Making great strides in the sustainable design of streets

Real Estate Weekly, May 9, 2007 by Roxanne Warren

A myriad of worthy initiatives were announced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Earth Day, aimed at preparing for a more sustainable, livable city by the year 2030.

Vital transformations are already taking place in the design of buildings to radically reduce the amount of energy and natural resources they consume--changes that will address some 79% of the city's current energy usage. Plans are also underway to improve public transit service to areas in the outer boroughs that are currently not well served, while upgrading and adding to the city's remarkable and indispensable subway network.

It should nevertheless not be forgotten that it is at the street level that most New Yorkers are experiencing a threat to their quality of life as our population grows. The sidewalks are becoming increasingly, often dangerously overcrowded in many of the city's busiest districts.

Certainly the Mayor's embrace of a plan for congestion pricing should go a long way toward unclogging the streets. This will create a rare opportunity to match the "stick" of congestion pricing with the "carrot" of land scaped, auto-free streets--to convert some of our busiest streets--those with the greatest number of pedestrians, brought mainly by the subways--into veritable public plazas, and to serve them with environmentally compatible surface transit lines. Dense traffic would be replaced with a lively mix of urban amenities, including sidewalk cafes, plantings and fountains.

The vision42 proposal for a river-to-river, low-floor light rail line in a landscaped, auto-free 42nd Street could be a pilot project for a whole network of similar streets. This proposal has been extensively studied by independent engineering, traffic, and economic consultants, with very positive results. Because the light rail line would be quickly accessible and well-integrated with the shopping street, its economic and fiscal benefits, accruing annually, are projected to pay for the one-time construction costs of the light rail and landscaping in as little as fifteen months. Pedestrian space, and therefore retail and restaurant activity is expected to increase by 35 percent.

Light rail is flexible and easily extendable. While costing generally only one-tenth as much per mile as subway construction, light rail lines can be extended to the waterfronts, linking with the ferry terminals, and thus encouraging the use of terries. The initial line across 42nd Street can be continued south and east along 34th Street, forming a two-way continuous Midtown loop--combined, where appropriate, with landscaped pedestrian streets. Light rail could also be used on north/south avenues on both the east and west sides of Manhattan, as well as for transit links to a number of former industrial sites that are slated for decontamination and redevelopment. Many of these sites are on the waterfront and not easily accessible by subway.

The combination of light rail and pedestrianization has become highly popular and commercially successful in progressive cities throughout the world. Examples are found in Houston, Dallas, San Diego, Sacramento, Portland and Minneapolis, among other US cities. After all, an automobile commands some twenty-five times as much space as a human being, so removing cars from our busiest streets and replacing them with first class transit, landscaping and amenties would be a logical step toward making our streets more walkable, sustainable and livable in this, one of the densest cities on the planet.

BY ROXANNE WARREN, AIA CHAIR, VISION 42