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Transportation Alternatives announced three winners today in their "Designing the 21st Century Street," competition, which sought new visions for the heavily-trafficked intersection of 4th Avenue and 9th Street in Park Slope. The intersection is notoriously dreary and annoying, with pedestrians coming from the east forced to cross several lanes of traffic to get to the shabby elevated F station, which will be renovated someday maybe, the MTA swears.
According to Transportation Alternatives, more than 100 submissions from 13 countries tried to tackle the intersection, "a crossing that exemplifies car-first design by encouraging speeding and reckless driving while all but ignoring the walking and biking environment. Submissions ranged from the esoteric (a giant mirror placed in the center of the intersection, slowing cars with the illusion of a head-on collision) to the fine-tuned weaving of dedicated bike, car and transit lanes."
The jury included artists, architects, and local residents, as well as Commissioner David Burney of the Department of Design and Construction and Alex Washburn, Chief Urban Designer for NYC. Each winner got a $4,000 cash prize and bragging rights, but the competition was not part of any official city plan, and the goal of turning Fourth Avenue into "a grand boulevard of the 21st Century" to rival Park Avenue is still just a pipe dream.
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it's nice to see that white hegemony still has a future in this country.
Hooray for all the winners. I guess.
none of these are that impressive or innovative, thankfully none of them will be offically used.
They all look like college campuses. Just sayin.
This location will look like this in 100 years give or take a decade or two.
Imagine that, ideas around making NY less car-centric. Cars will continue to rule, even in congested metropolises, unless cities take big steps toward reducing their access (congestion taxing) and improving mass transit (paid for through congestion taxes.)
Despite that this is not so much needed for 9th, this is very needed for 4th (absolutely dead at night).
I guess the freshman class at Pratt city planning needed an exercise. Here are the results.
Dream on, as Steven Tyler once sang.
The MTA has already cancelled a renovation of the decrepit 4th Avenue station -- it would have restored the glass panels. Would have been glorious.
Beside all that the sketches are unrealistic. 4th Avenue is a pedal to the metal truck route; where does TA propose the trucks go?
www.forgotten-ny.com
I think I actually WALKED thru that very same park shown in the pic during an acid trip. The produce stand is a little pricey tho.
Good for someone to solicit new ideas for this deadly intersection--remember those two boys who were killed here a few years ago?--and good for over 100 people to send in their ideas. It's gotten a conversation started (at least with all you naysayers) about a horrible intersection that's like so many others around NYC.
I can't believe all the reactions to this post are "it'll never work," "fuggetaboutit." You sound like Marty Markowitz, and that guy probably thinks 4th Ave & 9th Street is a great public space ("it moves cars, what else does it need?")!
Sorry I sound idealistic here, but if you want the city to change, to be a better, healthier, less polluted and less congested place (which I'd guess most Gothamist readers do), then you have to start the conversation, get ideas out there, help people see that things can change and create expectations that they will. I think this contest does a pretty good job of that.
To everyone who says these submissions stink: let's see your ideas!
It's not a matter that the ideas stink, it's a matter that the ideas are not realistic.
Give a box of crayons to children and they will draw lovely ideas. I love living in a fantasy world as much as the next person, but come on, the exercise was a waste of ink and paper. The chance of that becoming reality is about the same as peace in the middle east.
It might look like this in Second Life but it will NEVER look like this in Brooklyn.
I thought they got rid of all those Argentinian food vendors in that area.
One little note on the renderings and realizing that they were done by amateurs is that the shadows on the bodies in the foreground are cast from the right, but their bodies cast a shadow from a light source to the left.
Also the food vendor's canopy, the two lovers in blue and the trees do not cast shadows. What gives?
I think the guy sitting on the bench in the foreground was photoshopped.
This concept needed a team to develop? Oops sorry they are from Philly. Never mind.
I'm still not seeing any bright, or "realistic," ideas coming from Gothamist readers...
Here're a couple:
* Wider sidewalks and better sun exposure around and underneath the subway station to make the walk to and from the train safer and more pleasant instead of the gauntlet it is today;
* Protected bus lanes on 4th Avenue (maybe a combined bike/bus lane like in Paris and Chicago) to make more efficient use of street space and move people (not cars);
* Protected space for cycling on 4th Ave (see above) and 9th Street, which already has bike lanes and could easily be redesigned as physically-protected;
* Not part of this intersection, but to address Kevin Walsh's question about trucks: a cross-harbor rail-freight tunnel that would take 1,000s of trucks off NYC roads every year.
Before you tell me why these things won't work, tell me what you would do.
I would level that whole section of Brooklyn and make it a be-in for all cyclists. Then pray for a sleet storm in the middle of July. Shortly after that I would get all the full size suv's that are still in NYC and run over every cyclist that tries to escape.
After that I would buy strawberry ice cream and balloons for all the orphans while they lounge on the newly "planted" turf in the park.
But then again it's only an unrealistic dream. Kind of like the renderings shown above.
How about a plan that helps vehicles move easier instead of impeading their progress! Making people take a longer, more time consuming route isn't exactly a smart plan for the city's ecomony, and goes against the very intention of what streets are created for! Not everyone has a mass-transit option.
I think that this competition and these ideas are just the thinking that our great cities needs to be acknowledging. a street isn't just for the car. when we acomodate the car with our steets the neighborhood suffers and businesses close. a walkable pedestrian urbanism is the best environment for neighborhoods. Every time that roads have been close to cars and given to pedestrians a glorious public environment is created, and in fact businesses prosper more by losing vehicular traffic than by having it. I klike seeing these three submissions give the street to pedestrians, bicyclers, public transport, and communal gathering. This is the thinking that we need in cities.
Richard Rogers performed a study that actually proved that the number of people you know and communicate on your block correlates to the speed of traffic on your block. The more lanes and higher speeds of a street the less people you know on your block. Cars kill the neighborhood.
and to address the remarkably upsurd comment above
"Making people take a longer, more time consuming route isn't exactly a smart plan for the city's ecomony, and goes against the very intention of what streets are created for! Not everyone has a mass-transit option."
i give you wikipedia:
A street is a public thoroughfare in the built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable surface such as concrete, cobblestone or brick. Portions may also be smoothed with asphalt, embedded with rails, or otherwise prepared to accommodate non-pedestrian traffic.
Originally the word "street" simply meant a paved road (Latin: "via strata"). The word "street" is still sometimes used colloquially as a synonym for "road", for example in connection with the ancient Watling Street, but city residents and urban planners draw a crucial modern distinction: a road's main function is transportation, while streets facilitate public interaction.[1][2] Examples of streets include pedestrian streets, alleys, and city-centre streets too crowded for road vehicles to pass. Conversely, highways and motorways are types of roads, but few would refer to them as streets.[3][4]
i mean common...that guy must be from jersey am i right. even the nay sayers have to agree
Roads were originally built for wheeled vehicles and marching armies. Cow paths are meant for cows and people walking along same. Indian trails were mostly used for walking, since prior to the european invasion they didn't have domesticated horses. In Roman times wheeled vehicles were not allowed to use the city strata (streets) during daylight hours. But came nightfall all hell broke loose.
In modern times the bicyclists were at the forefront of getting better roads built so their sorry asses wouldn't be bruised as much. Then came the auto which pushed for better roads into the country.
If people want to lounge in the middle of roads, let them. People in cars and trucks will just run them over. End of problem protesters.
Once again "roads" tend to be intercity pathways, while "streets" are intracity pathways.
Just because someone feels there isn't enough space to park their fat butts to soak in the sun doesn't mean that they can just take over a much needed thoroughfare.
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."