The Vancouver-based firm Matthew Soules Architect (MSA) recently received a rather unusual design brief: to help the nearby city of Victoria, British Columbia, resolve its, uh, “public urination problems” (the city’s words). Unfazed, MSA took a research-driven approach to this civic nuisance, looking at historical precedents (the pissoir, popular in 19th-century Europe and still in use in Paris and Amsterdam); current trends in public-restroom design (Vancouver has some of those automated, self-cleaning public toilets—which are frequently out of service); and the texture of the city’s built environment. Read more…

Metropolis’s senior editor, Kristi Cameron, is contributing semi-regular posts on issues regarding livable streets in a feature we’re calling The Street View. Click here to read her previous posts.

I’ve suddenly developed a mild case of urban envy of…Washington, D.C. That’s right, as of today the not-exactly-progressive town has something New York is sorely lacking: a bike station. Funded by the District and the U.S. Department of Transportation and built by Mobis/Bikestation, the 1,600-square-foot facility offers secure parking for 130 bikes, a changing room, lockers, rentals, and repairs. An annual membership costs $100, or you can buy a daily pass for a buck. Cities like Seattle, Santa Barbara, and Long Beach, California, (where Mobis/Bikestation is based) have already had success with these facilities, but the D.C. station is the first of its kind on the East Coast. Which raises an important question: How useful is a bike station sans showers during warm, humid eastern summers? Perhaps I should reserve my jealousy for Chicago, whose McDonald’s Cycle Center offers showers and towel service. I could get used to the name.

Metropolis’s senior editor, Kristi Cameron, is contributing semi-regular posts on issues regarding livable streets in a feature we’re calling The Street View. Click here to read her previous posts.

Most of the public-space projects I’ve blogged about involve encouraging developments for all residents of New York, but the urbanSHED competition should be particularly exciting to architects. Prior to now, I didn’t even know what a sidewalk shed was by name, though I am plenty familiar with the plywood-and-steel-tube hoods that so often frame stretches of my walk. At best they are an invisible part of the city’s noisy background; at worst, an eyesore. I was certainly happy to hear the city was soliciting a redesign (note: the competition is not restricted to locals), but it wasn’t until I listened to buildings commissioner Robert LiMandri talk at the Center for Architecture last week that I truly got inspired. Not only will his department produce construction documents for the new standard, but the winning design will definitely be built at the end of the process. The city wants something that delivers more natural light to the sidewalk below, is safer, and, of course, looks better than the current shed. There are 689 miles of this stuff in New York—just imagine what a difference a more beautiful version of it will make. Read more…

Metropolis’s senior editor, Kristi Cameron, is contributing semi-regular posts on issues regarding livable streets in a feature we’re calling The Street View. Click here to read previous posts in this series.

As a volunteer at Summer Streets this past Saturday, my responsibilities were little more than to hold up a stop sign while standing in front of a working traffic light. Yes, I felt a bit redundant, but it was a great vantage point from which to witness the event. Last year I strolled along Brooklyn’s Bedford Avenue when it was first closed to cars, marveling at the disproportionate pleasure of a little extra elbow room, but I never made it out to Park Avenue, the spine of New York’s street-closing events. While Bedford takes on the vaguely Parisian flair of a street market, Park Avenue is more like an exercise highway with cyclists, rollerbladers, and runners far outnumbering any casual strollers. (The flaneurs seemed to stick to the sidewalks, save for a few forays into the road just to get a taste of the experience). Read more…

Metropolis’s senior editor, Kristi Cameron, is contributing semi-regular posts on issues regarding livable streets in a feature we’re calling The Street View. Click here to read previous posts in this series.

Before I moved to New York, I told people I wanted to live here so that I could walk to the corner for the newspaper and an aspirin. Twelve years later, my priorities have changed: now I want to be able to walk to the corner to throw out a bag of dog poop. Half of the residents in my eight-unit East Williamsburg building have dogs, and we routinely complain about the lack of trash receptacles in the neighborhood. I went to a community-board meeting to ask for additional bins, and while they seemed to think the request was reasonable, none ever appeared. In fact, a passing comment from a fellow attendee should have alerted me that resources aren’t so easy to come by. “Yassky doesn’t even know that’s a residential area,” she said about my semi-industrial street.

I decided to document the situation by creating a Google map, so I spent several days noting the number of trash cans at every intersection I pass through in my thrice-daily rounds. Much to my surprise, the map makes it look like there is fairly reasonable coverage. That’s when I realized that, to members of the planning and sanitation departments, there probably doesn’t appear to be a problem. The two main arteries, Graham Avenue (pedestrian) and Metropolitan Avenue (vehicular), have bins every block or two. But there is nearly as much foot traffic on the side streets, and we dog walkers tend to choose the scenic routes, comfortably far away from the sonic rattle of trucks on Metropolitan. Read more…

Metropolis’s senior editor, Kristi Cameron, is contributing semi-regular posts on issues regarding livable streets in a feature we’re calling The Street View. Click here to read previous posts in this series.

Perhaps it’s the fact that people in California spend so much time outdoors, but whatever the reason, the streets I strolled on a recent trip to the Golden State were a lot friendlier than the ones I’d left behind in New York. In San Diego, for instance, there were pedestrian crossing buttons at every intersection and all were in working order. (A fair percentage of the ones I find in New York are permanently depressed, and I have to wonder what kind of signals they are submitting to the network.) And each public park I entered, from San Diego to San Luis Obispo, had a bin of emergency poop bags for dog owners left high and dry. It finally occurred to me to take a few pictures of these amenities, so here goes: Read more…

Starting today, Metropolis’s senior editor, Kristi Cameron, will be contributing semi-regular posts on issues regarding livable streets in a feature we’re calling The Street View. For her first post—or maybe it’s her second one?—Kristi checks in with our friends in Copenhagen.

Sundry scenes of Denmark’s superior bicyclists making Americans look bad, as usual. Photos: courtesy the Cycling Embassy of Denmark

Well, it’s official. Copenhagen has long been a model for other cities when it comes to bicycles and transportation planning. Representatives from Chicago and New York, for instance, took pilgrimages there before getting serious about improving their own streets. But in May the Danish capitol launched a Cycling Embassy. When I heard this, I pictured a fleet of ambassadors—fair-haired ladies and gentlemen spreading the word on two wheels, a kind of cross between Angelina Jolie and the Church of the Latter-day Saints. Turns out, the city is simply institutionalizing the leadership role it has already assumed. But the Cycling Embassy is not just a group of Copenhagen city planners. In addition to public space guru Jan Gehl, it comprises manufacturers, infrastructure engineers, and the cities of Aarhus, Frederiksburg, and Odense. It’s a one-stop shop for all things bike-related. I’m not usually one for proselytizing, but in this case, bring it on.

David Sokol sits on one of the planters that run along Broadway between 35th and 34th Streets, a block recently closed to automobile traffic.

I’ll admit I was dubious when the gravelly painted areas popped up overnight around Broadway and 23rd Street last year. I was happy that the eight lanes of traffic that I frequently had to cross (but could never manage in one traffic light) were now down to five. But I had doubts about anyone wanting to sit in the middle of traffic. I was wrong. All summer long people gathered around the café tables, lounging just a planter away from speeding cars. So when I heard about the DOT closing sections of Broadway around Times Square and Herald Square, I was ready to celebrate. In fact, I asked writer David Sokol if we could meet in Herald Square so I could take it all in for myself. I had, prematurely, visions of Broadway as a grand pedestrian boulevard running the length of the city. But despite the weekend celebration with movies and beach chairs in Times Square, what we found at 35th Street today was just a road blocked off by traffic barrels. Instead we grabbed a spot in the preexisting pocket park, beneath a clock monument to James Gordon Bennett, where we could at least watch the activity, or what there was of it, on Broadway. Here’s the extent of the dialogue that the project inspired in its current incarnation:

David: “It’s anticlimactic, but there’s hope.”

Kristi: “Right now, it’s just about redirecting traffic. There’s no reason for people to be in the street. But first you have to claim the space, then you can convert it. People are at least using it to cross.” Read more…