When it comes to smart transportation options and city planning, Zurich can credibly claim to be the global champ. This Swiss city has enacted a number of policies and practices that have produced streets where people come first. Getting around and simply experiencing the city is a pleasure. How did they do it? In a 1996 city […]
Recently I had a quick exchange with a visiting cyclist who was pleasantly amazed at the "extra" space afforded bikes in most NYC protected bike lanes. He was referring to the painted zone between parked cars and the actual "green" bike lane - amazingly it's not the first conversation I've had like that. And you know […]
Streetfilms is proud to partner with ITDP to bring you this fun animation that's sort of a cross between those catchy Schoolhouse Rock shorts and the credit sequence for a 1960s-style Saul Bass film. For too long cities tried to make parking a core feature of the urban fabric, only to discover that yielding to parking demand […]
Streetsblog's Angie Schmitt popularized the term "parking crater," and she explains it simply: A parking crater is "a depression in the middle of an urban area formed by the absence of buildings." Different types of "meteors" left behind parking craters in the 20th Century -- sprawl subsidies, the erosion of manufacturing, highway building. Whatever the cause, parking craters absolutely destroy sections of downtowns and make […]
During his decade long effort to understand and improve the streets of New York City, entrepreneur and livable streets advocate Mark Gorton has gathered together a compelling set of examples of how transportation policy impacts the quality of our daily lives.
In the tenth and final video in Streetfilms' Moving Beyond the Automobile series, we are talking about parking reform. From doing away with mandatory parking minimums, to charging the right price for curbside parking, to converting on-street parking spots into parklets and bike corrals, cities are latching onto exciting new ideas to make more room for people in our cities and repurpose the valuable public space that lines our streets.
Donald Shoup, author of The High Cost of Free Parking, "the right price is the lowest price you can charge and still have one or two spaces available on each block." Depending on the demand for parking at a given location, the right price could be higher or lower than the static prices you see at traditional meters. You need a dynamic system that adjusts the price based on demand.
In the third episode of Moving Beyond the Automobile, we take a look at a more efficient way to use a car. Car sharing allows users to evaluate the full cost of each car trip, which encourages them to decide what the most appropriate mode choice is for a specific trip. Zipcar, a leading global […]
2 Anti-Idling Laws Pass in NYC
Daylighting is a simple pedestrian safety strategy which removes parking spaces surrounding an intersection in order to create better visibility for all street users and reduce the risk of conflict.
Transportation Alternatives reports during this year's foray into PARKing Day there were over 50 parking spaces temporarily reclaimed throughout the city, nearly doubling last year's total. We were able to visit about twenty of those.
Sometimes double-parked cars and street regulations form their own temporary traffic calmed conditions.
A humorous but enlightening look at the visual signals drivers send to try to avoid getting a parking ticket.
Dr. Donald Shoup illustrates with toy cars and a table-sized model of NYC streets the benefits of proper parking pricing.
Executive Director Mark Gorton interviews NY Times' Ethics columnist Randy Cohen about urban automobility.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.