Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Quality of Life

Business as usual on traffic-choked Austin Street in Forest Hills. Photo: Laura A. Shepard

City Loading Zone Plan Will Help Ease Traffic On Austin Street In Queens — But Local Pols Still Oppose It

By Laura Shepard | Aug 27, 2018 | 5 Comments

Loading zones reduce congestion and improve safety in commercial areas. Why do politicians instinctively support on-street car storage instead?

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Study: High-Traffic Arterial Roads Reduce Quality of Life, Even Blocks Away

By Angie Schmitt | Aug 17, 2016 | No Comments

Seminal research by Donald Appleyard in the 1970s found the volume of traffic on a street affects quality of life for residents in profound and unexpected ways. For example, the amount of social contact people had with their neighbors was curtailed for those who lived on high traffic streets compared with those living on quieter streets. People even defined their “home […]

Shared Space: The Street Design NYC’s Financial District Was Made For

By Stephen Miller | Jul 3, 2014 | 39 Comments

For people in cars, the Financial District is a slow-speed maze. For everyone else, it is one of the city’s most transit-rich destinations. Despite this, most of the street space in the area is devoted to cars. The Financial District is an ideal candidate for pedestrianization, but while it has seen redesigns on a handful of streets, it […]

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How Road Planners Fail Neighborhoods

By Angie Schmitt | Jun 4, 2014 | No Comments

Why do neighborhood groups — especially in low-income areas — have such a hard time influencing the design of major road projects? An interesting case study from the University of Colorado-Denver sheds some light. To examine the barriers to incorporating public health principles into transportation planning, researchers studied the Allied-Dunn’s Marsh neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin, a disadvantaged but […]

Meet Streetmix, the Website Where You Can Design Your Own Street

By Stephen Miller | Aug 12, 2013 | 21 Comments

Last fall, Lou Huang was at a community meeting for the initiative to redesign Second Street in San Francisco. Planners handed out paper cutouts, allowing participants to mix and match to create their ideal street. Huang, an urban designer himself, thought the exercise would make for a great website. Now, after months of work beginning at a January […]

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Transportation Investments and America’s Quality-of-Life Gap

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 20, 2012 | No Comments

For a while it didn’t seem certain, but after a critical vote earlier this month, it looks like California’s on track to build high-speed rail. And, I’ll be the first to admit, California — with two large, global metros just a few hundred miles apart — is a great place for it. Despite some reservations […]

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