Archinect - News

New York City considers making Grand Army Plaza car-free

2022-11-15T09:00:00-05:00

The city’s Department of Transportation is considering making Grand Army Plaza car-free and connecting it to the Open Streets on Vanderbilt and Underhill Avenues, officials said this week.

The NYC Department of Transportation is currently seeking the public’s feedback regarding improvements to an area that’s been defined by constant traffic, disrepair, and hazardous conditions for pedestrians and cyclists. The agency hopes it can access the $904 million that Mayor Eric Adams pledged to tackle the city’s traffic violence and improve public transportation infrastructure.

The Department is expected to draft plans within the year. Last Saturday, November 12th, they hosted an outreach session, which will be followed by a virtual online workshop on November 16th.

Don't expect much from King Charles' reign architecturally, these two of his constituent critics say

2022-09-26T12:25:00-04:00

Poundbury, Paisley and Perspectives all ultimately failed to conquer the complex commercial and political challenges they faced. Their royal patron’s attempts to create human-centred townscapes have led to car-dominated suburbs. His efforts to uplift grand historic buildings have carved them into dreary flats. Our King is someone who sees the right problems but, ensconced in the very establishment that prevents meaningful solutions, he can only meddle around the edges of effecting real change.

The new British King is memorably the originator of the panned Poundbury estate that has failed to fall in line with its stated goals towards sustainability and car-free pedestrian orientation, according to Phineas Harper. He thinks the scion is hemmed in by a stolid commercial banking system and arcane land ownership laws and that class differences have otherwise made Charles' ability to gain perspective on the needs of his constituents otherwise impossible. As the Open City director sees it: “His view of society, as of architecture, is restricted to what can be seen from the tinted window of a chauffeured car.”

Previously on Archinect: Richard Rogers challenges Prince Charles to public debate over built environment

Meanwhile, in a different corner of the empire, new ArchitectureAU monthly critic Elizabeth Farrelly says she felt he “proved himself thoroughly unrepentant” during his time as Prince, citing his statements in support of traditionalism, and asking, “is he, as a constitut...

Utah’s vaunted 'walkable city' still has tens of thousands of parking spots

2022-04-04T19:04:00-04:00

“It’s not that no one has a car,” said Peter Kindel, an urban design and planning principal at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill who helped create the framework plan for the site that project overseers approved last year. “We’re suggesting it’s more than possible to live with one car to make that big-box [store] trip or go skiing. But for families and young people that are going to be part of the community, they won’t need that on a day-to-day basis.”

The 600-acre The Point development in Draper, Utah, will replace an aging prison complex and will include some 40,000 parking spaces — a typical figure for a community of its planned size of about 13,000 residents.

Previously on Archinect: A '15-minute' planned community is set to rise in Utah

A forthcoming mobility study to be presented to the Point of the Mountain State Land Authority by the transportation consultancy Sam Schwartz is aiming to reduce that number by half via a high-tech admixture of electric scooters, planned bikeways, car-sharing, and (potentially) a fleet of self-driving buses.

“We want to push the envelope,” Point of the Mountain State Land Authority Executive Director Alan Matheson told Bloomberg, “but we also need to be practical.”

A '15-minute' planned community is set to rise in Utah

2022-01-20T09:00:00-05:00

A new planned community in Utah will strive to make it possible for residents to meet all their daily needs within 15 minutes without getting in a car — and to serve as a model for other U.S. developers who want to build basic mobility into the foundations of their designs.

Called The Point, the envisoned community will be located in Draper, Utah, and take up about one square mile of state-owned land. The development, master-planned by SOM, will specifically aim to reduce the need for cars by featuring extensive biking, walking, and transit systems.

A range of transportation strategies will be employed in order to achieve this plan. Vehicle traffic will be restricted from a .125-square-mile section of the downtown core called the “pedestrian priority zone.” In addition, mixed-use zoning will make homes easily accessible to jobs, schools, and essential services. There will also be a city circulator that will shuttle residents around the community and connect to other transit routes.

The Point of the Mountain State Land Authority, the government agency overseeing the project, is currently in the process of selecting a developer for the project. Construction of the community will likely start in late 2024.

A long-shot referendum has Berliners dreaming about a car-free future

2022-01-19T13:25:00-05:00

Berlin’s regional parliament is considering creating a car-free zone in the German capital in response to a concerted push from a local advocacy group. The car ban would apply to the space ringed by the S-Bahn train line, which circles the city center, an area larger than Manhattan.

Berlin’s mayor called the plan “unrealistic” back in May, aligning herself with the rest of the Social Democrats, who were joined by every other major political party in the country in their lack of support for the measure at the time of the September elections. A small group of German cities has banned diesel engine cars since the end of 2018.

Activists in the country have been pushing for a car-free city since 2019 when a group of lawyers formally drew up a plan known as the Volksentscheid Berlin autofrei. The group has since grown to over 50,000 supporters (enough to trigger the referendum) who believe the forced change of habit is necessary to ward off a lackadaisical state where 37% of the population falls victim to what organizers call the “dictatorship of the car.”

“It’s as much about our immediate environment as it is about the environment at large,” one of the group’s founders told The Guardian in October. “It’s about how we all want to live, breathe, and play together. We...

Can LA's new pilot program for micro-unit apartments promote a walkable city?

2019-09-05T19:45:00-04:00

Last week Los Angeles City Councilmember Gil Cedillo initiated a new pilot program which explores the development of micro-unit apartments in LA neighborhoods situated near transit areas. Intending to promote a more "walkable city," Cedillo's proposal addresses the city's housing crisis and the burden it places on residents and those experiencing homelessness. The proposal also pitches micro-units as a potential housing solution for young professionals, persons who frequently travel for work, and seniors.

"Micro-units are emerging across the county as one way to help address this crisis by increasing housing stock and diversity while providing homes that are naturally affordable to moderate-income residents without public subsidies" reads Cedillo's motion.

While some may be skeptical towards this proposed solution, Steven Sharp of Urbanize LA provides an example of a city that found success with this housing option. In a more recent post, Sharp uses the city of Seattle as a prime ex...

Oslo's city center goes (almost) car-free

2019-07-11T07:30:00-04:00

[Oslo] has just phased out the last on-street parking spaces in the city centre, giving an edge to transit, pedestrians and cyclists without banning cars. The initiative included incentives for cyclists such as new bike lanes, including better lighting and snow removal, along with subsidies for electric bikes and cargo cycles. Council also expanded transit services and lowered fares.

London, Berlin, Paris, Toronto, and an increasing number of cities are aiming to reduce traffic congestion, polluted air, and valuable urban space occupied by parked cars through policy changes that promote walkability, pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly (and in certain cases, car-light or even car-free) city centers, and an overall improved quality of life.

Oslo became a closely monitored model of a hybrid approach: after the proposal of a complete ban of cars in the capital's center was met with fierce opposition from business owners, who feared decreased commerce, the city decided to close off only certain streets to motor traffic but replace the more than 700 downtown parking spots with bike lanes, greenery, and pedestrian-oriented infrastructure.

"Cities, like Oslo, have been built for cars for several decades, and it’s about time we change it," Hanne Marcussen, Oslo’s vice mayor of urban development, told Fast Company. “I think it is important that we all think about what kind o...

Jan Gehl has his doubts about 'Smart Cities'

2018-05-07T14:52:00-04:00

I think we haven’t thought through the challenge of technology for city mobility. We are stuck with some 120-year-old ideas that the industry is desperately holding on to. I tell students: Whenever you hear the word “smart,” beware, because that is somebody who wants to sell as many millions as possible of some new gimmick. And he is not necessarily giving you a better quality of life.

Annette Becker and Lessano Negussie, curators of the new exhibition RIDE A BIKE! Reclaim the City at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) in Frankfurt, Germany, interviewed the 81-year-old 'people-friendly city' evangelist for the show's accompanying book.

Javier Senosiain's low-income "bio-architecture" housing proposal

2016-10-18T14:26:00-04:00

Forming a closer, more harmonious bond between humanity and nature is the underlying goal of Javier Senosiain's organic or so-called "bio-architecture." His buildings often take the shape of organic forms--in one case, mythic serpent Quetzalcoatl--while simultaneously harvesting rainwater and providing natural shade and ventilation, among other attributes. The Mexican architect and professor at UNAM has a retrospective exhibition at The Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City displaying his buildings, including a proposed low-income housing complex which breaks away from the cram'em'in monolithic housing milleu and instead creates a walkable, livable village. Check out this CCTV-America video profiling Senosiain and his work:

How urban cities continue to veer toward new forms of mobility

2015-04-30T09:32:00-04:00

Gilles Vesco calls it the 'new mobility'. It’s a vision of cities in which residents no longer rely on their cars but on public transport, shared cars and bikes and, above all, on real-time data on their smartphones...'Multi-modal' and 'interconnectivity' are now the words on every urban planner’s lips...This model of denser, less car-dependent cities is becoming the accepted wisdom across the developed world.

Writer Stephen Moss talks to urban planners and transportation authorities around Europe to get a glimpse into how cities worldwide continue to wean themselves off car dependency and explore new forms of mobility, all while city density increases.

Stockholm's Vision Zero offers idealistic concept of car-free cities

2015-03-25T09:19:00-04:00

As the Vision Zero conversation widens, a new dimension is emerging to the approach. Increasingly, planners and advocates are talking about creating cities rich in human interaction, cities that provide a healthier environment that puts people above cars in a variety of ways...[At the same time,] Stockholm is already focusing on walkability, even if not under the Vision Zero rubric.

Tulsa Mayor Hasn’t Ruled Out a Sidewalk Next to New Flagship Park

2014-12-12T13:54:00-05:00

Earlier this week we reported on Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett’s decision to prevent construction of a sidewalk on Riverside Drive that would provide walking access to a major new city park. Local advocates say the lack of a sidewalk will make the park harder to get to on foot, and they don’t buy the mayor’s explanation that people will be safer if there’s no sidewalk tempting them to walk.

"Residents who want the sidewalk have charged that the mayor nixed it after wealthy homeowners complained that it would attract “undesirables.”"

Los Angeles on cusp of becoming 'major' walkable city, study says

2014-06-19T13:03:00-04:00

“The future — of a walkable, transit-friendly Los Angeles — is being built right now,” the report says. “It will allow people to drive everywhere they want, assuming they can put up with the traffic, and provide the option of walkable urbanism for those who want it.”