Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Urban Design

DOT Rolls Out the New Lower Manhattan Crosstown Bike Route

By Aaron Naparstek | Nov 8, 2007 | 6 Comments

The street re-surfacing men and machinery were out in force in Soho last night. Houston Street Bike Safety Initiative Director Ian Dutton snapped this photo on Prince Street. Once the street is repaved, the Department of Transportation will stripe the hotly debated Prince and Bleecker Street bike lanes. Lower Manhattan’s newest east-west bike route is […]

Jan Gehl: Gridlocked Streets Are “Not a Law of Nature”

By Brad Aaron | Nov 7, 2007 | 9 Comments

It could have been just another gathering of urban idealists, agreeing with each other about how great it would be to have more public space for people, and less for cars. Except last night’s NYC Streets Renaissance event, "A New Vision for the Upper West Side," featured renowned Danish planner Jan Gehl — who, as […]

Indianapolis Paves the Way for Bikes and Pedestrians

By Ethan Kent | Oct 15, 2007 | 26 Comments

Construction is underway on what may be the nation’s most advanced urban greenway system. Indianapolis, Indiana is making what could be the boldest step of any North American city towards supporting bicyclists and pedestrians. Known as an extremely auto-oriented city, most closely associated with the Indianapolis 500, this is one of the last cities we […]

Meat Market Plaza is Open for Business

By Aaron Naparstek | Sep 27, 2007 | 7 Comments

The interim redesign of Ninth Avenue and 14th Street is done. Tables, chairs, planters and some of those giant granite blocks from DOT’s Bridges Division have been set out as multipurpose bollard-bench-tables atop a gravelly, earth-tone pavement surface. What was very recently one of the longest and most hectic pedestrian crossings in Manhattan, and no […]

Making the Case for Compact Development

By Sarah Goodyear | Sep 21, 2007 | 8 Comments

From the people at Smart Growth America comes word of a new book, Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change, just out from the Urban Land Institute. In the book, researchers argue that more compact development (such as Atlantic Station, a mixed-use complex in Atlanta built on reclaimed industrial land, shown at […]

NYC Gets Its First-Ever Physically-Separated Bike Path

By Aaron Naparstek | Sep 20, 2007 | 138 Comments

The Department of Transportation revealed plans for New York City’s first-ever physically-separated bike lane, or "cycle track," at a Manhattan Community Board 4 meeting last night. The new bike path will run southbound on Ninth Avenue from W. 23rd to W. 16th Street in Manhattan. Unlike the typical Class II on-street bike lane in which […]

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