Truly livable streets...

[turil.livejournal.com]

For your consideration (and for those with nothing better to do, mockery), I offer you a vision of a better Somerville:

A human centered town.

and

Bringing a street to life, in NYC.

I don't imagine Somerville will be up for this sort of thing for a long time. We'll probably have to wait until Generation Circus comes into political power, locally, before the streets are reclaimed, more permanently, for joyful living. So for now, those of us who long for more truly livable streets, can just enjoy our one day of Art Beat, and be happy that we have sidewalks and tiny plazas here and there that let the humans be mostly free to live. :-)

Comments

[jimmyfergus.livejournal.com]

> enjoy our one day of Art Beat

You left out HonkFest.

HonkFest truly has seemed like a community/street phenomenon to me. I hope it flourishes.

[ron_newman]

It would be nice to close Elm Street between Day and Grove on warm-weather Sundays. Traffic could be diverted to Highland Avenue (use orange cones to make it two-way on those days).

[m00n.livejournal.com]

...and then if that works out, we could do it on Saturday too, and then maybe Friday nights, and then Thursday night...and then every weeknight...and then all the time!

How cool would it be to have all that space open for outdoor restaurant seating and concerts and such???

[m00n.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I was thinking about that town the whole time we were having that discussion about parking regulations and that new development at the corner of Summer and Cutler. :-)

It had never occurred to me before reading that article just how much cars take away from life in the city, especially when it comes to the fact that we pretty much can't let our kids run around freely outside in the city for the sole reason that they could get hit by a car. And that's to say nothing about all the extra noise and pollution they bring and the space they take up.

[pensivewombat.livejournal.com]

"We pretty much can't let our kids run around freely outside in the city for the sole reason that they could get hit by a car."

Oh yeah? WHAT ABOUT THIS GUY:


STRANGER DANGER AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

[redcolumbine.livejournal.com]

It's slow in coming, but it's coming. This may be the only constructive aspect of the lousy driving around here; making people look forward to seeing an end to it.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Wait! That's no stranger...

THAT'S YOUR HUSBAND!

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, there are no more cars around here now than there were around when I was growing up in the DC area, and I still ran around and played in the streets.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Yeah, so did I, but not until I was old enough to have learned to look both ways reliably enough that my mom trusted me with it. And I lived in the suburbs. And a lot of people live in the suburbs for exactly this reason.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Besides, are you seriously disputing that small children would be safer without living near busy roads?

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

You're saying we can't let our kids run around because of cars.

I'm saying, why not, what has changed?

I'm saying kids are just as safe (re: cars) now as they were twenty years ago - the thing that has changed is that people are more fearful, now.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Nothing has changed. It was unsafe 20 years ago (when *I* was first told not to go anywhere that required me to cross any busy streets) and it's unsafe today.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Where would you rather live, Beacon Hill or Charles River Park? The former has streets where cars are allowed. The latter replaced the West End, which used to be like Beacon Hill, with a car-free superblock with a few massive parking garages.

[lizzielizzie.livejournal.com]

...the kids can't play in the yard and know not to go into the street? I'm confused.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

No, it's more like they can't walk to their neighbor's house or the playground three blocks away because they'd have to cross, say, Broadway, to get there.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

That depends: Would I be living on the part of Charles River Park that abuts Storrow Drive?

[fefie.livejournal.com]

When I was in Manhattan last week, it was awesome to see Broadway closed to traffic for several blocks in mid-town as it is being turned into a pedestrian plaza. Imagine lots of people sitting in lawn chairs out in the street in Times Sq -- it was an amazing sight!

What has changed...

[turil.livejournal.com]

There more cars in the area, which is a relative change. Adults see more cars in their community and think that it's more dangerous. Technically it is a bit more dangerous, just from the added congestion, but the real change is in attention levels and stress levels of the motorists. More road rage, more cell phone use, more people in a hurry, and so on leads to more crashes and near-crashes. Cars are the number one killer of kids, and people get that message all over the place, so it's natural for them to be afraid to let their kids be anywhere near cars now more than before (when disease was the biggest killer of kids).

[turil.livejournal.com]

A lot has changed in this area. I grew up around here and walked to school by myself in kindergarten, as did many of my classmates. Not many parents would feel comfortable letting their kids do that today in the area. Why? Fewer community schools, for one thing (mine was about 4 clocks away from my house, now it's condos). More cars. More stress. More distractions. More people living and working in the same amount of space (more feelings of being crowded). And so on. Also, the attitudes have changed from a community minded approach to living to a more "independent" self-ish approach to living...

[turil.livejournal.com]

:-) !

Indeed, it's always darkest before the dawn, right?

[turil.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the Charles River Park, I don't think, so I can't answer that question, but my ideal would be a place that had a few streets that allowed motorized traffic, with a speed limit of about 20 (mostly done by using street reclaiming techniques such as the street mural in the link and other cool things like moving art bollards, pedestrians having the right of way, etc., with most of the streets being reserved for non-motorized traffic (walking, biking, skating, stiltwalking, etc.). So maybe Beacon Hill with most streets open to non-motorized traffic.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Yeah, in the city (real dense cities, that is) it's easy to make human commerce a priority, but it takes more of an effort on the part of the planning departments for more suburban areas like Somerville, where we've mostly got giant swaths of residential areas removing people from the public commerce areas of business, schools, recreational stuff, and non-profit gathering places, rather than the mixed-use of real urban design.

But Davis Square does seem to have a pretty good set up for a more human friendly future.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Honkfest is indeed lovely!

However most of the streets are still full of cars during it, and the good stuff has to be squeezed onto the tiny sidewalks along Elm, while the cars take over most of the streetscape.

Do they shut down the streets for the parade? I've never made it to the parade, so I don't know...

[turil.livejournal.com]

What's dangerous about that guy? Unpleasant perhaps, but hey, unpleasant people are a part of life, right? Teach your kids to laugh when they encounter eccentric folks, and they'll be better off.

[rethcir.livejournal.com]

Just hope it doesn't turn into Downtown Crossing at night!