Today, we take it for granted the streets are there to move cars,
and also to carry buses as well as cyclists, pedestrians, and the
occasional skater, scooter-rider, and Segway user. The typical solution
is to keep pedestrians on the sidewalk and paint lanes on the street to
separate cars from cyclists or create express lanes for buses.
But maybe there's another approach: Why not consider devoting different streets to different kinds of transportation? And surely cities need more green space and some are actually getting it. Inspired by the High-Line Park, by DC's Rock Creek Park, and Toronto's extensive ravine system, I have been noodling about the possibility of creating linear green belts or what I like to think of as sliver parks through cities. I literally feel this when I walk through Toronto's ravines, or in the past when I cycled through D.C.'s Rock Creek Park. It provides a natural environment in the city and creates green zones for cycling, walking, picnicking, or other activities. But I thought this is far too pie-in-the-sky to actually be implemented or even proposed.
So I was more than pleasantly surprised to see The New York Times' Nicolai Ouroussoff highlighting just such an approach coming out of a nine-month design competition for the Bronx's "faded" Grand Concourse.
A proposal by the New York office of the international design firm EDAW that would create a strip of communal farmland down the middle of the Concourse verges on cliché. But it improves when you keep in mind the grittiness of some of the urban gardens in New York or Berlin and imagine them stretched out along several miles. A new light-rail line would run the length of the boulevard; traffic would be reduced to two lanes in each direction, down from the current six.
A raucous proposal by the French team Nadau Lavergne Architects would pile more activities on top of existing structures to add density to the neighborhood and create unexpected urban frictions. Schools and cultural institutions would be stacked over apartment complexes, freeing up the street level for commercial use. A graffiti-covered streetcar would run up and down the Concourse, linking it to Manhattan. The Concourse would be packed with trees, transforming it into a linear urban forest.
Part of what is moving about these proposals is that their approaches have become so familiar. Not long ago the notion of building farmland in the middle of a busy urban roadway would have seemed like madness; today it seems too obvious. So does the idea that segregating urban functions can drain the life from a city.
Check out the terrific images from the project website, including this slide show. A full gallery of all the submitted projects is here.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Richard Florida
a less wholly embraced role for streets is for them to be considered essential water management infrastructure. they are after all among the principal spaces where rainwater meets our cities and thus part of the stormwater conveyance system. a number of cities are now recognizing that their stormwater management systems need to "think outside the pipe" and look above the storm drain for ways to better handle stormwater.
while i think this has been part of the thinking in many suburban areas with their large detention ponds and what not, big cities are getting in the action. chicago's got the great green alley initiative. LA's been going gangbusters for years. i recall reading that even houston is taking some small steps in this direction. and my own town, san francisco, is finally getting into the act as well. ENR even did a big story about how civil engineers are understanding that landscape architecture can play a big role in making great stormwater management infrastructure.
the point of all this is to note that the same spaces that are so inviting for pedestrians, cyclists, and urban gardeners can be very neatly overlaid on top of this type of green infrastructure. doing so will take advantage of the efficiencies of these multiple beneficial uses and connect us all to the public works that make our cities function effectively.
You should really check out Atlanta's beltline project which is a planned (and partially funded) system of linear parks, trails and light rail encircling the downtown that uses abandoned and underutilized railroads. Rather than community gardens they envision a linear arboretum --Atlanta's kind of obsessed with trees. It's largely funded by the redevelopment the surplus industrial property that abuts it.
http://www.beltline.org/