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Field Operations has announced its participation as the design lead for a new public space and pedestrianization project that will affect a large swath of Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. The new “Future of Fifth” project, announced by New York Mayor Eric Adams this week, will... View full entry
Urban farms and communal spaces are among the ideas for repurposing car park floors in Melbourne’s skyscrapers in the future, when it is predicted that residents will rely more on driverless and shared electric cars.
The architects of Melbourne’s tallest building, Australia 108, have created designs envisioning the transformation of the building’s 10 levels of car parking into space for a vertical farm, beehives, water collection and storage, pet care, podcast studios, co-working and education.
— The Age
Downtown Melbourne's potential future scenario of widely-available self-driving cars has developers rethinking millions of square feet worth of parking garages, and vertical farms are seen as a solution (along with housing, retail, and dining options). An amendment to its planning rules that would... View full entry
The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday on a motion to identify a location to implement its first Park Block -- modeled after the city of Barcelona’s Superblocks, a block grid system that restricts traffic to major roads and opens up city blocks and streets to pedestrians. — NBC Los Angeles
The “Park Block” motion was initially introduced by Los Angeles District Councilmember Kevin de León last year. The program aims to save lives lost due to poor air quality and traffic violence. As detailed in a report by LA City Council’s Transportation Committee, the Blocks will serve to... View full entry
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. — Gothamist
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... View full entry
A Dubai-based developer named URB has entered the fray of futuristic community planning in the region after publishing plans for XZero City, a pedestrian-friendly, net-zero carbon community it says will eventually grow to accommodate up to 100,000 people. Billed as a “new paradigm in green urban... View full entry
Los Angeles District Councilmember Kevin de León recently introduced a motion proposing a program titled "Park Blocks," modeled after Barcelona’s Superblock initiative, which would establish usable public space for pedestrians and cyclists by closing certain streets to motorized... View full entry
It could look like another round of flight from the city. Or what we may be witnessing is a “second draft” of the American suburbs.
Many communities that were once white, exclusionary, and car-dependent are today diverse and evolving places, still distinct from the big city but just as distinct from their own “first draft” more than a half-century ago.
— Vox
The American suburbs are continuing to diversify and gain millennials and increased numbers of immigrants, two groups that have traditionally been confined to cities. More mixed-use and affordable developments are being delivered in suburban areas where single-family constructions have long... View full entry
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. — Yale Environment 360
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... View full entry
[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.
— Corporate Knights
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... View full entry
Madrid's mayor, Manuela Carmena, is serious about kicking personal cars off the road in the city center.
On a November 5 show on Spanish radio networkCadena Ser, she confirmed that Madrid's main avenue, the Gran Vía, will only allow access to bikes, buses, and taxis before she leaves office in May 2019, as noted by CityLab.
— Independent.co.uk
Are people in love with not having to drive to dense urban locales? (Answer: for the most part, yes.) Following the lead of numerous cities that are seeking either to reduce car traffic or obliterate it altogether, Madrid's mayor actually outlawed personal vehicles from the city's main... View full entry
Paris’s car-free day was not without controversy, not least because it wasn’t a totally carless day and was limited to only around one-third of the city. After a standoff with police, authorities were only able to make car-free certain parts of the city centre, stretching between Bastille and the Champs Elysées, and the outer Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, and only between 11am and 6pm. In the rest of the city, cars were allowed but at 20km an hour. — The Guardian
Paris, which had a mostly car-free day on Sunday, September 27th, experienced smog-free blue skies and a largely smiling populace, but it's not the first major metropolis to sort of go pedestrian. During a July weekend in 2011, famously car-centric Los Angeles shut down one of its main transit... View full entry
The transformative effect of removing cars from a dedicated street or urban center and creating a pedestrian-friendly area isn't a new idea, but it's a popular one. Sydney, Australia has decided to repurpose its relatively trafficky George Street into an elegant shopping and walking area bisected... View full entry
