Planning for people…Livable Streets Initiative

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Over the last couple of years, I have been biking to work when the weather permits.  So last week, I paid my Swiss bike tax (sounds bad, but it’s not much) and started hitting the trails. One thing that I have always loved about living in Switzerland (and Germany) is that urban street environments seem to designed more for people vs. cars.  So, I was excited to see a great new initiative called the Livable Streets Initiative from the Open Planning Project.

Really, urban streets should be more than just a place where cars & trucks dominate…urban streets can be “complete streets,” (see this article) accommodating pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders.  Livable Streets is helping citizens re-envision streets as livable public spaces.  Check out this interesting interactive diagram of how streets of the future could look.

Geneva, for example, does a great job of this…in Geneva, you have street cars, bike lanes & car lanes all co-existing together across most of the citywide transportation infrastructure.  This makes it easy for me to bike to work pretty much along the same driving route that I take normally take when the weather is bad.  Though, as a driver, I admittedly get irritated by the reduced space for cars.  This does make for a much longer commute (I guess that’s the point though, right!)

Kudos to the Open Planning Project for empowering people to get involved in transportation reform through the Livable Streets project.  Head over to their site to become a part of the movement to give back the streets to the people.

Related articles

• Wiki Wednesday: Zürich, Where Transit Gets Priority on the Street (streetsblog.org)
• Livable Streets–and Bridges (bostonist.com)
• Big Day for NYC Livable Streets Activism (streetsblog.org)
• Introducing Livable Streets Education (streetsblog.org)
• Seattle Children’s Livable Streets Workshop (seattletransitblog.com)