It's time right now for City Hall to use our public spaces for COVID recovery.

I'm delighted to learn that Al Knable agrees.

Knable suggested exploring whether the funds could help downtown businesses expand outdoor seating and continue curbside service to reduce lost revenue due to social distancing guidelines.

“Those are lifelines of income for those businesses,” he said.

It's time for Jeff Gahan and the Democrats to seize the initiative, get off the pot, get down to brass tracks, curb their automobile supremacy (see what I did there?) and take a glance at what's working out there in the wider world.

And no we don't need yet another $75,000 HWC Engineering or Clark Dietz or Jacobi Toombs Lanz study to accomplish this. We need to get principled, stop trying to seize properties from widows in Linden Meadows (I see you, Davey) and repurpose public spaces.

Reopening Main Street

Re-opening Main Street Post-Covid-19 Quarantine

Bringing people back downtown and to shopping streets will require confidence that the health crisis is abating, and a future outbreak will be minimized. States are now starting to re-open retail, and California Governor Gavin Newsom announced this week that California is moving to Phase Two of the State’s re-opening strategy, which includes some retail stores, with restrictions.

A vaccine is perhaps many months (or even years) away, and widespread testing infeasible in the near future. Cities and communities will need to adjust public space to allow customers back in with distancing in mind. Restaurants present an opportunity that already has many indicators of success: repurpose sidewalks, street-side parking, and parking lots into outdoor dining areas.

Alfresco dining offers the community a way to enjoy the outdoors while supporting restaurants. There is evidence Coronavirus does spread while airborne, but it may lose strength with sun and warm weather. Outdoor dining areas could be popular as the warmer summer months approach, and they would provide the area needed for establishments to enact social distancing while maintaining feasible occupancy levels.

Main Streets are critical parts of our cities’ economies and social culture, and they will need support during recovery to bring people back. More outdoor dining will send a signal to consumers that it's safe to go back out, with people being the biggest attractor of people.

As reported by Jon Henley, in the Guardian, Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, has announced plans to turn the city into a vast open-air cafe by giving over much of its public space to the hard-hit bar and restaurant owners so they can put their tables outdoors and still observe physical distancing rules.

Kerry Cavanaugh, Los Angeles Times editorial writer who is focused on housing, transportation, and the environment, advocates that when Los Angeles starts allowing businesses to reopen in the coming weeks and months, the city could take a cue from Lithuania. She writes, “Of course, Lithuania is very different from Los Angeles. But L.A. could take some inspiration from Vilnius’ willingness to experiment with public spaces to help the city return to some safer version of normalcy. How about closing off parking spots or lanes to cars on some neighborhood commercial strips, so restaurants and cafes could place more tables outside? Or perhaps closing some less-traveled streets so people have more space to exercise outdoors while still socially distancing?” ...

"Streets can once again become thriving, livable environments for people, not just cars."

The topic paragraph speaks directly to New Albany's degraded condition, and the inability/unwillingness of the city's "leadership" to address it.

Why does Team Gahan always pee on pedestrians?

Know that "traffic calming will occur prior to the tolls," just don't mention in which direction.

Team Gahan's breathtaking passive/aggressive answer to the question of making a safe pedestrian crossing at Main and W. 1st.

So on, so forth, ad nauseam.

Reimagining Our Streets as Places: From Transit Routes to Community Roots, by Annah MacKenzie (Project for Public Spaces)

Streets are our most fundamental shared public spaces, but they are also one of the most contested and overlooked. Today, and for most of the last century, we have taken for granted the idea that our streets are primarily zones for cars, parking, and the transporting of goods. This has not been the case, however, throughout most of history. Across many cultures and times – since the beginning of civilization, in fact – the street has held vast social, commercial, and political significance as a powerful symbol of the public realm.

Welcome to the sneckdown, in which snow informs us about better public spaces.

Unless, of course, you're a city planner busily pushing back, against two-way street advocates. Then it's probably not something to photograph.

Thanks to K for the link. Photo credit: The piece itself.

PHOTOS: What Snow Tells Us About Creating Better Public Spaces on E. Passyunk Avenue, by Jon Geeting (this old city)

After record amounts of snow this year in Philadelphia, you could be excused for not wanting to see any more of it. But today's snow actually brought us some pretty cool ideas for public spaces and traffic safety improvements along E. Passyunk Avenue in South Philly.

If you haven't heard of a "sneckdown" yet, it's a clever combination of "snow" and "neckdown" - another name for a curb expansion - that uses snow formations on the street to reveal the space cars don't use. Advocates can then use these sneckdown photos to make the case to local transportation officials that traffic calming interventions like curb bumpouts and traffic islands can be installed without any loss to car drivers.

Urban planning as "Light, Quick And Cheap"? Not in New Albany.

Kindly note the source of the rampant subversion to follow: Neither The Nation nor Mother Jones, but Forbes.

For those of a New Albanian bent -- or if like me, you've been bent by New Albany -- take special interest in the novel concept of making more on less. We've all been here before, as when municipal government concluded, seemingly overnight, that $9 million for an aquatics center must be prioritized.

Aquatics: More on less.

We've argued (in vain) that rather than concentrating money and resources on parks in the traditional sense, perhaps scattering spigots and green spaces throughout the neighborhoods would make more sense. As it stands, with no plan or infrastructure in place to support enhanced walkability and ease of bicycling, and without useful public transit, we're demanding that people drive their cars to recreate.

Lighter, quicker and cheaper. Need it apply only to low-calorie beer?

Light, Quick And Cheap: The Big Shift In Urban Planning, by Micheline Maynard (Forbes)

Now, as cities across the United States try to rejuvenate themselves, there is a new mantra: lighter, quicker, cheaper.

It’s at the heart of an overlooked kind of urban development called place making, focused not so much on architecture or public works, as making sure spaces actually work for city residents. (Grammar note: practitioners call it “placemaking” without a space) ...

 ... The idea of less money to make big changes is actually providing a variety of new opportunities, built on making smaller changes, and involving residents and community groups, and to creativity ...  “you move away from design to what you can do in it ... you try to build a whole destination” ...

Here's where the "getting folks to it" thinking comes into play (my italics).

(Project for Public Spaces founder Fred) Kent says that as a city assembles its network of public places, there’s less emphasis on using cars to reach them. “If there’s one thing, you’re going to drive to it,” he says. “If there are 10 of them, all of a sudden, you’re connecting them, and it’s a whole point of not needing your car.”

But of course, there's always a catch: Government interacting differently. Two ways, not one. Plans that aren't top secret. Sunshine and transparency and not fearing the outside world.

But for place making to flourish, Silberberg says municipal governments have to interact differently with developers and people in the community. In the white paper, the researchers discuss the new circle of interaction between city agencies and those creating projects, which is necessarily chaotic ... many urban renewal efforts in the late 20th century were about making cities look more orderly. Now, in the 21st century, “Those are the cities we don’t want to live in,” (Susan Silberberg) says.

Hence the perennial New Albanian dilemma: Thinking disorderly by design, not from unreconstructed habit and tribal politics.

I reckon that we'll keep pushing. Perhaps some day, they'll cease pushing back and begin listening.

Design problems and "Why Public Spaces Fail."

How do New Albany's public spaces stack up? We do have some, right? Think about these concepts the next time you're at Bicentennial "Rent Boy" Park. Did we get it right?

Of these ideas, the one resonating with me is "paths that don’t go where people want to go." It's an anecdote I've told before: Those block-long gargantuan housing estates in Eastern Europe, and a bus stop invariably perfectly centered in front. The sidewalk would pass from right to left, then some distance away turn toward the building, then turn again to reach the entry doors facing the bus stop across an expanse of former grass, now worn to mud by people taking the shortest distance between two points.

Why Public Spaces Fail (Project for Public Spaces)

William H. Whyte once said, “It is difficult to design a space that will not attract people – what is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished.” Today, many public spaces seem to be intentionally designed to be looked at but not touched. They are neat, clean, and empty – as if to say, “no people, no problem!” But to us, when a public space is empty, vandalized, or used chiefly by undesirables, this is generally an indication that something is very wrong with its design, or its management, or both.

The following pairs of photographs illustrate some of the most common problems of public space ...

Sunday film: Social Life of Small Urban Places.

William H. Whyte - Social Life of Small Urban Places from Robin van Emden on Vimeo.

This witty and original film is about the open spaces of cities and why some of them work for people while others don't. Beginning at New York's Seagram Plaza, one of the most used open areas in the city, the film proceeds to analyze why this space is so popular and how other urban oases, both in New York and elsewhere, measure up. Based on direct observation of what people actually do, the film presents a remarkably engaging and informative tour of the urban landscape and looks at how it can be made more hospitable to those who live in it.

Running time: 58 min, Year released: 1988

A film by William H. Whyte
Produced by The Municipal Art Society of New York

Reimagining streets, rethinking stereotypes.

Earlier this year while we were lugging some tables and chairs for a New Albany Public Art Project concert on Bank Street, the New Albanian and I were discussing the occasional but growing in number event-related street closings in the city. Beyond the usual learning curve items that come with such efforts, he made what I thought was a salient point: Not only were people perfectly willing to park some distance away and walk when merited, but sitting in the street itself was helping to expose more of them to urban public space, both conceptually and experientially. It was show and tell, an actual place for the names we so regularly attach to what for some had been a matter of pure imagination. It's a phenomenon being replicated across the country to good effect.

Reimagining America’s Streets, by Mike Samuelson, Orton Family Foundation

The Open Streets Project is leading this revolution in how we view and use streets. Also known as Ciclovias, Sunday Streets, Viva Streets (to name a few), Open Streets temporarily closes busy streets to automobiles so that people may use them for any activity but driving—walking, jogging, bicycling, dancing… name your physical activity—bringing thousands of people together to experience their city in a way that is normally forbidden. The number of Open Streets in North America has grown from just 11 in 2005 to more than 80 in 2012.

With those experiences come more learning, concepts, and misconceptions to be augmented and corrected. Luckily, in bike-friendly places like Portland, Oregon, people are taking up the task of asking and answering the questions tied to the necessary shift toward urban revitalization and alternative transportation modes.

Cyclists and Pedestrians Can End Up Spending More Each Month Than Drivers, by Emily Badger, the Atlantic Cities Place Matters

If you’re a shopkeeper with such suspicions, you’re probably not on board with any plan that would cut down on parking right outside your door. Cyclists are the ones with time to kill; drivers are the ones with money.

This perception is problematic in a place like Portland, where the bike-friendly city government is now looking to extend the reach of bike infrastructure – and the appeal of bikes themselves – to newer riders and neighborhoods farther afield from the urban core. "As we move out beyond those areas into more auto-oriented areas," Clifton says, "we start to see businesses say, ‘Hey, wait a minute. You’re taking away on-street parking to put in bike lanes, you’re taking away the one parking spot in front of my store to put in a bike corral. I don’t see many bikers around here. So what does this mean for me?"

Until now there hasn’t been much empirical evidence to allay such concerns. Clifton and several colleagues have attempted to fill that research gap in a project for the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (read a PDF of the draft report here). They surveyed 1,884 people walking out of area convenience stores, restaurants and bars, and another 19,653 who’d just done their supermarket shopping. Some of the results are unsurprising: Drivers still make up a plurality of customers to all of these businesses. And, with greater trunk capacity, they far outspend people who travel to the grocery store by foot, bike or transit.

But for all of the other business types examined, bikers actually out-consumed drivers over the course of a month. True, they often spent less per visit. But cyclists and pedestrians in particular made more frequent trips (by their own estimation) to these restaurants, bars and convenience stores, and those receipts added up. This finding is logical: It’s a lot easier to make an impulse pizza stop if you’re passing by an aromatic restaurant on foot or bike instead of in a passing car at 35 miles an hour. Such frequent visits are part of the walkable culture. Compare European communities – where it's common to hit the bakery, butcher and fish market on the way home from work – to U.S. communities where the weekly drive to Walmart’s supermarket requires an hour of dedicated planning.

"It is common for developers to argue that they are creating new public spaces where none existed before."

As Jeff reminded us last week, if the River View development comes to fruition, not only will it result in a prime piece of downtown "public space" being transferred to private interests, but the long-promised "public plaza" component of River View will have been much reduced, and lack a view of the river itself.

River View? Not from this development.

Why is it that the project's supporters, from Develop New Albany on down, never address the privatization-of-public-space angle of this proposal?

Public spaces in Britain's cities fall into private hands; Projects such as London's new outdoor space, Granary Square at King's Cross, favour business over community, say critics, by Jeevan Vasagar (guardian.co.uk)

 ... Politicians of all stripes acknowledge the importance of making people feel part of a functioning community. Boris Johnson has spoken of putting "the village back into the city".

At a public meeting last year, the mayor of London said: "It's not a concept that I find people readily grasp but what I want is an atmosphere of trust and neighbourliness and a village atmosphere in parts of our city."

But villages always included commonly owned public land, Heath said. "In the archetypal feudal village there was always that space of common land where everyone had the right to graze their pigs and behave in a sensible way. There wasn't the sense this was the feudal landlord's land. This was common land."