Livable Streets

I was getting ready to put out the recycling one Wednesday evening a few weeks back when I heard what I thought sounded like someone playing a Bonnie Prince Billy album out in front of my house. Climate change notwithstanding, February is early for the start of blasting-music-on-Union-Street season and the Bonnie Prince isn't what typically gets pumped out of the local sub-woofers. Intrigued, I stepped outside with my glass-and-plastics bag and found an impromptu live concert taking place on a discarded sofa in front of my neighbor's house two doors up.

New York is one of five cities nominated by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy for its 2009 Sustainable Transport Award. Click through to see what measures taken by other nominees -- Beijing, Istanbul, Mexico City and Milan -- merited ITDP consideration. As for NYC's breakthrough year, we couldn't sum it up much better than this:

When DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, together with consultant and Danish urban planner Jan Gehl,  introduced the new "World Class Streets" doc [PDF] to a crowd of over 300 last Thursday evening at the Center for Architecture, the event seemed equal parts town hall meeting and celebrity book launch.

Streets designed for safe, accessible, and equitable use. That is the vision of the "Blueprint for the Upper West Side: A Roadmap for Truly Livable Streets," to be unveiled tonight by the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance Campaign. The product of one year of community-driven planning, in consultation with urbanist legends Jan Gehl and Donald Shoup, the 51-page Blueprint [PDF] is an expansive neighborhood-wide plan that would employ many livable streets concepts already in use by NYC DOT. 

Residents of the Lower East Side and Chinatown have been fighting for improvements to the Allen and Pike Street pedestrian malls for more than a decade. Now, with the city's Parks Department set to begin a $5.4 million renovation of the malls below East Broadway, their wait for meaningful action might be nearing an end.

This morning, street reclaimers across the country are settling into their Park(ing) spaces -- more than 450 spots in 80 cities, according to the latest count. For our readers outside New York City, check out the Trust for Public Land's Google map to find a spot near you. TPL also has a great round-up of Park(ing) Day media coverage and the beginnings of a Flickr pool.

In August, I had the pleasure of spending a little more than two weeks in Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne is the country's second-largest city, with 3.8 million residents in the metropolitan area. Despite its size, from a walking and transportation standpoint (to say nothing of a coffee-drinking perspective), Melbourne almost defines the term "livable city."

Last Saturday, the opening of the Design Trust for Public Space's "Reinventing Grand Army Plaza" exhibit quickly transformed the plaza, normally devoid of any street life, into a vibrant public space. Visitors were welcomed with live music, a dance performance, food and exhibition tours. This photo set on Flickr has over 400 shots from Saturday's event. City Room reports: