Quality of Life

Granted, I always secretly hoped that Tom Hanks would play the Aaron Naparstek role in "Honku: The Movie" but Tim Robbins' new film "Noise" is, without question, the early runner-up for Streetsblog's 2008 Movie of the Year:

With development projects across the city threatened by an uncertain economy, critics of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project believe that a slowdown in construction could burden Prospect Heights with decades of blight. A slide show by the Municipal Art Society, called "Atlantic Yards or Atlantic Lots?," offers a bleak look into the future, like this rendering of neighborhood blocks destroyed for "temporary" surface lots that would accommodate some 1,400 cars.

Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson recently made the journey to Melbourne, Australia, where he found a "new world city" redesigned for people-oriented development and mobility. Writes Clarence:

Amsterdam Ave. and 76th St. with street space reallocated to walkers, bikes and buses.

David Engwicht is a livable streets philosopher and author. Creator of the Walking School Bus, Mental Speed Bumps and many other innovative ways of taming traffic and increasing pedestrian safety, he has taken on “the challenge of a lifetime” to revitalize the downtown district of Wodonga, a small city in Australia often referred to as “Struggle Town” in comparison to its sister city Albury just across the Murray River.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly at Baruch College last week

As a candidate for a livable streets makeover, Columbus Avenue is a no-brainer. A block from Central Park, it is home to the American Museum of Natural History and sports a string of active ground floor businesses, but the street itself is a classically car-oriented corridor: three moving lanes sandwiched between two parking lanes. The Columbus Avenue BID has been working with Project for Public Spaces to make the street itself more of a destination -- to create a walkable, transit-oriented "spine" running from the museum to Lincoln Center on Broadway.

Here is the slide show outlining the DOT proposal to open Prince Street to pedestrians on summer Sundays. As we reported yesterday, the plan isn't popular with some SoHo residents, who say it will turn Prince into another Mulberry Street.

On weekends, 200 vehicles and 4,500 pedestrians per hour make their way down Prince Street, yet the vast majority of the street's public space is given over to motor vehicle traffic and parking.