Perkins Eastman reimagines NYC grid for increased pedestrian and shared space

2018-08-31T13:29:00-04:00

The city grid, which once served to organize the development of private real estate by providing access to land parcels, now has a more pressing role to play in making cities livable. Our reimagining of the grid starts from the premise that how we use public rights of way no longer meets the city’s needs, so we should transform the streets radically, dedicating them to pedestrians.

Jonathan Cohn and Yunyue Chen propose a new pedestrian plan for Manhattan's grid grouping blocks into larger neighborhoods and organizing streets into either thoroughfares or local streets. Cohn leads the transportation and public infrastructure studio of Perkins Eastman, while Chen received the 2017 Perkins Eastman’s Architectural Fellowship for the Public Realm.

Manhattan grid divided into thoroughfare and local streets. Image: Perkins Eastman.

Their plan is a combination of the Dutch shared street idea of woonerf and the Barcelona “superblocks”. Shared, local streets would include continuous, curbless, and textured surfaces with cues that conform drivers to speeds of about 6 miles per hour.

Example of a shared street with less vehicle access and more pedestrian space. Image: Perkins Eastman.

"Superblocks" are limited to local traffic inside and would be sectioned off by thoroughfare streets with local streets in between. Local streets would always be within a 5 minute walk of any...

Manhattan's Fascinating Grid

2012-01-04T00:13:44-05:00

Was it monotonous? Yes. But New York’s grid had its virtues. For one thing, it proved flexible enough to adapt when the city’s orientation did shift north-south, flexible enough to accommodate Olmsted’s Central Park, the genius of which lies in the contrast between its own irregularity and the regularity of the grid.

As Michael Kimmelman elaborates that Jane Jacobs identified its sociability and Rem Koolhaas celebrated its density, Manhattan's grid system's efficiency is ecologically sustainable.

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Perkins Eastman reimagines NYC grid for increased pedestrian and shared space

Manhattan's Fascinating Grid