Innovative public servants and savvy transportation and public space advocates are working to transform urban streets into “Complete Streets”, in which the street is shared equitably between all users — pedestrians, cyclists, bus passengers, motorists and truck drivers.

Last Thursday, at Scandinavia House, MAS hosted a fascinating program on the city streets of today and tomorrow. Focused on the key challenges to, and best practices in, contemporary street design, and highlighting examples from the Netherlands, Chicago and New York City, Paul Steely-White of Transportation Alternatives moderated an expert panel including: Gary Toth of Projects for Public Spaces (PPS); Andrew Wiley-Schwartz, assistant commissioner of NYC DOT, Nicole LaRusso of ADNY; and Janet Attarian of Chicago DOT.

Click on the player above to listen to a summary of the program or, to download it to your hand-held device, click here to open-up the MAS iTunes page.

Learn more about MAS’ work on streetscapes in New York City at MAS.org/publicpolicy, and to listen to more MAS podcasts, visit MAS.org/audio.

The City’s Parks Department will hold an April 23 public hearing on a proposal to regulate the sale of “materials or objects with expressive content” — such as books, paintings, photographs and sculptures — in the City’s parks.

The proposed rule will designate the number of specific locations where vendors of expressive material may sell their goods in four Manhattan parks: Battery Park, Union Square Park, the High Line Park, and heavily trafficked areas on Central Park. Vendors would not be restricted in less congested areas of Central Park. The rule also regulates vendors of expressive matter in other parks.

MAS testified in favor of the measures, which should improve pedestrian flow and overall enjoyment of the parks, at this morning’s hearing. To read our testimony in full, click here. “Since its founding, MAS has been both an advocate for the arts and for limited commercial activity in our parks,” said President Vin Cipolla. “We are extremely sensitive to the needs of entrepreneurial artists who need to make a living, but we also want to make sure the needs of the greater public are considered.” Continue Reading>>

If you missed Tuesday night’s panel, Light Fight: What’s Effective, Sustainable & Affordable, you can now listen to a summary of the fascinating discussion about the future of New York City’s street lighting that took place between some of America’s most prominent lighting designers and engineers and City officials in this podcast.

Moderator Randolph Sabedra of RS Lighting Design, and chair of the NYC public outreach committee, Illuminating Engineering Society New York City introduced the panel comprised of: Howard Brandston of Brandston Partnership, Inc.; Margaret Newman AIA, LEED AP, chief of staff, New York City Department of Transportartion; Peter Morante, director of energy programs, Lighting Research Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; and Denise Fong IALD, LC, LEED AP, Candela, Seattle.

The discussion ranged from research into the human eye’s ability to perceive different kinds of light to the ways in which urban livability is influenced for good and bad by different types of street lighting illustrated with examples from as far afield as Shanghai, Copenhagen and Chicago. [To listen to the full, uncut footage of the panel discussion, click on the audio mp3 icon.]

The next event in our April panel series, New York’s Changing Streetscapes, is The Complete Street: Sustainable, Healthy & Pleasurable will take place on Thursday, April 29, at 6:30 p.m., at Scandinavia House, 58 Park Ave., and addresses attempts to create an urban street that considers the needs of all its users — pedestrians, bicyclists, bus passengers, motorists, and truck drivers — and seeks an equitable allocation of resources. Tickets are $15, $10 MAS members and reservations are required. Purchase tickets online or call 212-935-2075. To become a member of The Municipal Art Society, visit MAS.org/membership.

For more MAS podcasts, visit MAS.org/audio or visit our iTunes page.

MAS is pleased at the City’s announcement today that the two portions of Broadway around Herald and Times squares closed to vehicular traffic since June of last year are to be made into permanent pedestrian plazas.

The goal of the Department of Transportation (DOT) pilot program was to reduce travel times around Times Square and Herald Square by eliminating the congestion where Broadway meets Sixth and Seventh avenues. This goal was achieved in part, but other direct consequences of reclaiming these streets for pedestrians, including a 35 percent reduction in pedestrian injuries, and the creation of 2.5 acres of new public space in one of the city’s densest neighborhoods, are the most exciting outcomes.

MAS welcomed the experiment when it was first announced last March as a great step towards creating improved, pedestrian-friendly streetscapes, and we congratulate Mayor Bloomberg and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan today on having taken this bold step.

MAS President Vin Cipolla said, “Making these two new public plazas permanent fixtures of our streets is a fantastic achievement that promotes what Jane Jacobs called the ballet of the sidewalk — the unrehearsed choreography of people moving through the city. It will be of enormous lasting benefit to New Yorkers and the vitality of our city’s street life.”

Originally, the City had discussed extending the closures of Broadway further to the south, but there seem to be no plans at the moment to do so.

To read more about MAS’ advocacy on New York City streetscape issues click here.

Sidewalk sheds are required whenever renovation or new construction takes place on a building, or a Department of Buildings inspector suspects an unsafe condition exists. These sidewalks sheds are erected in order to protect pedestrians and typically remain in place for nearly a year, sometimes even longer. Currently there are more than 6,000 sidewalk sheds standing in New York City, spanning more than a million linear feet. 

The Department of Buildings and AIA New York Chapter have teamed up with an array of other civic organizations to organize an international design competition called UrbanShed that seeks a brighter future for this unique New York City structure. Contestants had been asked to design a sidewalk shed that is sustainable, economical and attractive.  Continue Reading>>

It is forecast that by 2030, there will be one million additional people living in the City of New York. However, our transit systems – our roads, our subways, our buses – are already at or near capacity. How will all these people get around? Will the city they inhabit have a people-friendly, walkable cityscape, or will they inhabit a warren of automobile corridors?

On June 16th, the MAS Urbanists participated in a walking tour of some of the areas of Manhattan in which the Department of Transportation (DOT) is testing how street capacity can be increased. Led by Ed Janoff, DOT Senior Project Manager for Streetscapes and Public Spaces, urbanists observed how the agency, with a small budget, cooperation from other city departments, and a very limited design vocabulary, is creating new public spaces. While these spaces will have more permanent design elements added over the next three years, part of the beauty of these new spaces derives from the ingenuity with which they were arranged. Continue Reading>>

This piece was first published on March 11 of this year, shortly after the City announced its proposal to pedestrianize portions of Broadway as of this past weekend.

When Washington Square Park was closed to traffic in 1959, prominent residents of Greenwich Village, including Jane Jacobs and Eleanor Roosevelt, celebrated with a ribbon-cutting and by burning a car in effigy. Their ceremony marked the conclusion of a decade-long fight with Robert Moses, who had insisted that the park must be traversed by cars in order to ease the city’s traffic congestion. New Yorkers today are reaping the rewards of Jacobs’ victory. Moses’ predictions of traffic coming to a halt proved false, and Washington Square Park is one of the city’s best-known and best-loved public places. Continue Reading>>

Ahead of the panel discussion City of Art: New York’s Hidden Treasures Revealed which MAS is hosting on Thursday, April 16, at 6:30 pm., leading environmental artist George Trakas talked to Elizabeth Werbe of MAS about his recent public art work in New York City.

Widely acclaimed for numerous projects in North America and Western Europe over the past thirty years, Trakas has recently completed a major piece of work for the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn. Commissioned by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art program, his creation makes approximately 1,000 feet of shoreline accessible to the public. Continue Reading>>

The glow of outdoor lighting that has followed urban growth has overwhelmed our view of the stars.  This light pollution does not provide any useful light, wastes significant amounts of energy, harms surrounding ecosystems and contributes to carbon dioxide emissions.

The problems of this light pollution can be mitigated by using outdoor lighting that is efficient and designed to illuminate the ground and not the night sky.  It is probably impossible to create a fully dark sky here in NYC, but we can help the situation by simply installing lighting only when and where needed and by always directing it down towards the ground. Billboards can be lit from the top down rather than by shining a light on them from the bottom up.  Parking lots and ball parks can use fully shielded fixtures that shine the light on the playing field rather then the sky above. Continue Reading>>

New York City has one of the highest volumes of pedestrians in the world, and despite generous-width sidewalks in some parts of the city, sidewalks become crowded and the quality of the pedestrian experience is hurt.

New York City’s Department of Transportation (DOT), under its new Commissioner, Jeanette Sadik-Khan, has launched an ambitious plan to remake New York City’s public realm. DOT’s new, multi-facted streets initiative will consist of the following elements: public plaza programs; Broadway boulevard projects; complete street projects and design standards; safe streets for seniors and student; public art programs; coordinated street furniture; and weekend pedestrian and cycling streets. All the these areas are of interest to MAS, but we are primarily concerned about pedestrian/sidewalk issues.  Continue Reading>>