City Center Streets for Bikes & Pedestrians

Currently we are on the cusp of the movement to convert our streets from automobile only to "complete streets", those that fully accommodate all modes of transportation. This means the creation of bicycle lanes first and foremost. These bike lanes are best made as separate from auto lanes with barrier to get parents with kids and the vast majority of people who will bike to feel comfortable. This means more width sometimes in street section and more infrastructure.

Of course this is wonderful to get the kind of dedicated bike lanes like Copenhagen has but perhaps in city centers we should think about how wonderful narrower streets feel to walk down and that it may be best to turn the street lanes in city centers into bike lanes. A gradual shift from sitting in a high speed vehicle to pedaling to walking as primary mode of transportation can follow the gradual shift in urban fabric from isolated building in countryside to tight walkable medieval pedestrian street city centers.

Sometimes its better to skip the intermediate step of building for current trends and save money by just converting what we have bit by bit.

Complete Streets Restore Immediate Surroundings

The future is bright for humans moving through space. As we move back to a more body centered environment and away from the automobile centered 20th century, the quality of space increases dramatically.

When we slow down our movement through space our eyes pick up more information about our surroundings. Driving fast in a car, eyes can only pick up that there are some buildings or woods or parking lots around us. However, walking we begin to notice every little detail around us. Who cares what kind of elaborate trim detail is around that door or what the door joinery looks like at 35 miles per hour? Walking by our eyes scan and pass over the granite curb, every brick in the sidewalk, the craftsmanship in the wrought iron lamp post, the way the storefront glass meets the frame. And each door is a statement about design and care in the area.

Same with bicycling. Biking makes us notice every bump and object in our path as well as what each biker and each pedestrian is wearing. I believe the bike lane separated from the roadway entirely as shown above is best. Believe it or not, if complete separate bike lanes are available a kazillion more people will get out of their big nasty cars they can't park anyway and bike places. And kids can finally get around without chaperones. And one car families....

For a short video on complete streets in NYC: click here.

The slower you move the closer your field of awareness becomes. Because of this natural visual and sonorous and olfactorous heightened awareness of the near, we care about much smaller pieces of the built environment than when driving.

Freeway architecture can be big boxes of ribbon windowed office  buildings because we can only catch a glance at them. We are interested in 500 foot segments. Pedestrian architecture must be interesting at the 1 foot segment level. This means the more pedestrian environments we create, the better quality architecture and urban space will result.

Let the complete streets begin!