The Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) has unveiled a plan envisioning how Manhattan's streets might transform to minimize auto dependency while embracing the widespread availability of dedicated bus and bicycle lanes as well as more generous pedestrian infrastructure.
The so-called "Not Your Car" (NYC) proposal envisions a future where private automobile use is drastically reduced in order to create urban fabric "focused on reappropriating public space back to people without the inequities and predation caused by the omnipresence of private cars."
The scheme, developed under the leadership of PAU founder Vishaan Chakrabarti with support from Buro Happold, proposes to more or less get rid of on-street parking and private automobile traffic on most city streets, replacing this land-intensive arrangement with new pedestrian and public transit modes. Sidewalks would expand in width, street lanes formerly dedicated to car traffic would be redesigned for bus use, and divided two-way bicycle lanes would take shape, providing new transportation options for New Yorkers while also slashing commuting times into the city from outer borough neighborhoods, according to the architects.
In addition, freed up street space would get repopulated with beneficial uses, including larger trash receptacles to collect household and commercial trash currently piled up on sidewalks as well as areas dedicated to street vending and other uses. New mid-block crosswalks and other safe crossing initiatives are also included in the plan, as is a revisioning of the city's peripheral FDR highway in order to reestablish new pedestrian connections to the East River. Lastly, the proposal would transform bridges crossing into Manhattan to accept dedicated bus lanes and pedestrian paths.
Describing the project, PAU explains, "Covid-19 has allowed people to see a world where car reliance is significantly minimized, which would result in more room to walk (especially important now that we are encouraged to keep a safe six foot distance during the pandemic), less car deaths, and cleaner air from less car pollution."
8 Comments
New Amsterdam looking a lot like Old Amsterdam!
again PAU isn’t willing to tell the truth. If you want to show me where the public parking garages will go, have at it. Otherwise, keep cashing those government checks.
It feels so much better to say “ban private cars” than do a serious plan for, say, park ave bike path (that would be radical on its own). This is like a corporate NYT McUrbanism bait ....
Only 22% of people in Manhattan own a car anyway...not too difficult to imagine I would say, it's the way of the future as young urbanites often don't even bother getting a driver's license anymore. Just look here in Utrecht, it can and will be done: https://archinect.com/news/article/150180116/this-dutch-urban-plan-is-completely-car-free
The issue, as I see it, is less about car ownership in Manhattan and more about people who don't live in Manhattan using a car as the primary means to get there.
If those visiting are young urbanites without a car or license, they'll simply have to use the train or subway ;-) You can also easily relieve car and parking pressure in Manhattan by making generous parking facilities at multi-modal transport hubs outside of Manhattan so people simply park and switch modes of transport.
What do you mean PAU isn't willing, to tell the truth? In my limited knowledge of this young firm's work, I don't personally see a continuous pattern of lying. C hakrabarti even seems more willing to engage with reality than a lot of his peers.
This kind of thinking is a step in the right direction. At some point, automated vehicles will be practical, and people will need less parking on-street.
I developed a similar idea a few years ago. But I proposed taking existing right-of-ways and converting them into three modal options: Cars, transit, pedestrian/bike. I designed this out of my own studies on merging bikes and cars, but finding that they don’t mix well:
https://www.rhwdesigns.com/architecture/studio/studio3/
#rickitect
Every year of my adult life, self-driving cars have been "five years away" I won't hold my breath.
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