1) Cities around the world have implemented designs that prioritize people over cars, like bike sharing systems, pedestrianized streets, and bus rapid transit, improving livability. 2) In recent years, many US cities have also undertaken projects like converting parking spaces to public plazas, adding bike lanes, and implementing "complete streets" designs to better serve multiple transportation methods. 3) This shift toward more sustainable transportation demonstrates that streets designed around people rather than cars can create vibrant, active public spaces that improve communities and quality of life.

1. Better Streets -> Better Cities -> Better World
Aaron Naparstek
@Naparstek
aaron@naparstek.com
A Better World By Design
Providence, Rhode Island
September 19, 2014

2. Downtown San Francisco, September 2005.

5. They called it:
Park(ing)

7. An explosion of urban design innovation was underway
"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

8. Paris:
Le Mobilien bus rapid transit system.
Local merchants hanged the mayor in effigy before deciding they loved it.

9. Paris:
The Vélib' bike-sharing system.

10. Bike-sharing goes viral
Washington D.C.
Minneapolis
London Montreal

11. London:
Make motorists pay a fee to drive into Central London.
And use the funds to improve mass transit, biking and walking.

12. London:
Removed motor vehicles from Trafalgar Square
Before:
After:

13. London:
Car-free holiday shopping day on Oxford and Regent Streets

14. London:
Turning Exhibition Road into a "Shared Space."
Before After

15. Seoul:
Urban expressway removal
Before After

16. Bogotá, Colombia:
Bus Rapid Transit

17. Bogotá, Colombia
Ciclovia: Car-free streets every Sunday.
Essentially transforming the entire city into a park.

18. Copenhagen:
More than forty percent of commuters travel by bicycle.

19. Copenhagen: Design Innovations for the Biking City
http://www.streetfilms.org/journey-around-copenhagens-latest-
bicycle-innovations

20. Meanwhile, back in New York City…
"We like traffic, it means economic activity, it
means people coming here."
-- Mayor Michael Bloomberg, August 2, 2006

21. Eighty years of car-oriented design, planning and policy
$13 billion per year in lost productivity.
Source: Partnership for New York City

22. City streets weren't always just for cars
Mulberry Street, Manhattan’s Lower East Side, circa 1900.
Source: Library of Congress Photocrom Collection

23. Streets were once vibrant, mixed-use public spaces
Today, kids often have to be driven to their play areas.

24. Park Avenue was once…
Looking north from E. 50th Street circa 1996.

25. …A Park!
Looking north from E. 50th Street circa 1922.

26. "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

27. Design your city for cars and traffic…
…You'll get cars and traffic.

28. Design your city for people and places…
…You'll get places filled with people.
The Strøget in Copenhagen, Denmark.

29. Sometimes a good design idea is worth a thousand policy papers.

30. Our first "Parking Spot Squat" in Brooklyn, 2006

32. 2006
47 parks
13 cities
3 countries
Midtown Manhattan

33. 2007
200 parks
50 cities
9 countries
Athens, Georgia

34. 2008
600 parks
100 cities
13 countries
Indianapolis, Indiana

35. 2009
700+ parks
140 cities
21 countries
Krakow, Poland

36. 2010
800+ parks
183 cities
30 countries
Buenos Aires, Argentina

37. 2011
1,000 parks
162 cities
35 countries
Ahmedabad, India

38. 2011 Park(ing) Day World Map
The on-street metered parking space is now an open platform.

39. Today is Park(ing) Day!

42. Park(ing) becomes policy in San Francisco

43. Parklets and Plazas
Today there are more than 40 projects.

44. New York City launches the Pop-Up Café

45. Park(ing) becomes official city policy in NYC
Fifty seat
Pop-Up Cafe
in Lower Manhattan's
Financial District

46. Livable Streets are good for business
Source: NYC DOT

47. San Francisco: Pavement-to-Parks
http://www.streetfilms.org/people-parklets-and-pavement-
to-parks

48. May 2007: Change comes to New York City.
Janette Sadik-Khan takes over NYC DOT.

49. Parking lot to plaza
Before After
Pearl Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn

50. Livable Streets provide substantial bang-for-the-buck.
Source: NYC DOT

51. Dangerous intersection transformed into a public plaza.
Ninth Avenue at 14th Street, Manhattan.

52. Dangerous intersection transformed into a public plaza.
Ninth Avenue at 14th Street, Manhattan.

53. Highway-like avenues transformed into "complete streets."
Before
After
Ninth Avenue,
Manhattan
redesign:
Reduced injuries
to all users by
56%

54. Herald Square, Broadway and 34th Street.
Before

55. Herald Square, Broadway and 34th Street.
After

56. Projects that had been "impossible" for 40 years…
Broadway at Times Square, Before

57. … started happening
Broadway at Times Square, After

58. Car-Free Broadway at Times Square
Before

59. Car-Free Broadway at Times Square
After

60. After the Times Square redesign:
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

61. Summer Streets
Giving New Yorkers a taste of more humane streets.

62. Summer Streets
Dumpster swimming pool in front of Grand Central Terminal

63. A street can be… a yoga studio?
Midtown Manhattan street scene, 2012

64. Livable Streets are also happening in outer borough neighborhoods
Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn. "Williamsburg Walks."

65. Street space reallocated to more efficient modes of transportation
Dedicated bus lanes, off-board fare collection, signal priority

66. New transit-oriented streets are also improving retail sales.
Source: NYC DOT

67. Building a citywide bike network.
Protected bike path on Prospect Park West in Brooklyn.

68. Building a citywide bike network.
Protected bike path on Prospect Park West in Brooklyn.

69. Streets with bike lanes are safer, better for business.
Source: NYC DOT

70. Putting it all together:
Complete Streets
First Avenue and E. 6th Street, Manhattan.

71. New York City: Streets Metamorphosis
http://www.streetfilms.org/nyc-streets-metamorphosis

72. New street designs are creating a boom in bicycling.
A 4x increase in bike commuting since 2000

73. Biking is becoming much more mainstream
Increasingly viewed as "real" transportation.

74. Biking is increasingly seen as fashionable, cool, sexy, liberating.

75. All the cool kids are doing it
Leonardo DiCaprio and
Blake Lively Tom Brady, Giselle
(and kids)
Lebron James Beyoncé

76. "I'm 90-years-old and I ride this thing around everywhere."
Streets should be safe and comfortable for people ages 8 to 80.

77. Families are ditching the minivan.
"My sons would
rather go on a
bike than any
other form of
transportation.”
-- Liev Schreiber
Liev Schreiber, Naomi Watts and their Workcycles Fr8 in NYC

78. It's not just a New York City phenomenon.
Streetsblog Network ≈ 450 blogs
High-frequency local blogs ≈ 125
Monthly unique visitors > 390,804
Monthly pageviews > 1,375,909

79. Indianapolis: Bike Lanes and Bioswales
https://vimeo.com/66131674

80. "Tactical Urbanism" is a powerful tool for design innovation

81. But will I get arrested?
Guerilla Wayfinding in Raleigh, North Carolina

82. Dallas, Texas:
Build a Better Block
Before
After

83. Dallas: Build a Better Block
http://www.streetfilms.org/the-better-block-celebrates-
four-years-transforming-communites

84. The old model…
Robert Moses
New York City's 20th century master planner

85. The old model…
IBM Mainframe:
Today you have this much computing power in your pocket.

86. A new model for urban design:
Lean. Agile.
The "Lean Startup" Feedback Loop

87. Cities are the original social media.

88. Better Streets -> Better Cities -> Better World
Aaron Naparstek
@Naparstek
aaron@naparstek.com
A Better World By Design
Providence, Rhode Island
September 19, 2014