When I was in Miami at the beginning of this month I missed an interesting event that I normally would have attended. It was a conversation between the Chief Planner of Toronto, Jennifer Keesmaat, and the former commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation, Janette Sadik-Khan.
Sadik-Khan was appointed under the Bloomberg administration and quite famously oversaw a huge number of urban changes in New York. Projects such as the addition of hundreds of kilometers of new bike lanes and the creation of 60 new pedestrian plazas across the city – including the one in Times Square.
I was bummed I couldn’t attend, but thankfully Keesmaat wrote a post on her blog following the event and the Metcalf Foundation shared videos of the conversation.
Here’s a piece that I liked from Keesmaat’s blog post:
When I was in Miami at the beginning of this month I missed an interesting event that I normally would have attended. It was a conversation between the Chief Planner of Toronto, Jennifer Keesmaat, and the former commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation, Janette Sadik-Khan.
Sadik-Khan was appointed under the Bloomberg administration and quite famously oversaw a huge number of urban changes in New York. Projects such as the addition of hundreds of kilometers of new bike lanes and the creation of 60 new pedestrian plazas across the city – including the one in Times Square.
I was bummed I couldn’t attend, but thankfully Keesmaat wrote a post on her blog following the event and the Metcalf Foundation shared videos of the conversation.
Here’s a piece that I liked from Keesmaat’s blog post:
“But she also pointed out that when they demonstrated what could be done, when they quickly mobilized around action, residents clamoured for similar changes in their neighbourhoods. Not surprisingly, this is why her book is called
– because it is a fight. City building is often the battle of ideologies, and when you’re trying to change the status quo, there is always a significant demographic of the population that is fully committed to maintaining business-as-usual.”
If you have some time, you can also click here to watch the videos. There’s about an hour and a half worth of video, so you might want to open up a bottle of wine or something.
Yesterday I spent the evening walking Toronto’s new Queens Quay Boulevard, which fully reopened this past Friday after a number of years of construction.
Seattle recently installed its first protected downtown bike lane on Second Avenue. Here’s a short video of it in action (pay attention to the signalling setup and the pedestrians that walk into the bike lanes). Click here if you can’t see the video below.
Shortly after it opened, they quickly discovered that the left green arrow and solid green circle (shown above) were confusing drivers. The intent was for the left green arrow to signal that you could turn and for the solid circle to signal that you could drive straight ahead.
But even with the accompanying sign, drivers kept getting confused and thought a green circle meant you could go wherever you want.
So the Seattle Department of Transportation quickly adjusted and changed the green circle to a north arrow. And it seems to have fixed the problem. I think it goes to show how important the details can be with these things.
“But she also pointed out that when they demonstrated what could be done, when they quickly mobilized around action, residents clamoured for similar changes in their neighbourhoods. Not surprisingly, this is why her book is called
– because it is a fight. City building is often the battle of ideologies, and when you’re trying to change the status quo, there is always a significant demographic of the population that is fully committed to maintaining business-as-usual.”
If you have some time, you can also click here to watch the videos. There’s about an hour and a half worth of video, so you might want to open up a bottle of wine or something.
Yesterday I spent the evening walking Toronto’s new Queens Quay Boulevard, which fully reopened this past Friday after a number of years of construction.
Seattle recently installed its first protected downtown bike lane on Second Avenue. Here’s a short video of it in action (pay attention to the signalling setup and the pedestrians that walk into the bike lanes). Click here if you can’t see the video below.
Shortly after it opened, they quickly discovered that the left green arrow and solid green circle (shown above) were confusing drivers. The intent was for the left green arrow to signal that you could turn and for the solid circle to signal that you could drive straight ahead.
But even with the accompanying sign, drivers kept getting confused and thought a green circle meant you could go wherever you want.
So the Seattle Department of Transportation quickly adjusted and changed the green circle to a north arrow. And it seems to have fixed the problem. I think it goes to show how important the details can be with these things.
The streetcars ran in the middle of the street. Cars drove on the north and south side on both sides of the tracks. And the sidewalks were fairly small and usually at capacity during the busy summer months. It wasn’t a great street.
Now here’s a photo that I took yesterday from that same vantage point (2015):
The street has been completely reorganized. On the north side of the streetcar tracks is where the cars now drive in both directions. On the south side of the tracks the lanes of traffic have been replaced with a 2-way bike trail (part of the Martin Goodman Trail). And on both sides the pedestrian areas have been greatly expanded. It’s now a magnificent street.
If you haven’t yet been down to the new Queens Quay, I would encourage you to check it out on either foot or bicycle. (If you go on bicycle, let me know and I’ll join you.)
The streetcars ran in the middle of the street. Cars drove on the north and south side on both sides of the tracks. And the sidewalks were fairly small and usually at capacity during the busy summer months. It wasn’t a great street.
Now here’s a photo that I took yesterday from that same vantage point (2015):
The street has been completely reorganized. On the north side of the streetcar tracks is where the cars now drive in both directions. On the south side of the tracks the lanes of traffic have been replaced with a 2-way bike trail (part of the Martin Goodman Trail). And on both sides the pedestrian areas have been greatly expanded. It’s now a magnificent street.
If you haven’t yet been down to the new Queens Quay, I would encourage you to check it out on either foot or bicycle. (If you go on bicycle, let me know and I’ll join you.)
