A great video from Riga, Latvia with some tactical urbanism to show how a street could look if wider footpaths and cycle lanes were added.
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A great video from Riga, Latvia with some tactical urbanism to show how a street could look if wider footpaths and cycle lanes were added.
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Fantastic! Do it in Auckland this year!
Oh yes please! I just experienced the separated cycle lanes in Beach Rd for the first time. So nice! To feel safe on such a big scary road! Amazing….
no hi-viz, no clipboards, no hard hats, no AT.
There used to be a time when communities just made the spaces happen themselves intuitively and with sensitivity. What we have now ;is a top down imposition of largely inappropriate solutions on a community that is dis empowered and frightened to break the rules that so called experts impose on us. The failure of Planning is well documented academically and was a specialist paper in Auckland University:s Sociology department. What is evident is that the lessons havent been learned and that there is a serious imbalance between the rote offerings of bureaucrats and the needs of the community. If our streets are to reflect the aspirations of the people who live and work in them we have got to give the streets back to the community to shape them.
Basically this is the model for Queen Street. Such a great idea for a trial in Queen Street, just take 50m and transform it, let retailers see what is intended.
I had a disappointing discussion with a senior guy from AT (in the walking and cycling team) about trials. The guy basically said that he didn’t see the point as if it was a good idea then it should just happen. This despite the fact that AT back down immediately on any changes to the street scape as soon as one business owner or resident protests taking away “their” (actually publicly owned and maintained) road space for storage of private property.
I pointed out that the main reason was that it worked. I gave him the example of Time Square and how that was trialled with just furniture from Home Depot, over the top of predictions from retailers of Armageddon for their businesses. He looked very confused, so I can only assume he has never done any research outside his job on what a trial actually is or whether it works.
Of course now, as with Fort Street here, the retailers would fight tooth and nail to keep the redesign as (surprise, surprise) it turns out people on foot or bicycle are more likely to buy stuff.
A beacon of hope is Katherine King the new head of cycling at AT. A young woman who has been involved in cycling infrastructure in London, she will bring a whole new way of doing business to AT – that is if the grey men in suits don’t kill her enthusiasm with Kafkaesque bureaucracy.
I wonder if say ‘Generation Zero’ could get a bunch of volunteers together, and do something similar on K-Road with the cycle lanes. If they got enough volunteers and cheap planters (possibly just plywood boxes together), take out a lane of traffic and put make shift cycle-way through one night to prove the world wont stop moving. Maybe progress would be made on these valuable cycle-way projects? Wouldn’t take too much, but prob illegal. Would definitely get people talking…
Note: I say ‘Generation Zero’ as they have done a great job in getting a large following already, with people who would actually be interested in a project like this. Call it a peaceful art protest if you would?
Keen!
what about on street parking?