Archive for the 'Walking' Category

Stop Sign of Death?

Published
by
Rob Jordan
on March 9, 2008
in Intersections, Meridian, Miami Beach, Pedestrians, Police, Public Works, Urban Design, Walkability and Walking
. 12 Comments
I live next to a busy intersection in South Beach - Meridian Avenue and 13th Street. It’s the main entryway to Flamingo Park as well as the beach’s central avenue. It’s the only tree-shaded roadway around. Suffice to say, there’s a lot of traffic: cars, bikes and pedestrians.

Within the past few months, four-way stop signs went up at the intersection, making it significantly safer, or so I thought. One of the stop signs is all but hidden behind a tree. Cars blow past it all the time. This is doubly dangerous considering pedestrians now assume cars will stop at the intersection. There are people pushing baby strollers to the park, little kids going to shoot hoops, people walking their dogs.

I emailed the city to point out the problem. There had been small temporary stop signs in the middle of the road until recently, and I suggested they do something similar on a permanent basis or at least make the hidden stop sign more visible. Never heard back.

Walking home one night, I came across two Miami Beach motorcycle cops. They were there to run down cars that rolled through the stop sign. I told them people couldn’t see the sign, but they argued there is a warning sign farther back (small red octagon with arrow) and nothing that could be done. When I emphasized the inherent danger, one of the cops said pedestrians should be “alert” anyway.

So, I’ve contacted the county’s public works department. They tell me they’ll check it out. In the meantime, I have a strong feeling someone is going to get hurt or killed. I hope I’m wrong.

Are Pedestrians Invisible in the Urban Planning Process?

Published
by
Guillermo Gomez
on March 4, 2008
in Copenhagen, Miami, Pedestrians and Walking
. 0 Comments
Originally uploaded by Ping
This is the title of a paper, written by Lars Gemzoe, a Danish professor of urban design at the School of Architecture in Copenhagen. In this paper, he uses Copenhagen as a case study to illustrate the changes that helped change the Danish Capital from an autocentric city to a pedestrian friendly one.

During the first half of the twentieth century, Copenhagen didn’t have many outdoor gathering places. In the 1960’s Stroget, the main street of the inner city, was converted to a pedestrian only street. In the following years more plazas and spaces were also converted to pedestrian use only, and people started doing more than walking. They were strolling, sitting down to enjoy the weather, watching street performers, people watching, etc. It had become a destination — a high quality urban space.

The changes in the city came through a slow process, reducing parking 2-3% year, taking away traffic space and dedicating it to urban spaces, and implementing bike lanes, among other improvements.

Miami has its own success story, Lincoln Road. But maybe things shouldn’t stop there. Miami-Dade County could be more pedestrian friendly. We have the weather and tourism as an advantage. Up and coming areas like Downtown and the Design District would be ideal areas for pedestrianised areas.

Find the full paper here.

Thursday Quote: 20th Century Paradox

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on January 10, 2008
in Joell Vanderwagen, Pedestrians, Transportation, Walkability and Walking
. 0 Comments
“The paradox of transportation in the late 20th Century is that while it became possible to travel to the moon, it also became impossible, in many cases, to walk across the street.”
- Joell Vanderwagen

Let’s go for a Walk

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on November 20, 2007
in Density, Health, Metropolitan Miami, Miami, Pedestrians, Sprawl, Urban Parks, Urban Planning, Walk Score and Walking
. 8 Comments
Too often our society seems to overlook one of our most important modes of transportation- our own two legs. A new website, Walk Score, aims to change our dependence back to our own legs for personal mobility and seeks to help homebuyers find homes with many destinations within walking distance.

The premise is simple, you enter an address and the system characterizes the neighborhood on a 0-100 scale based on how many destinations are within a reasonable (less than 1 mile) walking distance. Essentially any ranking below 25 is is impossible to walk around while scores above 90 signify dense easily accessible neighborhoods. The website takes schools, restaurants, grocery stores, shops, parks, and libraries among other items into consideration when calculating the neighborhoods walk score.

Walk score allows people to quickly find homes in areas where car ownership let alone full dependence on a vehicle is not a requirement. In playing around with the program for a little while you’ll quickly see the disparity between automobile based/designed sprawl areas and true urban neighborhoods. The importance of walking to destinations daily cannot be emphasized enough from a planning perspective or as new research shows as a matter of your health.

President Bush’s Crawford Ranch somehow attained the dubious zero rating. Let us know how your neighborhood compares…