Download - Denver: Building a Livable Streets Movement.

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.

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

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.

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?