Bike Sharing Stations to Come to National Mall

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Coleen Gentles

Last week, Washington, D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare celebrated its one millionth ride, just in time for its one year anniversary. The nation’s capital is the first community in North America to offer a government-sponsored bike sharing system. Capital Bikeshare is extremely popular, attracting over 18,000 members in the past year. This milestone warranted a party, so the [...]

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Creating Parkland via Rail Trails

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Peter Harnik

A ninth excerpt from the recently released book published by Island Press called Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities. In this post, we look at some cities who have created parkland by converting abandoned railroad corridors into rail trails. In 1963 famed Morton Arboretum naturalist May Theilgaard Watts wrote a letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune. [...]

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Visions of Closing Roads and Creating Parks

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Coleen Gentles

A previous post highlighted a few cities that closed roads through parks to increase pedestrian and non-motorized use. We’ve recently learned about a proposal to temporarily close streets to traffic during weekends and holidays in Buenos Aires and bring in portable playground equipment and benches to turn these roads into parks. A video of this [...]

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Pedestrians and Park Planning: How Far Will People Walk?

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Ryan Donahue

As cities vie to attract talented college graduates and sustain population growth, they are focusing attention on parks to increase livability and support a strong economy. Since parks must be convenient if they are to provide their benefits, many places have set goals for the maximum distance any resident should be from the nearest park. [...]

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Road Closures: A Driving Force for Park Visitation

Posted on April 22, 2011 by Ryan Donahue

We’ve written before about city parks that close roadways for use by pedestrians, cyclists, rollerbladers, and more. Closing parks to cars actually has been shown to increase visitation, which may come as a surprise to some. Some of the more famous examples include JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park, Washington, D.C.’s Rock Creek Park, and [...]

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Bike to the Blossoms Campaign Brings People to Parks

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Coleen Gentles

Every year, the National Cherry Blossom Festival commemorates the 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry trees from the city of Tokyo to the city of Washington, DC.  Originally planted along the north bank of the Tidal Basin in West Potomac Park, the cherry trees bloom each spring and can now be found throughout the entire Tidal [...]

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Moving Traffic to the Trail: Boulder’s Multipurpose Greenway

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Ryan Donahue

Can a greenway park help a city solve its transportation problems? Definitely! That’s the finding from Boulder, Colorado (pop. 100,000), the conservation-minded home of the University of Colorado and a national leader in combating auto traffic, energy waste and sprawl. Back in 1990 Boulder rejected the concept of widening roads and constructing interchanges in order [...]

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Bring Bike Share Programs to the Parks

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Coleen Gentles

Several cities across the country rolled out bike share programs this year.  Denver’s B-cycle program (more than 400 bikes at 42 solar-powered stations) was unveiled last Earth Day as the first large-scale municipal bike sharing system in the United States.  Washington, D.C. first opened a limited network of kiosks called SmartBike in June (100 bicycles at 10 locations), then [...]

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The Times Square Transformation

Posted on October 29, 2010 by Coleen Gentles

We found a very nice video discussing New York’s goal of being the “greatest, greenest big city in the world,” according to NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan.  While the video focuses more on transportation improvements in the city, specifically bicycle infrastructure and bus rapid transit, there is a brief discussion on the success of closing Broadway [...]

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San Juan: The Walkable City

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Coleen Gentles

 San Juan, Puerto Rico recently released a new plan to make the city more liveable and walkable. Titled The Walkable City, the plan calls for a redesign of the Isleta district, an island which is home to Old San Juan, the oldest planned city in the Americas. Isleta is separated from mainland Puerto Rico by a [...]

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