Streetbeat, Vol. XIV
Transport Camp, lessons for resiliency, and a smoother ride.
Привет!
For some reason, it seems like it’s been a while. One friend pointed out that March 2020 felt like a century of emotion, and March 2021 has felt like a day in comparison. Sure those feelings resonate for a lot of folks right now, a year into this pandemic. But ‘spring awakening’ certainly has new meaning this year. In New York, the city is contending with the overwhelming news of near-universal vaccination, offering early glimpses of what a post-pandemic world will actually look like. Add in legal pot, the advent of congestion pricing in Manhattan, big shifts underway in Washington, an engrossing political scandal in the state capital, and also, a mayoral race. (Which I’ll have more on in the coming days.)
In short: it’s a lot to digest. Let’s start somewhere:
Au revoir, City Monitor
The space for journalistic writing on cities seems to ebb and flow these days. The Guardian’s Cities vertical winded down at the end of 2019, and CityLab, now a Bloomberg site, became the heir apparent. Then, as lockdowns unfolded, major news outlets began to dedicate serious coverage to the immense complexities surrounding streets, parks, housing, and other major urban issues. Because you simply couldn’t escape them.
Amidst it all came City Monitor, a new website from the New Statesman that promised to provide another outlet for city-related coverage at the height of the pandemic. But after barely half a year, the plug has unfortunately been pulled.
In those fast few months, I was able to work alongside some spectacular editors who had a lot of ambition and excitement with what they were putting out. (Special shout-outs to Sommer Mathis, Allison Arieff, and Adam Sneed.) They let me present some fascinating research from my colleagues at PEAK Urban on the proximity and quality of urban green space, as well as what I was seeing the UK do to promote cycling and walking. And the site had really nice stories, like this one on bikeshare’s historic year and another on bookstores’ role in the “15-minute city.”
In short: we hardly knew ye, City Monitor. But you will be missed.
Hello, Transport Camp London
In lighter news, we may be nearing a point where future scenario planning is kinda sorta possible.
Around this time last year, I was busy co-organizing Transport Camp London, a three-day weekend “unconference” where folks from all over the transportation world—planners, designers, operators, startups, advocates, activists, and even a few journalists, maybe—talk shop in an open-source format. We had venues booked, a rough itinerary compiled, and a tentative date in May 2020 planned. And then, the world stopped.
Now, it looks as if Transport Camp London could come back next fall. If all goes well, I’ll be returning as a co-organizer with colleagues Steve Chambers and Sarah Barnes (and soon to be more!). The theme, of course, will be the post-pandemic recovery, and while we still don’t have a venue or date set, the first step is garnering interest. If you’re looking to volunteer or organize (if only remotely), join our mailing list here.
Class update
I returned to teaching this semester at NYU with a new senior-level undergraduate course on reporting about cities, and how they’re changing. (And good news: I’ll be back next fall as well!) And while I’ve been mum on details, it’s because we’ve been busy! With engaging guest speakers, like Winnie Hu, Ben Kabak, and Laura Bliss; insightful conversations about everything from the Amazon union efforts in Alabama to food insecurity; and, of course, some really nice writing.
If you’d like to follow all of the great work coming out of our class, we have an Instagram and Medium. Give us a follow!
Solutions Corner: Local lessons on economic resiliency
Since we moved back to Astoria, Queens, in February, Angela and I have been stunned by both how much and how little things have changed.
Of course, when we left in September 2019 for the United Kingdom, there were no masks, social distancing, capacity limits, or this looming tragic dread that hangs over seemingly every activity. But also, the empty storefronts dominating headlines—one recent study: a third of businesses on main streets in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy remain vacant—are just not as apparent here, mirroring a larger trend of urban peripheries recovering faster than cores. No doubt there are a few (one of the area’s most famous eateries, Queens Comfort, a good example), but nothing like what a trip elsewhere may hold. In fact, Astoria’s unemployment rate is hovering around 6%, nearly ten percent less than the citywide average. And anyone who has voyaged here recently knows that it also feels that way, too. (Perhaps sometimes too much.)
That doesn’t discount what could be happening behind the scenes, like the 90 percent of hospitality spots that are late on rent, or the third of small businesses that may be gone forever. But it does say something about the economic durability of the surrounding area—which may yield lessons for other municipalities as we enter a post-pandemic recovery. Here are three that I’ve been thinking about:
Encouraging local pride. Perhaps it’s frustration (or rejoice) that this corner of western Queens never received the same stardom that parts of Manhattan or Brooklyn have. But Astorians love Astoria. We have small local zines; a plethora of citizen-led social media accounts (including an active Reddit, which I’m an avid patron of); our own food chains; a small world of activists and advocates; and now, a highly organized (and impressive) mutual aid effort. And since Astoria is particularly large for a New York City neighborhood, a hyper-local subdivision occurs: people identify based on where they live (“I’m off Steinway;” “I’m on Ditmars;” “I’m near the park.”) And that sense of place yields a feedback loop for activity: long before the pandemic, many Astorians didn’t leave on weekends. They stayed here.
Creating a diversity of destinations. But people need something to actually do, outside of just craft breweries and coffee shops. (Which I feel like so many American cities have gone all in on as their ‘revitalization’ strategies.) One big pull of Astoria is that it contains multitudes: an endless assortment of cuisines, now with outdoor dining; small-, medium- and large-sized parks; standout museums; outdoor plazas; street art; libraries; dance studios; waterfront access; a famous TV/movie studio; a hospital; and, yes, breweries and coffeeshops. All in one neighborhood. Cities may not be able to control who their commercial tenants are, but they can certainly encourage this level of diversity through the development of mixed-use sites, public art and cultural institutions, and parkland/greening sites. (And also protect small businesses through maybe commercial rights legislation.)
The idea: make people want to explore. And, hey, who knows — maybe they’ll stick around for a while.
Establishing highly accessible corridors. No matter where you are in Astoria, you’re never more than a 15-minute walk from a corridor with shops and services. Every other avenue here is built for commercial, and even the residential avenues have a few spots as well. If you wanted to go a bit further, subways, buses and now various micromobility (Citi Bike, Revel, etc.) can easily lift you around. The neighborhood is remarkably accessible, serving as a micro-sized case study of “the 15-minute city” trend so many cities are now talking about. Especially during the pandemic, when countless workers went remote.
Cities can follow suit with a shift of focus to, as Tiffany Chu argued in Forbes, the neighborhood center, as both a transportation and developmental strategy: make it more seamless to get around without a car; and pair commercial closer to residential wherever possible, so are people within walking or cycling distance of businesses. Strategically spread out your corridors: they’ll garner footfall because so many will live so close. And create pleasant destinations that people want to come back to time and time again. (I’ll have a story out on this soon, so stay tuned…)
The Bright Side: A more comfortable ride on commuter rail
As I’m sure you, the reader, know, public transit has a ridership problem right now. It’s not so much that riders are abandoning buses and trains en masse, as this piece in The New York Times asserts; instead, I’d argue that people are just not traveling as much, with remote work taking out a major chunk of weekday commuters. That’s not to say concerns over cars roaring back as the climate crisis comes down the pike aren’t pressing on an incredibly existential level. They are—but the question of transit’s actual function in the future is also a top priority.
Nowhere is that more apparent than commuter rail, which has sank the most. Suburbanites are staying home, a seismic shift when considering how much revenue they contribute to metropolitan regions. So agencies and cities will need to figure out smart, equitable ways to get folks back on board, when they feel safe to do so.
In New York, the MTA looking to allow subway riders to use commuter rails for cheap is certainly a step in the right direction—the city has great rail infrastructure lying around that would help riders in transit deserts, but right now, it’s not being used because of fare prices. Yet what I thought was equally as consequential is this new technology that allows riders to see where seats exist from the platform.
Tech like this was formerly limited to mobility apps, like Google Maps and CityMapper; now this data is being applied in real-time, like countdown clocks. Of course, it’s pandemic-oriented, with social distancing in mind. But tweaks like this are what’s going to make a difference post-pandemic. If you want to get riders back, riding itself needs to be as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. Especially if you’re competing with the ultimate convenience machine: the car.
Finally, some food for thought…
I took this photo because this is where most people stand when they’re waiting to cross the busy 31st Street in Astoria. It’s not the sidewalk; it’s just beyond it, but before the traffic lanes — this gray space. But it is the street. And I think it’s a great example of how design improvements can be seen in everyday movement. Sorta like ‘sneckdowns.’
People move in all different ways—short spurts, long streams, right, left, center. And sometimes, they may not abide by what the city designed for them, often because the planning didn’t prioritize them first. Any planner who spends a few minutes at this corner will notice that pedestrians aren’t waiting at the corner, like they intended them to. But this disparity is where changes can be made. For example: instead of penalizing jay-walking, maybe it’s a call to create more mid-block crossings. Since that’s how people gravitate anyway. And the same goes here, underneath the subway on 31st Street. Expand the curb. The people are there anyway.
“If you really want to show power in its larger aspects, you need to show the effects on the powerless, for good or ill - the human cost of public works. That's what I try to do, show not only how power works but its effect on people.”
- Robert Caro, the author of “The Power Broker,” an exhaustive biography of how Robert Moses changed New York and cities everywhere. (Which I’m nearly done with this month!)
P.S. for those who may know me, Angela and I welcomed a third roommate into our lives last month. She’s already behind on rent:
See you all next month!
Welcome Kita!