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Trail-blazing recreation/pedestrian program
New Weston Town Plan 2010 revives the idea!


DOWNTOWN PEDESTRIAN MALL?  How about a replay for this coming August?  Weston tried this in 1994.   New Town Plan of C&D revives the idea!
Nothing new for Weston--only we now have Bisceglie Park, instead.  Below, Bogota bikers now, N.Y.C. "Summer Streets" program to take place in August 2009 - check it out here!  Times Square suntan!

AS CLOSE TO CLUB WESTON AS YOU'RE GOING TO GET (TEMPORARY CLOSING)...BUT NYC CHARGES RENT!

NYC Street Closings 2009: 
those plastic chairs don't look good for long (I had them in yellow and blue).   Guess what?  NYC rents rights to sell/advertise on foot in the mall!




BROADWAY PEDESTRIAN MALLS GET PERMANENT TABLES, CHAIRS
By TOM NAMAKO, TRANSIT REPORTER
August 17, 2009

Broadway officially became a walkway today after city crews set up a slew of new long-term tables, chairs, and umbrellas along recently closed-down sections of Times and Herald squares.

Department of Transportation bigs also began collecting numbers on the effect the massive pedestrian plazas are having on traffic flow.

The DOT will count the number of cars passing though each intersection and will survey drivers about their origins and destinations -- all for a report to be presented to Mayor Bloomberg by the end of the year, said Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan.

The new furniture finally ditches the dingy plastic lawn seats and replaces them with red and gray metal tables and chairs in Times Square, along with red umbrellas.

The chairs and tables in Herald Square are lime green and made from a special resin.

The cost of the new additions -- including new planters and a coating of sand-colored gravel on the roads -- is about $1.5 million.

The new plazas already reduced traffic-related injuries in the area by 50 percent, Sadik-Khan said
Broadway’s Car-Free Zones: This Space for Rent
NYTIMES
By LIBBY NELSON
July 9, 2009

When Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced plans in February to close stretches of Broadway to traffic to create pedestrian plazas, it was billed as a way to ease Midtown congestion and create oases for walkers, people watchers, idlers (chairs and tables were provided) and cyclists. Since the car-free zones were opened in May, they have been home to predictable urban vignettes: tourists resting with their shopping bags, New Yorkers pausing with their cellphones as buses go by a few feet away.

But the plazas have also found a role that was never publicly trumpeted by the administration: They make money for the city.

All or any of them can be rented by private companies, which pay substantial fees to the city — the highest is $38,500. Commercial requests that have been approved have included a Glidden Paint promotion, as well as promotions for “Top Chef,” the cooking competition on the Bravo network, and “The Great Debate,” a series on VH1. The car-free streets have also been the scene of Hula-Hooping classes and a simulcast of the Tony Awards.

Permits have also been issued — and fees charged — for classes in yoga and capoeira (a Brazilian martial art), for a woodwind performance and for “Come Out and Play,” a festival dedicated to street games.

The fees go to the city’s general fund. Street permits, which are also charged for the use of sidewalks and open streets, bring in “a significant amount” of revenue, said Evelyn Erskine, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bloomberg.

City officials would not say whether they considered the plazas’ moneymaking potential while planning the changes to Broadway. The Department of Transportation referred all inquiries to the Street Activity Permit Office. That office administers the permits and in June adjusted its fees — which were already charged for the use of streets and sidewalks — to include the plazas, but it was not involved with the planning process.

The city has received 28 requests to use the pedestrian plazas. Twenty have been granted since the plazas opened in May — a rate of more than one per week.

Holding events has the benefit of making public space more visible, but it bears risks as well, said Fred Kent, founder and president of the Project for Public Spaces.

“If it’s a public event, then that’s O.K., but what can happen very quickly is they can be privatized and limit public use and public access,” Mr. Kent said. He cited the Bryant Park fashion show as an example of the latter, calling it “the most egregious private use of public space anywhere in the world.”

Pedestrian plazas are on Broadway at Times Square from 47th to 42nd Street, at Herald Square from 35th to 33rd Street, and where Broadway and Fifth Avenue meet between 22nd and 25th Streets. Smaller plazas, called Broadway Boulevard, take up one lane of Broadway between 42nd Street and Herald Square.

At 23rd and Broadway last weekend, one public space was focused on paint. Just behind the planters that separate the plaza from traffic stood four large purple cylinders, each stocked with brochures and color swatches from Glidden Paint. Three young men and women in bright T-shirts stopped passers-by to hand out paint chips and chat about colors.

“Paint usually gets a good response,” said Kristina Hurlburt, a Glidden representative who said she had sold all types of products. About one in every 15 pedestrians stopped to talk or glance through brochures filled with steel blue and deepest aqua.

The company paid about $2,600 per day for the right to erect its barrel-shaped displays.

Permits for events or activities on the plazas can range from $200 per day, for events that are not intended to draw the attention of passers-by; to $6,200 for “medium-size events,” which include significant setup, equipment and coordination; to $38,500 for large events that require big tents or street closings.

Those wanting to set up at Times Square or Herald Square will pay a premium: $8,950 for a small event and $20,250 for a medium-size event.

Mr. Bloomberg’s deputy press secretary, Mark LaVorgna, emphasized that clearing Midtown traffic congestion was the major motivation for the project. “The reason the project was instituted was part of an effort to unclog traffic, and that is what the project’s primary focus is,” Mr. LaVorgna said.

The permit fees are fair because events place a burden on city services, he said.

“You are using the city’s assets and it requires the use of city services to clean up afterward,” Mr. LaVorgna said. “You’re getting a city asset, so it’s paid for. It’s not irregular in that regard.”

New Yorkers pausing on the plazas Tuesday said that some events could be good, but they said they hoped the city would choose carefully.

“They’ll make more money, and I think it’s nice to engage the passers-by,” said Pamela Pekerman, a freelance writer. But the city should take into account the crowds that events would draw, she said.

“Would I have Mariah Carey here performing?” Ms. Pekerman asked. “Probably not.”

Michael O’Donnell, eating his lunch at the plaza just south of 39th Street, said he thought more space for pedestrians in Midtown would be ideal.

“I think they should be public space,” Mr. O’Donnell said, adding that he thought the size of the plazas constrained the possibilities. “Free concerts like in the park? That would be great.”

Evan Korn, director of the Mayor’s Office of Citywide Event Coordination and Management, said the permits office was being “diligent” in looking at the applications; though some are still processing, none have been rejected.

Wiley Norvell, the communications director for Transportation Alternatives, a group that strongly supported the plazas’ creation, said that maintaining the pedestrian areas could be expensive and that events would generate revenue for maintenance.

“We definitely see a place for these sorts of events, to help find the revenue stream to keep these spaces operating,” Mr. Norvell said.

He added that he hoped the city was keeping the communities’ interests in mind.

“It’s really important to strike a balance,” he said. “To do these things in very close consultation with the communities who actually use the spaces, so we don’t end up with public space that’s perpetually being occupied by events and not available to the residents that it was installed for in the first place.”
Big City: A Times Square for Our Time, Pedestrian in More Ways Than One
NYTIMES
By SUSAN DOMINUS
July 1, 2009

Note to the Department of Transportation: We all appreciate the merits of fast and cheap these days, but surely you can do better by Times Square.

Open since late May, the pedestrian mall at Times Square, where the city boldly closed off traffic, has a rough, slipshod feel — if anything, more slipshod now that the folding lawn chairs the Times Square Alliance provides are starting to show wear and tear, their plastic strips poking out below seats that sag so much they all but touch the ground. With yellow tape roping off discrete areas and the tacky chairs inviting passers-by to have a seat, sections of Broadway now look like something between a crime scene and an audience, which may be an inadvertent tribute to the culture of the space, but does not offer much in the way of aesthetics.

Granted, the chairs and orange barrels demarcating the pedestrian space are temporary. In fact, the entire project may be temporary: the city will not decide until December whether to keep the street closed to traffic. In any case, on Tuesday workers began painting parts of the pavement red, and there are plans to add a gravel surface in the coming weeks.

But right now, the pedestrian mall, it must be said, looks a little unworthy of New York. The city may be reeling from recession, but the huge orange plastic containers and tatty hardware-store chairs give the sense that it’s already letting itself go, like some Lehman Brothers wife who has not just forsaken her golden highlights, but given up on grooming altogether. Surely someone at Ikea could have helped the city ease this transition — maybe some witty, oversize umbrellas (sure, weighed down), or at least chairs that do not look like they are lonely for the company of pink flamingos.

Or maybe the problem is not the quality of the seats. Maybe the problem is all the people sitting in them. New York is a city of walkers, not sitters; a city of motion, not repose. In Times Square, tourists should be looking at New York, caught up in the swarm of activity and lights and commerce and theater; instead, New Yorkers find themselves looking at the tourists, a cordoned-off display of the temporarily sedentary.

“Is that what you think?” asked Gulshan Mia, 30, who was sitting on one of those chairs between 43rd and 44th Streets one recent morning, listening to music on her iPod. “But that’s because you’re from New York.” Ms. Mia is from South Africa, and was living up until a few months ago in Taiwan; even now, with an apartment in Jersey City, she would not necessarily call herself a New Yorker.

But she is not a tourist, either. Ms. Mia works at Toys R Us in Times Square, and is what you might call a pedestrian mall regular. She wakes up every morning a half an hour early just so she can get to Times Square, sit in one of those seats, listen to music and people-watch. She comes there on her work breaks, too.

She said she enjoyed the meandering pace of the tourists, and the international sign language of couples bickering over who gets the one chair that’s open at any given time. She watches global diplomacy in action as the Germans bum cigarettes from the Italians and the Italians bum a light from the British. At lunchtime, she makes eye contact with fellow nontourists on their lunch breaks. “I don’t know if you know the nod,” she said. “I’m starting to feel like I belong now that I get the nod.”

The landscape designer Diana Balmori said she thought of the makeshift mall as a kind of “tidal marsh,” a place where the land and water push up against each other, and it is not clear which will take over. For Ms. Balmori, the phrase represents Broadway’s new tentative divide between a street for cars and a space for people. It’s also an apt description for Times Square itself, a space half-defined by the city and half-defined by the tourists who inhabit it. And it captures the people like Ms. Mia, someone living in New York but not of it, like a few of the other self-described regulars parked in Times Square that morning: a restaurant manager with a thick Argentine accent, a hitchhiker lounging on a chaise who said he lived in New Orleans but summered in Manhattan.

Sitting beside Ms. Mia, I was starting to rethink my impression of the pedestrian mall, appreciating some of its merits, messy though they may be. But only for a minute.

“I just really like it here,” she said. “I find it strangely peaceful.”

We’ve come to accept the multitudes of adjectives that rotate in and out of use for Times Square depending on the era: gritty, dangerous, commercial, touristy, kitschy, overpriced, overcrowded, flashy, tacky, corporate. But peaceful?

That’s just wrong.

Op-Ed Columnist - note that Seattle is one of the five most popular metro areas!  Those who live in Seattle drink a lot of coffee (it rains a lot - few truly sunny days, except in July and maybe August)

I Dream of Denver
By DAVID BROOKS
February 17, 2009

You may not know it to look at them, but urban planners are human and have dreams. One dream many share is that Americans will give up their love affair with suburban sprawl and will rediscover denser, more environmentally friendly, less auto-dependent ways of living.

Those dreams have been aroused over the past few months. The economic crisis has devastated the fast-growing developments on the far suburban fringe. Americans now taste the bitter fruit of their overconsumption.

The time has finally come, some writers are predicting, when Americans will finally repent. They’ll move back to the urban core. They will ride more bicycles, have smaller homes and tinier fridges and rediscover the joys of dense community — and maybe even superior beer...


Town closes beach roads to cars on Sunday mornings
Greenwich TIME
By Meredith Blake, Staff Writer
Posted: 11/24/2008 07:55:20 AM EST

Having witnessed a cyclist get hit by a car at Greenwich Point and countless more vehicles whizzing through the narrow street that loops around the beach, Old Greenwich resident Bernadette Mazzella looks forward to the Sundays when the town closes it off to vehicles.

"It's very dangerous," she said. " I think they should close it all the time."

Starting Nov. 16 and running through April 12, traffic is restricted at Greenwich Point between 9 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. to allow bikers, rollerbladers, and walkers to move around without contending with vehicles, according to Amy Burke, a member of the board of directors of Friends of Greenwich Point. Individuals who need handicapped access or have boat permits can still drive through.

"It's so much fun to have those open roads," she said. "People look forward to it every year."

The program started 10 years ago by Friends of Greenwich Point that thought it would be beneficial. Children could learn to bike there and more people could use it, Burke said.

Old Greenwich resident Laura Parisi, 53, runs six miles from her house and around the loop several days a week.

"It is nicer to run when there is no traffic. People don't always drive the speed limit," she said.

For her, running at the Point is very peaceful and serene. With less cars, it is a little more manageable, she said.

Riverside resident Bouha Ddada, 51, who has walked the Point every week for 24 years, agrees.

"I feel better when it's closed to cars," he said.

But Old Greenwich resident, Alison Haney, 78, who bikes around the loop almost everyday, said that closing it often invites more biker and rollerbladers, making it crowded on the streets.

"It's busier, but I guess that's the whole point," she said.

Greenwich Point caretaker Mike Henry said that closing off the road does mean more people are out taking advantage of the streets, but with the lower temperatures, it's already much quieter than normal.

By 11 a.m. yesterday only approximately 50 people had entered the restricted access area, which begins by the last parking lot at the beach.

The Friends of Greenwich Point chose Sundays because it the lowest traffic time of the week and in the morning because it is the quietest time of day, said Burke.

Henry said some people do give him a hard time, saying they just want to go and park by the second beach to either picnic or enjoy the view, he said.

Cos Cob residents Giovanna and Alejandro Gillioti like to drive directly to the point and then walk around.

"It's a little annoying when they close it off," she said, " We're just used to starting off there and seeing the view and then walking."

But all agree, that whether its open or closed to traffic, it is a privilege to have such a beautiful location to walk or bike around.

"It's quiet and beautiful place. We're very fortunate. A great reprieve from the lunacy," Mazzella said.







Project for Public Spaces Inc.      
Car-Free Streets, a Colombian Export, Inspire Debate
NYTIMES
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
Published: June 24, 2008

When the crowds stream down Park Avenue and bicyclists have taken over Lafayette Street, the question may strike even the most ardent ambler: Whose idea was this, anyway?

Summer Streets — New York City’s recreational experiment that will convert 6.9 miles of Manhattan into a car-free park during parts of three Saturdays in August — originated in the Andes. It was born 32 years ago in Bogotá, Colombia, as the Ciclovía, or bicycle pathway, now a 70-mile route through the heart of the city that each Sunday attracts more than one million people on two wheels and two legs.

Bogotá’s model has inspired several cities to follow suit. From El Paso to Ottawa, exhaust pipes are becoming a target of disapproval, at least in some areas. Cars have been barred from Guadalajaran thoroughfares and alongside improvised Parisian beaches to make room for the helmeted hordes.

Gil Peñalosa, a pioneer of the car-free effort, flies from city to city planting the seeds of the Ciclovía, a program that he resuscitated a decade ago as Bogotá’s head of recreation.

When Mr. Peñalosa, 51, came into office in 1995, the Ciclovía, then eight miles long, was in decline and seemed to be on the verge of shutting down. Today, the weekly ride is nearly nine times longer and can draw up to 1.8 million participants on sunny days, Mr. Peñalosa said.

“It’s almost a magical thing that takes place when people go to the forbidden,” Mr. Peñalosa said in a telephone interview last week from Portland, Ore., where he addressed a conference on alternatives to car travel. “All of a sudden, the roads are filled with people and you have it to yourself.”

He spoke of the Ciclovía with a passion that lent itself to exclamation points: “There are no losers!” “It’s fantastic for business!” “It is the best thing Colombia has ever done!”

But the Ciclovía and similar experiments have critics. Business owners frequently complain that closing the streets reduces the flow of customers and hurts sales, and drivers gripe about inconvenience that results from sealing off major traffic arteries.

In New York City, where street fairs and parades already cause headaches for drivers this time of year, some worry that the new program, which will be in effect from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Aug. 9, 16, and 23, will make congestion intolerable.

Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the 11,000-member New York Taxi Workers Alliance, called the program “ridiculous” and said it will make it difficult for cabdrivers to break even.

August is the slowest month for drivers, Ms. Desai said, with the number of fares about 10 percent lower than normal. In addition, drivers are already expecting lackluster demand during August’s annual parades in celebration of India and Pakistan.

“I think the administration should remember that Manhattan isn’t just a playground,” Ms. Desai said. “It’s a place of work for thousands of people.”

New York City has gained a reputation as a metropolis unfriendly to cyclists, but the city has laid out plans to improve safety over the next few years for the estimated 112,000 daily bike riders.

Barbara Ross came to the city 15 years ago and was too scared to brave streets lined with parked cars, where opening doors can bring a bike ride to a sudden and painful halt. Ms. Ross, 45, is now a regular cyclist and a spokeswoman for the environmental group Time’s Up.

She said Summer Streets was a step toward making cycling the preferred means of travel for many New Yorkers. She also said that she hoped the effort would be popular and persuade the city to offer more lanes for bicyclists.

“It’s O.K. to start slow, but the city is going to need to take more chances,” Ms. Ross said. “The more bikers you have out there, the safer it is going to be.”

But some people think bicycles themselves can be a hazard. Bette Dewing, who lives on the Upper East Side and is a longtime advocate for pedestrians, said she was concerned about the safety of residents, particularly the elderly and disabled, while hundreds of bicycles whizzed down the streets.

“They have certain lanes that they’re supposed to stay in but they don’t. It’s just a free-for-all,” Ms. Dewing added.

Increasingly, events like the Ciclovía are not just about bikes. In Bogotá, dancers, aerobic exercisers and skaters are common along a route that Mr. Peñalosa calls a “paved beach.” People sunbathe, practice yoga along the streets, or sip mandarin juice in the shade.

It is the spontaneity of interaction that results from bringing together a wide variety of people that fuels Mr. Peñalosa’s zeal.

“When people come together — young and old, and rich and poor, and male and female, and fat and skinny, and tall and short — everybody!” he shouted. “Then it becomes such a fantastic togetherness, and the complaints go away.”


Famous designer of Brooklyn Bridge did one in Cincinnati, too.  American Planning Association held its Convention in the historic Hilton in that city in 1979, where "About Town" was asked to present findings.