Streets For Whom?

Host: LivableStreets Alliance
Type: Education – Lecture
Network: Global
Date: Thursday, February 4, 2010
Time: 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Location: LivableStreets Alliance
Street: 100 Sidney Street
City/Town: Cambridge, MA

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Description
Should Segways be allowed on sidewalks? Should all bicycles travel only in designated bike lanes? Should motorized scooters be treated as if they are wheelchairs? Where should rollerblades, skateboards, adult tricycles, bikes with trailers or kick scooters travel? The world of personal mobility is expanding. But all those other modes are having a hard time finding their place on the streets and sidewalks of our cities. It seems someone always thinks one or more of the alternatives is unsuitable. The solution becomes clear if one applies a universal — human centered — design approach to the problem. It isn’t simple, it is just clear. It ends the discussion about vehicles. It starts a discussion about people and how they can get around in the city. Barbara will discuss the concept of human-centered design and showcase examples of streets in South America, the US and around the world. A Q&A discussion will follow the talk.

Barbara Knecht, R.A. is Director of Design at the Institute for Human Centered Design. She is also co-director of the IHP “Cities in the 21st Century” and a consultant to Westhab, Inc., an affordable housing and community development organization. Ms. Knecht holds a BA from UC Berkeley and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University. She was awarded a Kinne Fellowship, a Loeb Fellowship, and received a Graham Foundation grant. She serves on the Metropolitan Life/Enterprise Foundation Awards for Excellence in Affordable Housing, the Board of Directors of Care for the Homeless, and the Streetscape committee of the Municipal Art Society.

Free and open to the public. Suggested $5 donation. Complimentary beer provided by Harpoon Brewery.

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Street Talk: Design Advocacy, Designing For How We Move Through Space

Design Advocacy: Designing for how we move through space
by Shauna Gillies-Smith, landscape architect / Mark Pasnik, architect
Thurs, Nov 12, 7-9 pm
@ LivableStreets office, 100 Sidney St, Cambridge [ map…]

What do architects, landscape architects, and transportation planners have in common? What role does design have in transportation advocacy? Come investigate the movement of people and the ability of designed spaces to support and influence. See how architecture and landscape architecture can make cities more socially and environmentally sustainable.

Shauna Gillies-Smith ASLA, LEED AP will highlight landscape architecture and public art projects where the design and pedestrian experience determined the space. Shauna is principal of Ground Inc., a landscape architecture firm. Trained first as an architect and urban designer, her shift to landscape practice was motivated by the desire to reveal the potentials of surprise and pleasure in the urban experience.

Mark Pasnik RA, LEED AP will focus on a project that engaged students with alternative transportation ideals, but fulfilled them through facility design rather than traditional advocacy. Mark is the founding principal of over,under, a multidisciplinary design firm located in Boston’s South End, and director of pinkcomma gallery, which showcases contemporary design work from the Boston area.

“We shape our environment and thereafter our environment shapes us.” (Adaptation of a Winston Churchill quote)

Co-hosted by the Boston Society of Architects

StreetTalks are open to the public, $5 suggested donation, beer/sodas provided compliments of Harpoon Brewery and delivered thanks to MetroPed. Sponsored by LivableStreets Alliance. For more information, click here.

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Street Talk: Mode Shift Moving From Driving To Transit, Biking, And Walking.

This just in box

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Mode shift: moving from driving to transit, biking, and walking

Wednesday, July 22, 7:00 – 9:00 pm
by Jason Schrieber, Principal, Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates

@ LivableStreets office space, 100 Sidney Street, Central Square, Cambridge [ map… ]

free and open to the public, donation suggested. beer/sodas provided compliments of Harpoon Brewery and delivered thanks to Metro Pedal Power!

What makes people shift out of their cars? Is it building more subways, bike lanes, and better sidewalks? Is it financial factors like a gas tax, congestion charges, and parking prices? Is it land use patterns like a mix of uses, local retail and where people live and work? Or how about the health and environmental benefits? Think about the factors that make you choose to walk, bike, drive or take transit. What would make you, or the people you know, take one mode of transportation over another?

Come to the StreetTalk to hear Jason’s perspectives on these issues related to the metro-Boston area, and get a visual tour of some of the great places in the world for getting around. Jason will reveal some surprising truths comparing the subsidy for transit versus that for driving. He will talk about several local initiatives aimed at helping us achieve “mode shift”.

Jason Schrieber has 14 years of multi-modal planning and design experience including changing parking policies to better balance cars and other modes of transportation. Jason previously worked for the City of Cambridge where he managed all planning activities for the City’s transportation department. Nelson/Nygaard: www.nelsonnygaard.com

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Street Talks: What We Can Learn From Spain

What we can learn from Spain: Urban mobility planning in Barcelona
by Marius Navazo, Urban Planner, Barcelona, Spain
@ LivableStreets office, 100 Sidney St [ map…]

Thur, June 25 @ 7pm

What are the results of implementing better transit networks, traffic calming zones, and a bike sharing program? Are these measures always environmentally-friendly? Are they enough to create better places to live and enjoy? Learn about the development of urban mobility plans in Greater Barcelona and Catalonia, Spain. See what the Catalan Government is encouraging municipalities to do.

Marius Navazo is a geographer who has been working for the last 10 years in town and regional planning, focused on transportation and its impacts to improve cities from a social and environmental perspective. He has been working at the Catalan Government for the last 4 years, and now he is a freelancer working for different municipalities in the Barcelona area. Marius is currently a 6 month visiting fellow at the LivableStreets Alliance.

For more information about this StreetTalk, click here.
free and open to the public, donation suggested, beer/sodas provided compliments of Harpoon Brewery and delivered thanks to Metro Pedal Power!

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StreetTalk! Car-free Sundays In Bogota Colombia

StreetTalk!

Car-free Sundays in Bogota Colombia – How about more car-free parkways here in Boston?

Wednesday Dec. 10, 7:00 – 9:00 pm

Program includes 3 short StreetFilms on Bogotá, premere showing of LivableStreets Street Film on Mem Drive Sundays, and Special guest Renata von Tscharner from Charles River Conservancy. @ LivableStreets office space, 100 Sidney Street, Central Square, Cambridge [ map… ]

free and open to the public, donation suggested beer/sodas provided compliments of Harpoon Brewery!

Would you like to see car free days in Boston? Did you know that a section of Memorial Drive is car free every Sunday between April and November? Do you wonder what it would take to have a car free Storrow Drive? Did you know that over 70 miles of streets are car free every Sunday in Bogotá, Colombia thanks to their former Mayor, Enrique Peñalosa? And did you know that LivableStreets will be hosting Peñalosa in Boston in February?

Come watch StreetFilms about Bogotá, Colombia to see their street transformations and learn more about what Enrique Peñalosa did to start car free streets. Hear about advocacy efforts to get car free parkways. Learn about the history of the Memorial Drive car free days, and watch LivableStreets new film about it!

This event is sponsored by LivableStreets Alliance.

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