Secret Stairs ~ LA's Historic Walks and Steps!

Very interesting to read about the Secret Stairs of Los Angeles, a historic feature revealed by walker enthusiast Charles Fleming, and in Guide to the Public Stairways of LA by Bob Inman!

Reclaiming Streets ~ Streetfilms on SF Solutions

Very nice little Streetfilm about San Francisco: Reclaiming Streets With Innovative Solutions...

"...the recent livable streets achievements in San Francisco [are] "tactical urbanism" -- using low-cost materials like paint and bollards to reclaim street space. [...] Perhaps the city's most exciting new development has been the parklet program, which converts parking spaces into public space complete with tables, chairs, art, and greenery. [...] San Francisco has also seen an impressive 71 percent increase in bicycling in the past five years. [Finally] The city has also taken the lead on innovative parking management with the SFPark program, which uses new technology to help manage public parking in several pilot neighborhoods. It aims to make it easier to find a parking spot by adjusting prices according to demand, helping to reduce pollution, traffic, and frustrations for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists."

Bicycle Infrastructure ~ Comparing NL & UK...

Mark Wagenbuur at BicycleDutch compares UK bicycling infrastructure to that in the Netherlands. Very eye-opening. He's too polite to say it directly, but the bottom-line is that the British urban planners and traffic engineers are grotesquely incompetent -- roughly as horrible as their American equivalents. Witness Mark's videos...

Fast Construction ~ Dutch Underpasses for Bikes+

When underpasses for bicyclists and pedestrians are needed, the Dutch ProRail and construction partners move fast!

Hong Kong Walkways ~ Central Elevated System

I wrote recently about past imaginations about multi-storey future streets. Now it's time to look at the contemporary real thing! The Central Elevated Walkway is one of the footbridge networks in the heart of Hong Kong... And here check out the double-decker trams and busses these walkways cross over on the roads below...

Uplifting Innovations ~ On Elevators & Escalators

Several interesting lift & shift innovations have caught my attention recently. First, my MIT Media Lab colleague Kent Larson pointed me to the very inventive Finnish firm NEAPO which makes Tubetowers, modular & retrofitable elevators & shafts... And another colleague Ryan Chin spotted the Helixator, a hybrid escalator x elevator creating a continuous vertical transit system... As I first wrote about a few years ago, MagneMotion employs Linear Synchronous Motors (LSM) for a variety of very compelling movers, including ultra-heavy Navy ammo lifting and this ultra-conveyor... And their most recent Lite lightweight packet automotion offering... On the showy but cool end of things we have this Parisian stairs plus open elevator centerpiece at the Louvre... Finally, an oldie but goodie, the Paternoster...

Boston Harbor Access ~ Walkways & Waterways

Boston's waterfront and harbor have increasingly shifted from industrial-grade and highly polluted to pleasurable and cleaner. This Boston Harbor Association HarborWalk Map highlights progress in boosting accessibility to pedestrians... And see here Fort Point Pier an (almost) public dock in Downtown Boston with access to harbor by Steve Hollinger of KayaluGear...

Cities for People ~ Jan Gehl in Melbourne...

FORA.tv shares ABC's presentation of Jan Gehl in Melbourne speaking about Cities for People. Note especially his skewering of Brasilia and other examples of "Bird S#!t Architecture";-)

Oppressing Pedestrians ~ American Urban Policy

"Across Europe, Irking Drivers Is Urban Policy" writes NYTimes columnist Elisabeth Rosenthal. She probably didn't write the headline, but it really should have read "Across Europe, Valuing Pedestrians is Urban Policy" Why assert the negative, why pander to aggressively wrong car-lovers? Consider these items: Auto owners suck disproportionate subsidies from the taxpayer tit, plus cars themselves have inherently far greater geo-physical impact per user, have countless uninternalized externalities, are an ugly aesthetic blight, have multiple environmental minuses ranging from noise pollution to noxious emissions, and their indiscriminate misuse is the single biggest source of easily avoidable deaths and dismemberments planetwide. In contrast to America's broad baseline urban policy of oppressing pedestrians, Rosenthal writes that European cities are...

"...creating environments openly hostile to cars. The methods vary, but the mission is clear -- to make car use expensive and just plain miserable enough to tilt drivers toward more environmentally friendly modes of transportation. Cities including Vienna to Munich and Copenhagen have closed vast swaths of streets to car traffic. Barcelona and Paris have had car lanes eroded by popular bike-sharing programs. Drivers in London and Stockholm pay hefty congestion charges just for entering the heart of the city. [...] Many American cities are likewise in “nonattainment” of their Clean Air Act requirements, but that fact “is just accepted here” [...] It often takes extreme measures to get people out of their cars, and providing good public transportation is a crucial first step. One novel strategy in Europe is intentionally making it harder and more costly to park. “Parking is everywhere in the United States, but it’s disappearing from the urban space in Europe,” [...] While many building codes in Europe cap the number of parking spaces in new buildings to discourage car ownership, American codes conversely tend to stipulate a minimum number. [...] While Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has generated controversy in New York by “pedestrianizing” a few areas like Times Square, many European cities have already closed vast areas to car traffic. [Says a Zurich official] “When I’m in other cities, I feel like I’m always waiting to cross a street. I can’t get used to the idea that I am worth less than a car.”

Indeed! Be sure to also check out related slideshow featuring some best-of Europe solutions.

Bogotá ~ Building a Sustainable Future City...

Bogotá: Building a Sustainable City in Colombia on Hulu...

Direct Cycle Routes ~ Wagenbuur on NL Bikeways

Thanks to David Hembrow for spotting Mark Wagenbuur's Direct cycle routes in old and new towns...

"...illustrating how direct cycle routes can be accommodated in both new and old towns. [...] cycle routes can be planned to be faster and more direct than the roads in the Netherlands. Some of the better examples are from Assen, Groningen and Houten. Making cycle routes shorter makes cycling a lot more attractive, and is a good part of the reason why the Dutch cycle more than people of any other nation."

Solowheel ~ Another Personal Mobility Solution

Thanks to UniqueDaily for spotting the Solowheel... I still think the Honda U3-X is more epic, but this is a fine contribution to the personal mobility innovation-space!

Pedestrian Zone ~ Wagenbuur on Utrecht, NL!

Thanks to David Hembrow for spotting Mark Wagenbuur's Utrecht Pedestrian Zone video about my favorite Dutch city!

"The Utrecht pedestrian zone is a large area of car free streets in the historic city center. First in 1965 and from November 1968 on a larger scale, the narrow streets were closed to car traffic on the busiest shopping days. This experiment made the streets car free on Wednesdays and Saturdays which were -- and still are -- important market days. There was a lot of opposition from shop owners but the city went through with the plans for a permanent car ban. From 1971 the streets were permanently car free and they were redesigned. Side walks were removed and the streets were transformed to streets for pedestrians only. All opposition has since vanished. The area has been car free for 40 years now. The area is livable and a commercial success."

Walkin the USA ~ Time-Lapse Stop-Motion...

Thanks to Yuri Ramos for spotting this epic walk!

Livable Copenhagen ~ A Streetfilms Survey...

Thanks to Worldchanging's Clarence Eckerson Jr for spotting Streetfilm: Jan Gehl and Gil Penalosa on Copenhagen’s Car-Free Streets & Slow-Speed Zones...

"From a traffic-infested to a people-oriented city"

Competing Visions ~ Renewing Longfellow Bridge

Eric Moskowitz writes in the Globe about competing visions for the future of the Longfellow Bridge in his piece, Linking Cities and Eras...

"...the rebuilding of the Longfellow is about more than saving it from collapse. It comes at a time when key policy makers, from Boston’s mayor to the Obama administration, have pledged to rethink transportation and pull back from decades of favoring drivers and cars over bicycles and walkers. As a result, the Longfellow has emerged as a touchstone and test case in the debate over urban transportation, with officials, highway engineers, civic leaders, and community advocates grappling over whether to reclaim some of the pavement used by automobiles to make more room for everybody else. It is a thorny issue that remains unresolved even as construction begins on a bridge that is both a treasure to preservationists and a lifeline for thousands who traverse it each day by subway, car, bicycle, and foot."

Here, for instance, you can see the cross-section plans proposed by the Livable Streets Alliance (versus the MassDot plans or the current situation)... In any case, renewal is sorely needed, as this Portrait of the Aging Longfellow illustrates...

Automobbed Pune ~ Where Are We To Walk?

Thanks to Velo Mondial for spotting this documentary set in Pune, India asking Where are we to walk?

Sustainable Accessibility ~ Sterman @ MITWorld

MIT Sloan's John Sterman, the Forrester Professor of System Dynamics, speaks here at the Transportation @ MIT series on Sustainable Accessibility: A Grand Challenge for the World and for MIT courtesy of MITWorld...

Designing Streets ~ Livability in Vital Cities

Thanks to Mikael from Copenhagenize for spotting Gehl Architect's Kristian Villadsen speaking on Designing Streets as Public Spaces in Northern Climate Cities. He gives examples from Copenhagen, Malmo, and northerly cities, but the lessons are broad...

"Urban planning that makes attractive places to enjoy the climate naturally, improves the walking and biking conditions, and this, even when the snow hits almost all year long; why can’t we think people first? A lot can be learned from Copenhagen, when it comes to making room for everybody and bring a people-oriented approach to planning. From China to Greenland, and New York, cold climate is all about building a culture and “creating invitations” throughout the year, as emphasizes Kristian S. Villadsen, so we can meet each other in liveable streets and public spaces. Although designing streets for all its users sometimes interfere with other agendas whether they are of technical or political character, this conference is inspiring to find new ways so that visions can be transformed into reality."