Car-Free Streets

This week's StreetsWiki feature takes us to the Quartier Vauban in Freiburg, Germany. With an area of 84 acres, the Quartier Vauban is a neighborhood of 5,000 people, designed and built as a sustainable community between 1993 and 2006. Contributor Kyle Gradinger writes that the Vauban "represents the state of the art in environmental protection in terms of transportation, alternative energy production, and sustainable construction techniques."

Powered by thousands of New Yorkers hungry for car-free public space and aided by three consecutive weeks of picture perfect weather, there can be little doubt that the Summer Streets experiment was by most measures a rousing success. Still, the New York Times reports that the city will "study the effect on businesses closely" before deciding how, or if, it will continue with the program, and the question of how best to accommodate all human-powered modes remains an open one.

The first season of Summers Streets comes to a close with tomorrow's third installment. Unlike last week, the sunshine is not in doubt. And whether the set-up separates bikes and peds or lets everyone mingle together, at least one other thing is for sure: This is your last chance to walk and bike car-free in the middle of Manhattan until 2009.

Given the heretofore undiscovered perspectives it affords, Summer Streets presents its share of photo opportunities. Making the most of them, the Department of Transportation is holding a contest for amateur shutterbugs to show off their best shots. From the Summer Streets Photo Competition press release:

This weekend, on the second Saturday of Summer Streets, the first thing my wife Jennifer and I noticed as we ascended the ramp from 42nd Street to Park Avenue was the quiet. I mentioned to Jennifer that I had come across a blog comment likening the scene to the New York portrayed in the post-apocalyptic Will Smith movie "I Am Legend," minus the super-human zombies. Plot holes notwithstanding, that didn't do it justice. The absence of engine noise and incessant honking didn't seem eerie, or even surreal. Just blissful.

Car-free workouts on Cleveland Place will be back tomorrow, but what about the open-toed pumps?

Already a prolific contributor to the Streetsblog Flickr pool, BicyclesOnly has recently put together a StreetsWiki guide to "Urban Bicycling With Children." The entry kicks off with a look at some of the less obvious benefits to biking with kids: