Grand Street 2005
With all the hullabaloo over the new Grand Street bike lane, we thought we'd resurrect a Streetfilm (actually before they were even called Streetfilms!) from back in June 2005 with TOPP founder Mark Gorton talking about the then incredible width of Grand Street and the inequity of street space devoted to its users. We used this at some early gatherings in the infancy of our movement to try to use media to raise public awareness of what is happening on our streets. It had not been on the Streetfilms site 'til now, but is available (with other oldies) on the old NYCSR site.
Whatever your viewpoint on the new bike lane, it is easy to see why Grand Street and others like it are good candidates to give back some road space to pedestrians and people.
Mark Gorton: [00:04]
But this is a low traffic street but look at the width of the pavement,
and look at how like absolutely miniscule the sidewalk is over here.
I’m standing here, you know, this is how much space is allocated to
humans. Like look at this, you can’t walk side by side with
somebody here. There’s one person using a car in this street
now. There are around 20 people walking down the street.
Like why does that one person have 90% of the space? You have
room for a car, a double parked truck, another truck and you still have
room for a truck getting through. Well, do you need a street that
wide? It’s insane. You know it’s just a horrible use
of public space. You have to return control of the streets to
the communities that live here and the people that live here, and let
the local people decide what they want on their street.
