नमस्ते*
And welcome to this newsletter.
It's where I (John Surico) talk each month about cities & all their contents: streets, environment, energy, cultures, people, food, form, etc. Thanks for being here, and hope you enjoy your time!
If you’re reading this, you’re likely celebrating (read: eking through) Merryneum, the period between the festive holidays and the new year. (I, for one, am glad it has a name.) Hopefully you’re getting some rest, and this final edition of Streetbeat in 2022 brings you solace.
I started this newsletter at the beginning of 2020, so every January does feel like an anniversary of sorts. Well, reader… we’ve made it another year. And while I won’t wax poetic about what this year meant (that’s what the rest of the newsletter is for!), I do want to do a quick ‘year in review’ for Streetbeat itself.
We wrap 2022 just shy of 650 subscribers—an increase of over 200 subscribers in just one year (!). And y’all are coming from all over: I see email addresses from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Hungary, Australia, France, and elsewhere. Streetbeat is recommended on Substack by my friends Sarah Barnes (Along for the Ride) and Elyssa Goldberg (Bokeh), and I recommend a few in kind. This monthly missive has sparked story ideas, generated conversations online, and is now synonymous with me. And each month, I love hearing from folks about something they read in it. (Don’t shy away from telling me what you don’t like!)
In 2023, I want to expand even further—maybe record audio, invite guest authors, do Q&As, and even tweak a few sections. This year, the Parklet of the Month became the Public Space* of the Month. I added a job board, ‘City in Spotlight,’ ‘OSA,’ and ‘Bright Side,’ for some regularity. And, of course, a picture of our cat at the end. (Which, I know, is what most people are scrolling down to as I speak.)
Who knows what the new year will bring. But whatever it does, Streetbeat will still serve its primary function: to talk out loud about what’s happening in our cities as they confront challenges, both new and old. I hope you’ll read it. And thank you, thank you, thank you for continuing to do so.
Now, onto the news:
Fund the rails
This was the year when the post-pandemic picture for public transit came into slightly better focus. Although the numbers vary widely depending on the city and its motions, people returned to buses, subways, and trains as work-related travel resumed and people just generally moved more. But new ridership realities have emerged. The weekends are normal-ish, but weekdays are still way lighter than usual. Mondays and Fridays are slow, but Tuesday to Thursday picks up. And when it’s not so nice outside, numbers plummet.
People may have differing opinions, but these fluctuations in our daily mobility clearly show that remote work is here to stay. (And of course, we’re still figuring out how that’ll affect everything.) So I’d argue now is the time to revisit the service strategy to boost transit ridership in the new year—one that doesn’t try to recreate the past, since that seems futile. Instead, we should use our revised routines as the base, in a bid to attract new riders rather than old. Think all-day service; weekends; and non-conventional routes.
But that means cities must confront the fact that the “fare” is no longer footing the bill. Fund the trains, and fund them well. In my latest piece for Hell Gate, I wrote a wish-list of sorts for the MTA—which just celebrated its billionth rider of the year—but the lessons could be applied to transit systems everywhere.
The era of open space
2022 felt like a turning point for the public realm. I think people have always understood in their subconscious why having more space in cities—green, blue, grey, etc.—is important for their well-being (i.e. it’s why we’re naturally drawn to parks). The pandemic merely lent a structure to that feeling. But something changed this year with the way elected officials spoke about it. I’m talking about San Fran’s decision to put a permanent traffic-free JFK Drive to a vote (which resoundingly won). Or L.A., the notorious car-land, opening up Griffith Park Drive to people. Or Boston and D.C.'s mayors reviving their respective open streets programs. Or London’s formerly Tory Westminster Council cheering the city’s “first new public space in 10 years.” The examples go on and on.
A big part of that tonal shift for local leaders is a more mainstream recognition of public space being good for business. (Yes, it’s capitalism.) Streets closed to cars, and shops thrived—because, oddly enough, there happened to be more people around. And 2023 will undoubtedly see this sentiment spread.
In Gotham, that was most vividly seen in the release of the “New New York” report this month. (I sat in on a few meetings for its drafting.) You had the New York City mayor, the New York State governor and tons of corporate execs all agreeing that, in commercial corridors, the city must pedestrianize its way out of the pandemic slump. Tons of ideas were floated—and we’ll see where they actually land—but many align with the New Parks Era report I helped co-author on behalf of Central Park Conservancy. The idea at its heart: more space = good.
Before I move on, I want to briefly cheer a few new bills passed by the City Council this month that will compel the Parks Department to create a capital reform blueprint to speed up project delivery time. (Because it is slooooooow.) That work was based on Stretching New York City’s Capital Dollars, a report I authored for Center for an Urban Future last year. Huzzah!
The healthy city
We’ve discussed this countless times before, but it’s always worth repeating: the cities we live in today are living, breathing public health machines. Our urban parks sprouted from a hunch that the more outside space we had to spread out, the safer we’d be from airborne diseases. Our sewer systems were built from the fact that untreated water could carry virus. And the homes we live in—from our radiators to our air filters—are all the results of decades’ worth of learning to cope with a microscopic threat.
COVID-19 was a wake-up call, for sure, but it was also just the latest exercise for cities that have contended with disease since their creation. (This underlies the belief that African cities fared better due in part to recent encounters with Ebola.) And like any pandemic before it, it’ll leave permanent imprints on the urban fabric—and we’ve started to see that take shape in different forms, as we know. But my hope is that some of the more innovative approaches to handling every aspect of the virus’s impact will have staying power.
In October, I worked with Bloomberg Philanthropies for The Guardian to spotlight four cities (all of whom received funding from The Partnership for Healthy Cities) who pushed the envelope on disease prevention, and hopefully we’re talking about them years down the road. Check out the project here.
OSA: The third year
When we started the 31st Ave Open Street’s third season in April, we didn’t know what to expect. Would volunteers sign up to help now that the pandemic had (seemingly) receded in peoples’ minds? Would there be any interest in programming now that performing arts venues had (partially) reopened? And would folks want to sit at bistro tables and chairs in the middle of the street now that diners had (gradually) returned indoors?
Wherever you looked, there was cause for concern. But at the season’s end, here’s the result. We now have the highest volunteer engagement yet, with close to 200 people on the mailing list and about 100 in our WhatsApp group, which doubles as a chat for all things local. (Like Nextdoor, but without the racism.) We had scheduled programming every weekend for eight months straight, which was largely external—i.e. folks reaching out to us—but partially internal, like volunteers running the monthly pet and book fairs, helping to throw special events (like Halloweekend), and coordinating equipment. And as for people sitting outside—well, see for yourself.
If Year 1 was the experiment and Year 2 was the proof of concept, then Year 3 was when the product went to market. We streamlined operations with help from The Horticultural Society. Regular programming came about through time, resources and a bunch of dedicated individuals—namely Bold PNuts’ popular trivia game and The Connected Chef’s Urban Farm Stand each Saturday, and monthly market operators like QNS Collab and S-Mall. (Their events basically double as small biz incubators now.) And we, as an organization, went pro: 31st Ave Open Street Collective, Inc., is now a registered non-profit of New York State. (Hello from its dutiful Chairman!)
But this was also one of the most challenging years yet. We had a bumpy start to the season with some of the businesses on the block—and frankly, it’s still unsettled. We had to mediate a number of conflicts with programmers—and between them. We pushed for more permanent infrastructure, and the city delivered on some lovely planters—but a curbside bike corral was installed a year late. And yes, we still get yelled at by drivers—just less often.
We’re learning to flip challenges into opportunities. We now coordinate more closely with the local businesses on promotion and logistics than before. (That spawned September’s restaurant month.) We now have clear guidelines and community agreements for all volunteers and programmers to read beforehand. We now have a better working relationship with NYCDOT and local elected officials, which amped up visibility for the Oonee bike parking pilot and other city-led initiatives. And we even have ready-to-go responses about the initiative (and nearby parking) when a driver asks.
Every public space is a work in progress. Our goals next year? Fundraise for ourselves and others during the off-season. Continue to build consensus. Make everything we do easier. Ramp up the programming schedule. And further reimagine what these two blocks can be for the community.
We hope to have more news soon on all ends. A big shout-out to everyone for getting us to this point: I started this section so you can see it truly takes a village—or, in this case, a street. Now, we enter hibernation, with our work cut out for us.
Bright Side: Leaps ahead
Cautious optimism had a good month. If you haven’t guessed, I’m a big believer in thinkers like Mariana Mazzucato, who argues that the public sector—government at all levels, from City Hall to the United Nations—is the true innovator, because it can absorb risk like no other and force the private sector to follow its lead. (This, of course, is my feeling towards cities, which is this newsletter’s esprit de corps.) And December was high time for that theory.
It was in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (a federal facility in California) this month that 192 lasers were shot at two hydrogen atoms, causing, for the first time in human history, a contained nuclear fusion reaction—a big step towards the dream of limitless energy. And it’s because of actions taken this year by the European Union, the U.S., the African Union, and a slew of countries in the Global South that led the International Energy Agency—which does not parse words about our modern condition—to announce this month that renewables will surpass coal as the world’s largest power source in three years.
Both cases were unexpected: fusion has been a pipe dream up until it wasn’t; the war in Ukraine sped up the green transition, at a great cost. And in both cases, the markets have shifted into hyperdrive, which will further open the window of opportunity. But it took bold decisions from the bottom up to get us there. And, for me, that’s enough reason to hope 2023 will be filled with more bright sides.
City in Spotlight: Jersey City
(Want to shout-out a favorite metropolis of yours? Message me!)
Here’s a role reversal for you.
The last time I wrote about Jersey City was in 2018, when it was the first municipality in New Jersey to adopt Vision Zero, the policy goal of zero traffic fatalities. As other cities brought down their numbers, Jersey City had gone in the opposite direction. So I asked advocates, victims’ families, and the mayor what could be done to stave off this small city’s crisis on its streets.
Cut to 2022. After decades of decline, we’re in the midst of a national surge in traffic fatalities—yet another only-in-America problem, like mass shootings, and a pandemic hangover that will drive policy conversations for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, Jersey City is about to cap a year of no traffic fatalities. The city has effectively achieved Vision Zero on the corridors it controls. Once an outlier, the city could now better serve as a national model for safe streets.
So how did they do it? In my latest feature for Bloomberg CityLab, I spent a few days across the river to find out. But it boils down to four key planks:
Use active demos to build support. Skip the local meeting; build a prototype, ask people what they think, and then decide.
Make changes easy to make. Our cities are hampered by processes and permits made for a different era. Time to modernize.
Keep trying new things. If the bike lane or street design isn’t working, upgrade it with different materials. Pilot until it works.
Lead by example. Do the easier projects first, start a culture shift, and grow from there. People will take notice.
Needless to say, I was glad to be back.
Public Space of the Month: December 2022 Edition
(Have a public space you love? Send me your faves!)
Name: The Monon Trail
Where: Indiana
Features: Any time we visit my sister and her family in Carmel, IN—like we did this year for the holidays—we go to the Monon. It’s hard to miss it: the rails-to-trails link to Indianapolis, opened in 1999 on the former site of the Monon Railroad, now serves as the city’s backbone of growth. The downtown is teeming with in-fill projects popping up around the Monon—dense housing; mixed-use retail; parking garages. Even the town’s popular Christkindlmarkt is along it. Carmel could certainly use ancillary routes to connect to it but its famous roundabouts help. In the final days of 2022, the counter clocked over half a million pedestrians and close to 200,000 cyclists.
Streetbeat Gig Board
(Have a job to post? Submit it here.)
The CITY, a local reporting outfit in New York, is hiring—a rarity in media right now.
Brooklyn’s soon-to-be-permanent Vanderbilt Ave Open Street is looking for a program manager.
Sustrans, a major active travel advocacy group in the UK, has vacancies.
The Manhattan Borough President, who has emerged as a vocal leader for street redesigns, is in search of a transportation/infrastructure analyst.
New York Restoration Project needs a community outreach manager for a new greening initiative with public housing residents.