Вітаю*
And welcome to this newsletter.
It's where I (John Surico) talk each month about cities & all their discontents: streets, environment, energy, cultures, people, food, form, etc. This month, we cover:
- How kids are taking (back) over the school commute;
- Our live-work travel patterns;
- The ground-level impacts of congestion pricing;
& much, much more.
Before going any further, I’d just like to extend my deepest gratitude to the sheer number of people who reached out with words of kindness and thoughtfulness regarding my cousin Matt’s passing last month, which I discussed in this space. Believe me when I say that it has made my day(s); something makes loss easier to bare when more people are keeping that person in mind. And I know my family appreciates it as well. So, to everyone reading this: thank you.
At some point these past few months, Streetbeat surpassed 700 subscribers—June’s edition was the most read one yet, with over 1,200 visits. And more people are even paying to read what I have to say and think about cities, which, as a journalist, is really, really neat. (No paywall for lots of media has done wonders to our self-esteem.) Here’s to continuing to build this little community from the ground up. Again, a big ol’ virtual hug is in order.
Now, onto some news:
Kidical mass
I’m trying to think of the first time I had heard or seen what a ‘bike bus’ was.
It may have been in October 2021—that hazy second wave of the pandemic—when an NPR story on Barcelona’s bicibús went viral, flashing images of hundreds of kids taking over streets on two wheels. Or it may have been on Twitter while following ‘Coach’ Sam Balto, who’s credited with bringing (or at least popularizing) the ‘bike bus’ concept stateside, in Portland. Either way, I’ve been mystified by the idea for some time.
Over the course of the last 50 years or so, something has happened in our towns and cities: kids don’t play in the street anymore. We see this in popular culture, right? Postwar TV and movies are chockfull of stickball, jump rope and bike riding, all unfolding on asphalt. Now, not so much. What’s changed? My mind often jumps to that scene in Wayne’s World, when Wayne and Garth are trying to play hockey outside Wayne’s house-studio but keep yelling ‘Car!’ every few seconds, constantly interrupted. That’s the simple explanation: we’re driving more—and bigger—cars.
But there was also a cultural shift that happened, where streets were increasingly seen as sinister; where strangers could lure you in with candy, and where every night, you’d be asked by a voice on a screen: “It’s ten o’clock—do you know where your children are?” (I also credit close friend James “Jimmy” Long with getting me to think about how horror classics like Halloween showed us a suburbia where nobody was ever around.)
I first wrote about this concept in London; the ever-expanding School Streets program(me!) there lets schools tame traffic out front during the morning and afternoon rush, which are disproportionately dangerous times. But the ‘bike bus,’ in my opinion, is an even more radical response to that change. In a growing number of places, a bunch of kids, led by parents and teachers, are hitting the streets yet again, to make the point that it can be safe. And maybe even fun.
This month, I covered the movement as it gains steam in New York and New Jersey for The New York Times. But more importantly, I got to ride along. (A few days later, the NYCDOT commissioner did, too!)
You can read it (and marvel in the photos, which I did not take) here.
The micro-sized commute
When we hear that downtowns or central business districts have lost foot traffic since the pandemic, whether in regular conversation or in the press, it’s worth remembering that our mobility is like energy: we don’t simply disappear; we just move… elsewhere. And for a few years now, one pandemic maxim that has stayed true is that our feet (and dollars) have landed locally. Your nearby shops are likely doing better than your downtown is. For lots of white-collar folks, remote work is keeping them around their neighborhood longer. And even if you are commuting five days a week now, you may have gained a new appreciation for what is close to you during those dark days of 2020.
But the way we get around hasn’t kept up. Mass transit was built to whisk you downtown—but rarely anywhere else. And having to drive a mile or two, when dealing with parking and traffic, isn’t exactly a shining model of efficiency. Our daily travel maps are scrambled, the tools to explore woefully outdated.
That’s where micro-mobility could have enormous potential. E-bikes (or even analogs) are probably best poised to replace short car trips than any other mode out there, and e-scooters have shown their worth as traffic-free alternatives. You’re not limited to a fixed route or path; you can go anywhere, quickly and cheaply. But in so many periphery neighborhoods in New York City and elsewhere, those options are sorely limited. And in this brave new world of travel, the city has to do more to make sure ‘transit desserts,’ where car ownership is an economic necessity, have options.
That was the gist of my first commentary as the Senior Fellow for Climate and Opportunity at the Center for an Urban Future. (And suddenly, a week later, the city announced that shared e-scooters will soon arrive in my home borough.)
You can check it out here.
OSA: Value add
This segment will be brief—summertime is busy time for the 31st Ave Open Street. We’re about to roll out merch (hot tees!) for our fundraising drive, which is 60% of the way to $10,000. Today is the finale of the city’s visioning survey, which recently surpassed 2,000 responses. We’re welcoming new volunteers regularly. And we’ve got loads of programming lined up every weekend. (Personally, I’m most excited for the screening of the PG-rated Jaws in mid-July.)
Instead, I want to make room for the arrival of Kaleidoscope, a beautiful new mural from Talisa Almonte that now decorates our bike corral.
As far as city processes go, getting this across the finish line was relatively smooth. We knew we wanted to add art to the street, so we approached the city about how to make this happen for the bike corral, a tiny strip of public space that they installed late last year. Their planners suggested ‘Artventions,’ a program where NYCDOT subsidizes a project that a community partner (like us) brings to life. We agreed to splitting the cost with them, 50/50.
Next, we held a design competition—we outlined the budget, and publicly asked artists to submit their renderings. We received 12. A select few of us (the ‘review team’) narrowed it down to three, based on factors like experience, substance, and feasibility. We went back to those artists, and got more details.
Talisa’s design always stood out. It was flowery and full of life—a palette of shades that don’t ordinarily match, but somehow worked here. We also knew her work well: she had vended at the monthly makers’ market, held by QNS Collab, for some time; her work is a local favorite of Astorians. That meant she was reliable and knew the Open Street well. (NYCDOT wholeheartedly agreed.)
After wildfire haze delayed implementation, Talisa got to work. A local eatery lent us their power washer, and we used cones and caution tape to mark the site. Talisa deployed an impressive army of volunteers each day, who helped her stencil and paint. Passersby offered water, snacks and hands. Each day, it grew brighter and brighter. And on Juneteenth, we held a little ribbon-cutting to commend her work. It was a joyous occasion to watch unfold.
That’s all to say: there is now beautiful art on this street. There are planters, which were recently repotted with summer flora. There is a bike corral, where one parking spot for a car became six for bikes. There are mulched trees and regular litter cleanup. And, of course, there is something for everyone each weekend. And none of that existed before.
I named this section ‘value add’ because I like to think it’s what great public space can do: add value, through community effort, to make a street a source of liveliness. You can tinker with the hard and soft infrastructure to turn an otherwise drab piece of asphalt into a place you want to be at, even if that just means adding some color. And Talisa’s mural is Exhibit A.
We love to see it.
Bright Side: Decongestant
I live in an area where ‘bridge-shopping’ is the norm. Every day, countless drivers go through the same motion: they hop off the Grand Central Parkway before approaching the Robert F. Kennedy/Triborough Bridge; they make a left turn and floor it down 21st Street; and then they cross over the Queensboro Bridge. Hello, Manhattan.
The difference between the two? One has a toll, and one is free.
This is a highlight of growing up in New York’s suburbs: parents would gloat that they had different routes to get their minivan full of kids into Manhattan for free, not having to pay for the tunnels or certain bridges. (My parents, exhausted, just paid.) Because when the state divvied up the bridges and tunnels in the 1960s to undermine master planner-villain Robert Moses, the city kept the East River bridges—and didn’t charge a dime. Left in its place was an uneven landscape: a select few free entry points, amidst an assortment of tolls. And because free is a helluva drug, the city is left with tons of local congestion. (We see a similar phenomenon with finding parking, too.)
If it all somehow works out, this will dramatically change next spring. This month, the federal government (finally) green lit congestion pricing, where the state will charge any vehicle entering Manhattan from 60th St. down. The era of ‘bridge shopping’ will end.
This is a seismic change to how people and goods move around the city; it’ll reverberate throughout the five boroughs. (And the country, as NYC is the first city to do this in the U.S.) But while most of the media’s attention has naturally focused on the traffic in Manhattan, I’m more interested in the hyperlocal impacts of congestion pricing, which are less notable but ultimately just as significant. Now that there isn’t a free bridge, that shortcut through Astoria isn’t as appealing to drivers, which means less cars and exhaust chugging through my backyard. What does that mean for air quality here? And traffic safety? And what about all of that freed up street space?
I’ll have plenty of more ink to spare as congestion pricing moves forward, as all eyes in the transit sphere will be watching Gotham. More soon.
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On the Radar
Parks for Profit: Selling Nature in the City (by Kevin Loughran)
When you think of a park, what comes to mind?
Is it endless vistas of green, checkered by footpaths and fountains? Is it your local playground or small park? Or is it a place where you can do a bit of everything—sit, chat, shop, run, cycle or simply be?
For Kevin Loughran, modern parks have taken a turn for the worst. In his dissertation-novel, he argues that the ‘picturesque’ parks of the 1800s and early 1900s, as well as those community parks of the mid-to-late 1900s, have given way to what he calls ‘post-industrial parks’ today. And he offers three examples: The High Line (New York City), the 606 (Chicago), and Buffalo Bayou Park (Houston). At these parks, it’s no longer about access to green space or recreation for the hoi polloi; the mission instead, he says, is cold hard cash: encouraging development, boosting tourism, and welcoming private influence. (In short: It’s neoliberalism, folks.)
My recent re-entry into parks research brought the book up the queue. It soared when it told the stories of each case study; mayoral ambition makes an appearance, as does gentrification and oil money. The High Line has become almost synonymous with condos, and exploring what it means when public housing residents who live just outside say they didn’t realize that park was for them is critically important. I’ve talked about parks equity here before.
But some points are tough to swallow. If you think parks weren’t always about opening land to le elité, then you should read about Seneca Village. And private money in parks is nothing new — public dollars certainly used to be more robust, but don’t forget that many of the parks in Europe were intended for royal or bourgeois outings. (Bridgerton shows this particularly well.) And at the end of the day, if folks like these parks — The High Line, which recently finished a ‘connector’ bridge to a transit hub, has become a ‘must’ on New York ‘to-do’ lists — is there value there? Does marveling in a new public space, even if its origins are messy, count for something? Anything? To some extent, I think so.
(H/t to park mastermind Charlie McCabe for the book share!)
Streetbeat Gig Board
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StreetLab, the nifty nonprofit that’s helping to activate Open Streets and public spaces citywide, is hiring a communications lead and program coordinator. (New York City)
The State University of New York, aka SUNY, is getting serious about decarbonization; their Climate Action & Infrastructure team is expanding to include a strategic partnerships and grants coordinator. (Albany, New York)
Carbon Brief, which does some of the best writing and research out there about the climate crisis, is in need of a data scientist. (London, UK or remote)