike lane in Brooklyn. October 21, 2010.
3. Create your own media channels and networks.
4. Don't wait for permission!
Dallas "Better Block"
project
5. Have fun. It's all about community.
Sometimes a city is ready for change
But the city's leadership hasn't gotten the message yet.
Who is ready for a
Denver Streets Renaissance?