Street Talk: Bicycle Planning In The Netherlands

Street Talk!

Bicycle Planning in the Netherlands

Thursday Nov. 20, 7:00 – 9:00 pm
by Hans Voerknecht, International Coordinator of the Dutch Bicycle Council

@ 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!

Learn about bicycle planning in the Netherlands from the International Coordinator of the Dutch Bicycle Council (Fietsberaad).

The Dutch rely ever more on the humble bike for transport as pollution concerns and high petrol prices give new impetus to traditional pedal power in the only country with more bicycles than people. The Netherlands, home to just over 16.3 million people, actually boasts some 18 million bicycles– 1.1 bikes per person.

Not even the wet climate seems able to put a spoke in the wheels of the Dutch, who weave through city traffic shrouded in plastic on rainy days, transporting anything from pets and children to groceries, musical instruments and plants on their bikes. Many a parent can be seen negotiating traffic with a child secured to each end of a bicycle with shopping bags and even a briefcase secured to the sides.

This event is cosponsored by LivableStreets Alliance and MassBike. Many thanks to Anne Lusk and the Harvard School of Public Health for bringing Hans to Boston.

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StreetTALK: Using Transportation To Transform Communities

Got this in the emails today, looks promising for you transportation wonks.

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StreetTALK: “Using Transportation to Transform Communities: Learning from the Anti Highway Movement of the 1960’s”

Details:
STREET TALK!
“Using Transportation to Transform Communities”
Thu. Sept. 25, 7 – 9 pm
by Ken Kruckemeyer and Ann Hershfang
LivableStreets | Event/activity
@ LivableStreets office space, 100 Sidney Street, Central Square, Cambridge map…

Learning from the anti-highway movement: A grass roots movement swept Boston in the 60’s and led to, among other things, the orange line subway and park known as the Southwest Corridor. Meet some of the individuals who made this happen and hear their stories.

Event is free and open to the public, donation suggested, beer/sodas provided compliments of Harpoon Brewery!
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In the years following World War II, America was becoming increasingly highway development oriented. In the 60’s and 70’s a grassroots movement prevented several major highway projects from destroying its neighborhoods, and instead shifted funding to transit expansion, which we now take for granted. This activism prevented the development of several major highway projects which had the power to destroy Boston-area neighborhoods.

It is due to the efforts of steadfast neighborhood champions like Ken Kruckemeyer and Ann Hershfang that the City of Boston and the State decided against extensive highway development projects and instead shifted funding to the expansion of public transportation; which we now take for granted.

Of the many outcomes of this moment, two visible successes are the:

(1) Prevented development of the “inner belt” which was a highway that would have cut clear through Cambridge’s Central Square and Cambridgeport neighborhoods

(2) Tossing out what was to be the multi-lane “Southwest Expressway” that would connect Boston to points south via the Roxbury and Jamaica Plain neighborhoods in favor of the mulit-use transportation corridor and green space we now know as the Southwest Corridor Park and MBTA Orange Line subway.

Click here for a short WBUR piece highlighting Ken…

Click here for more history…

Click here for an interview with Ann…

More about Ken & Ann

Ken is a private consultant specializing in the design of civil infrastructure, focusing on integrated public transport systems, pedestrian and bicycle facilities, and roadway and bridge design. He is also an adjunct Research Associate at the Center for Transportation and Logistics and Lecturer in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the MIT. Ken served as Associate Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Works from 1983 to 1991. Mr. Kruckemeyer is an Architect with degrees from Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a Loeb Fellow in Advanced Environmental Studies at Harvard University.

Ann has extensive experience in all facets of the transportation business, including serving on the Board of the Massachusetts Port Authority and 10 Years on the Massachusetts Turnpike Highway Board, as well as founding Walk Boston, a non-profit membership organization dedicated to improving walking conditions in cities and towns across Massachusetts. In essence, her entire professional experience stemmed from her involvement in the Anti-Highway Movement.

This event is sponsored by LivableStreets Alliance

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Street Talk Series: Transportation Reform For The US- Are Americans Ready?

“Transportation reform for the US- are Americans ready?”
Thu. Aug. 21, 7 – 8:30 pm
by Gary Toth, Director of Transportation Initiatives for the Project for Public Spaces
@ 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!

“The decisions engineers make will affect people’s lives. The street can’t be looked at as just a vessel for cars. It’s a place with many uses. What we want to do is try to help foster sustainable, livable communities,” Toth says.

That’s strong stuff coming from an engineer with 34 years experience inside the highway bureaucracy. And it’s not just a line he throws out to soothe angry citizens’ groups–Gary Toth during his tenure at NJDOT actually changed the way engineers think. In the old days, NJDOT would give most street widenings the green light, but Toth is dedicated to halting this vicious cycle. Instead of funneling all traffic from every residential and commercial property onto the strip, NJDOT is encouraging towns to create networks of streets with mixed-use developments, dispersing traffic over the whole system. The idea is to create livable corridors rather than endless sprawl. Sounds simple enough, but it’s actually a revolutionary change in suburban transportation and land use planning. He notes how Kentucky, Utah, Florida, Vermont and other states are joining New Jersey in seriously studying Context Sensitive Solutions–the discipline’s name for looking at streets and roads as something more than simply a way to move traffic. “It’s becoming a national movement with 20 or 25 states already showing some signs of getting away from the same old myopia.”

Gary has left NJDOT to focus on bigger transportation reform in America. He is an integral member of the T4America Coalition, which is working to shape the content of the next federal transportation bill. He is currently one of the eight instructors for USDOT’s “Training Course on Transportation and Land Use.” He is also a member of the Sustainable Urban Design Working Group of the American Public Transit Association and a member of the Strategic Highway Research Program’s Technical Coordinating Committee for Capacity. He was also part of the Sustainable Transportation Study Team charged with creating a conceptual plan for presentation to the US Congress, which ensures that the surface transportation system will continue to serve the needs of the U.S. throughout the 21st Century. Gary works part time for the Project for Public Spaces as Director of Transportation Initiatives.

Gary was featured in the article, “Rethinking the Urban Speedway,” (pdf) (For decades, highway engineers focused on designing wider, straighter, faster roads. Now, moving traffic quickly is no longer the sole goal), Governing Magazine, October 2005. “The traditional engineering solution to road problems is to make the road wider, straighter and faster,” Toth says. “Well, wider, straighter and faster is not always better.”

This event is sponsored by LivableStreets Alliance

Click here for more information

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