Queen's SURP Alumni

Slideshow | Patrick Condon’s ‘Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities: Design Strategies for the Post-Carbon World’

From Island Press:

How can the design of cities address the challenge of climate change? Patrick Condon, author of Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities, presents simple guidelines for community design that can help cities flourish in the post-carbon world.

For more on Condon you may want to check out this 7 minute presentation.

(Photo credit: Daniel Lerch, Post Carbon Institute)

(Reblogged from plantedcity)

Feb 14

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10 Principles for Sustainable Transport + Free, Downloadable Book!

From architect Jan Gehl and and Walter Hook, Executive Director of the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), come the following 10 principles for sustainable transport:

1. Walk the walk: Create great pedestrian environments
2. Powered by people: Create a great environment for bicycles and other non-motorized vehicles
3. Get on the bus: Provide great, cost-effective public transport
4. Cruise control: Provide access for clean passenger vehicles at safe speeds and in significantly reduced numbers
5. Deliver the goods: Service the city in the cleanest and safest manner.
6. Mix it up: Mix people and activities, buildings and spaces.
7. Fill it in: Build dense, people and transit oriented urban districts that are desirable.
8. Get real: Preserve and enhance the local, natural, cultural, social and historical assets.
9. Connect the blocks: Make walking trips more direct, interesting and productive with small-size, permeable buildings and blocks.
10. Make it last: Build for the long term. Sustainable cities bridge generations. They are memorable, malleable, built from quality materials, and well maintained.

The principles are found in the free, downloadable book, ’Our Cities Ourselves: 10 Principles for Transport in Urban Life’, which:

shows how cities from New York to Nairobi can meet the challenges of rapid population growth and climate change while improving their competitiveness. The publication’s purpose is to reframe the issue of transport so that it is no longer seen as separate from, but rather integral to, urban design.

The book was published as a part of the global Our Cities Ourselves campaign to:

bring attention the critical role of transportation in climate change and rapid urban development.

(Photo credit: Our Cities Ourselves and Fábrica Arquitetura and CAMPO aud)

Feb 02

plantedcity:

Talk: Joyride: Walking and Pedaling Toward a Healthier Planet

Mia Birk was in Vancouver last week to talk about making our lifestyles, cities and planet healthier by getting around more by foot and pedal. Birk, CEO of Alta Planning + Design, an advisor to the Post Carbon Institute, and former manager of Portland’s Bicycle Program (1993-1999) recently wrote the book Joyride: Pedaling Toward a Healthier Planet, which:

tells the dramatic and enlightening behind-the-scenes story of how a group of determined visionaries transformed Portland into a cycling mecca and inspired the nation.

Through a panoply of hilarious and poignant stories, Birk takes readers on a 20-year rollercoaster journey of global and local discovery and education, while bringing into sharp focus some of the planet’s most pressing and hotly debated energy and transportation issues, policies, shortcomings, and solutions.

Her talk follows in the same vein and is a great compliment to the people focused city building efforts of Jan Gehl and others.

You can also read a summary of Birk’s book and highlights of Portland’s bike success story here. I was particularly impressed by the following bit information:

Portland built its entire 300-mile network of bike ways for the cost of a single mile of urban freeway.

(Image: http://tinyurl.com/22oeat5)

(Reblogged from plantedcity)

Jan 27

climateadaptation asked: Hi there, sweet tumblr! m

Right back at ya! You’ve got some great content of your own. Particularly enjoyed your post on taking on climate skeptics and obstructionists the other day. The Biking in the Netherlands video is a goodie too.

Cheers!

Jan 26

A Video Made for Urban Planning Nerds: ‘I Don’t Care’

I came across this great video today as I was reading a Twitter newspaper. Yup, you read that right: a Twitter newspaper. I know. Shocking. Well, it was at the beginning of my Twitter adventure anyway. Now I just find them to be pretty effective media aggregators.

Anyway, back to the video where a bearish real estate agent tries to convince his client set on living in a gated community to consider a traditional neighbourhood instead. He patiently points out financial, health, lifestyle and environmental benefits but to most she amusingly and simply responds, “I don’t care.” This is the key appeal of the video. It is cute and cheeky. But it is also a pretty effective and fun way of getting across complex information. Planners could use simple animation like this as a part of community engagement efforts. There’s plenty of inspiration around including RSA Animate, Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff series and now Vancouver’s Greenest City Draft Action Plan.

There was one more thing I wanted to mention about this fine little video. The gated community supporter reminded me of climate change deniers who continue to confuse efforts to reduce our global and national carbon output. Frustratingly and sometimes infuriatingly they are often people who no matter how clear and compelling the evidence refuse to step out of their little bubbles of unreality. Their mind is set and nothing’s going to change it. What’s their response to global scientific consensus? “I don’t care.”

SG

Jan 19

Allison Arieff on New York City’s Taxi of the Future Contest

Allison Arieff, editor at large for GOOD and New York Times writer, has a new article looking at NYC’s “Taxi of Tomorrow” competition. While they’re a long way from the yellow cabs featured in the 1980s hit show ‘Taxi’ Arieff is not particularly impressed with the three finalists; describing them as dull, boxy and lacking in imagination.

But, along the way she brings up some important issues about the role(s) of taxis in urban environments:

The winner stands to supply more than 13,000 medallion taxis for at least a decade, a deal that could be worth up to $1 billion. Imagine if, in turn, the yellow spots monopolizing New York’s streets could help transform the urban landscape, perhaps by being smaller and more streamlined, having less environmental impact, or providing more comfort, convenience and aesthetics to passengers. What if the “tomorrow” part manifested itself not just in the object (the car) but in new initiatives inspired by the broad national movement toward collaborative consumption, like a taxi-sharing app that could help facilitate carpooling from J.F.K. into the city?

In an effort to address these and other issues Arieff connects with “artist/inventor (and former R&D guy for Honda) Steven M. Johnson, a self-described conjurer of “ludicrous” ideas” who ended up producing 60 taxi concepts of his own following their conversation. Nine are featured in a slideshow accompanying Arieff’s article.

While Johnson’s concepts don’t appear to answer all of Arieff’s questions they are inventive and, as she reminds us:

sometimes the wildest ideas result in the best solutions.

As for my favourite, I like the ‘bike-friendly’ concept, which is amusing, if not particularly practical or safe. It seems inspired by the ‘straddling bus’ concept that lit up planning and transportation media last year.Taxi!

SG

Jan Gehl on Creating ‘Cities for People’

For more than forty years Jan Gehl has helped to transform urban environments around the world based on his research into the ways people actually use—or could use—the spaces where they live and work. In this revolutionary book, Cities for People, Gehl presents his latest work creating (or recreating) cityscapes on a human scale. He clearly explains the methods and tools he uses to reconfigure unworkable cityscapes into the landscapes he believes they should be: cities for people.

Gehl addresses these ideas in the video above, which was shot at the Cooper Hewitt – National Design Museum in New York City.

Dec 20

plantedcity:

Video: Streetcars, light rail around the world

This video is from the CNN article Can streetcars save America’s cities? which profiles efforts to improve transportation choices and arguments against and in favour of streetcars.

(Reblogged from plantedcity)

Dec 17

Video: Munich’s Innovative Strategy to Encourage Biking in the City

Dec 15

Video: New York Bike Wars

As mentioned in the previous post cities around the world are taking on the challenge of making their neighbourhoods more healthy, livable and sustainable by making it easier to get around as a pedestrian or cyclist. However, as with any change it is contentious and there are vocal advocates on both sides. For example, we saw this recently with a rant by Canadian hockey pundit Don Cherry in Toronto; Vancouver is going through the same with its recent separated lane additions; and New York is also showing some backlash to the efforts of Janette Sadik-Khan and PlaNYC. In this context I thought the above video from Ecomobility TV might be of interest. It admits that there are issues with bike lanes but takes time to explain some of their benefits and the need for calm on all sides.

SG