Mike Lydon @MikeLydon Twitter profile

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 months

This single graph is all you need to know about US transportation policy since I was born (1981).

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

The quality public space found within this small French seaside town of 2,300 people exceeds that of most American cities of 230,000. Count the cars to find out why...

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

10 months

Same Brooklyn block: Before and after parking requirements.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 months

I just realized how much better Apple Map graphics are in comparison to Google. Same NYC block. 😮

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

1 year

Just as the marathon route closes to thru traffic, waves and waves of people take advantage of 26.2 miles of streets linking all five boroughs. What if we did this more often?

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

The Paris #Bikeboom is real.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

1 year

It’s the opposite. If you love nature don’t go try and live in it. Pictured is the most energy efficient environment in the United States.

Culture Critic

@Culture_Crit

1 year

If you live here you are not an environmentalist.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

8 months

Best to judge a public space not by its design but by how and how well it is used.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

Worst. Waterfront. Use. Ever.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

2 years

Pierre Charles L'Enfant, everyone.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

Steal this technology. It saves lives; makes deliveries and emergency vehicles operate faster / smoother; reduces pollution and emissions; makes walking and cycling a breeze; lets children play in the street and allows laughter or the clink of glasses to be heard a block away.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

2 years

It is not a City's responsibility to provide free space for everyone's personal property, especially when it causes so many negative impacts to city life.

Car Owners Say It’s ‘Virtually Impossible’ to Find Street Parking in New York City

A spike in car ownership, dining sheds and the comeback of alternate-side parking are making it tougher than ever to find spaces.

www.bloomberg.com

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

2 years

When it comes to sustainable street space allocation, the debate is too often framed as what is lost rather than what is gained. With that in mind, this image shows 46 net on-street parking spaces gained.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

8 months

Traffic evaporation is a real outcome of sustained policy choices. Paris has reduced traffic by 40% in one decade and it’s a far more livable city because of it.

Anne Hidalgo

@Anne_Hidalgo

8 months

La pollution de l'air tue, nous ne pouvons regarder ailleurs. À Paris, en diminuant la place de la voiture, nous avons fait baisser le trafic automobile de 40% en 10 ans, permettant de diminuer de 40% la pollution de l'air. Et nous allons continuer !

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

Elfreth’s Alley in Philadelphia - the oldest continuously inhabited residential street in America - is historic and futuristic at the same time, demonstrating how modern life continues on without the undue burden of the private automobile.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

When we say streets should support cycling by people of all ages and abilities, we mean this.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

29 days

Captures it best. @carltonreid

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

Highway removal along the Seine resulted in a 29% traffic reduction in the area, meaning projects like these increasingly feasible. Further vehicle traffic reductions and walking, cycling, and public transport gains are expected as Paris removes 70,000 on-street parking spaces.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

2 months

323 years of 🇺🇸 human-scale streets 📍 Philadelphia, PA

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

8 months

“It’s not my duty as mayor to make sure you have a parking spot. For me, it’s the same as if you bought a cow, or a refrigerator, and then asked me where you’re going to put them."

This Spanish city has been restricting cars for 24 years. Here's what we can learn

"It's not my duty as mayor to make sure you have a parking spot. For me, it's the same as if you bought a cow, or a refrigerator, and then asked me where you're going to put them." — Pontevedra Mayor...

www.fastcompany.com

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

11 months

A traffic evaporation experiment is underway in real time. What might we learn🤔 “I don’t know when was the last time I got out of my neighborhood that quick on a Monday,” said John Gramlich, a plumber…There was less traffic than I’m used to having.”

After I-95 Collapse in Philadelphia, Authorities Find a Body Amid Wreckage

Gov. Josh Shapiro said he expected rebuilding the damaged section of the highway to take a “number of months.”

www.nytimes.com

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

9 months

DC friends, how are these pre-cast concrete barriers working in terms of keeping vehicles out? We don't have much of this advanced concrete technology in New York City...

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

2 years

Our neighborhood’s row houses and small to medium-sized apartment building achieves 75 people/acre (48,000/sq mile). It’s a lovely density that yields tremendous walkability. But the secret sauce is the trees, definitely the trees.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

6 years

Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo, and Copenhagen are all different but one of the most underrated design moves found in each of these cities is the prevalence of street lighting strung between buildings rather than street lamps cluttering the public realm. It creates more walkability.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

After a few years literally no one misses an urban freeway when it’s gone...younger generations may question if one did ever exist, why?! @awalkerinLA @TheWarOnCars

Six Freeway Removals That Changed Their Cities Forever

It seems counterintuitive, right? Rip out eight lanes of freeway through the middle of your metropolis and you’ll be rewarded with not only less traffic, but safer, more efficient cities? But it’s...

gizmodo.com

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

The chicane, the unicorn of traffic calming. Every design guide includes them, few cities build them.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

8 months

Low cost. Low maintenance. Sittable. The most under-appreciated/underused item in the Quick-Build material palette is the boulder. The new Underhill Bike Blvd strategically uses them to define/reinforce new pedestrian and bike space, and to prevent reduce vehicular incursion.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

Paris will restore 11.2 million sq. ft. of usable street space through the removal of 70,000 on-street parking spaces, because: “It’s out of the question to think that arriving in the heart of the city by car is any sort of solution.” - @Anne_Hidalgo

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

It’s a shame GE lost the propaganda war to GM.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

6 years

I’ve decided my favorite protected bike lanes are bike-protected bike lanes.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

Chinatown’s East Broadway shows how shade impacts street use during the summer. Also that the bike lanes are useless.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

Paris will fast-track a regional plan, adding 403.8 mi. (650 km) of bikeways (the most yet). Many will be delivered with temporary materials before May 11th when the city re-opens. The plan requires 72% of on-street parking to be removed. #Covid19Streets

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

There are 3 generations of bike lanes in the Paris network. The quality has improved but so has the demand, resulting in increased width and better definition from the vehicular and pedestrian realm. The removal of street parking removal will provide the space for growth, gen 4.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

6 years

This is some of the most valuable real estate in the country but the street, setback, form, density, and (lack of) parking is illegal in the vast majority of the United States.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

2 years

An important but too often overlooked architectural detail that supports walkability / urbanism is the chamfered corner facade. Park Slope’s 5th and 7th Avenues feature many good examples.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

A subway station in Moscow vs New York City. Let that sink in, @MTA ...

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

Thompson Street #Steateries are keeping businesses afloat but also calm traffic. Cycling this street was a true pleasure, as it felt like humans have priority, not cars.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

The leaves, they tell how wide our travel lanes want to be. @PurpleClarence

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

1 year

Now, this is a greenway. 📍 Baton Rouge

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

2 months

It’s important to visualize the city anti-congestion pricing cranks and lawsuit proponents are desperately fighting for.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

1/2: What New York City sounds like without cars.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

25 days

Dan Rather nailed it in 2020.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

7 months

Cincinnati also emerged from the depths of the pandemic with an impressive number of streateries and pedestrianized blocks. The latter make use of removable bollards, an advanced technology we are still struggling to adopt in NYC.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

How it started vs how it’s going. #BikeNYC #DadBike

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

Rue de Rivoli is a revelation. Even in its temporary form, it proves taking away space from cars is far more powerful than any specific bikeway design. There used to be 28,000 cars per day here and now there are 13,000 bikes and a few taxis. Mostly it’s just quieter.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

You love to see it. @mta has finally installed countdown clocks *outside* our subway stop.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

Leading pedestrian (and bike) intervals are one of the simplest and lowest cost ways to reduce traffic violence. Here’s one of my favorites at Hoyt/Atlantic in Brooklyn.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

Seen on my morning run...

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

#CityMath : Our family went out for dinner + ate in the curbside dining deck. The meal yielded $10.22 in sales tax. We were there for 90 minutes. Ours and 2 other (occupied) tables fit into one parking stall, which over the same period would have yielded $3 in parking revenue...

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

Two simple but transformative things we could do for pedestrians in New York City: containerize waste and raise crossings.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

You know that recent article about Vienna closing streets in front of schools for pick up and drop off? Jersey City is doing it too. @schmangee

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

No amount of “smart city” technology, Vision Zero policy, or modern zoning code could ever improve this street.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

6 years

You know it’s a good street if it would make an (most) American traffic engineer’s head explode.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

All you ever needed to know about using urban space effectively in one aerial image. 🚗 v. 🚲

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

6 months

So, what does it take to change a New York City street? An imperfect thread about the recently completed @ParkToPark103 SIP project.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

Cars don’t shop, people do. Make great places for people and one of the many things they will do more of is shop.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

6 years

Barcelona is one of Europe’s densest cities and it has very few towers. Livability is derived through the design of streets and other public spaces.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

In case you needed an image of the spatial efficiency of bikes vs. cars, here it is.

Jason Rabinowitz

@AirlineFlyer

3 years

@MikeLydon @CitiBikeNYC @dumbobrooklyn Still not enough. It's totally full.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

1/2: One of the most important but overlooked metrics for walkable mixed-use development is the number of doors per linear foot. This single building on Brooklyn’s Court Street does exceptionally well: 100’ in length with 11 doors - 7 for retail.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

2 years

Breaking: @NYC_DOT @NYCMayor is actively removing the Willoughby Avenue Open Street right now. No communication or process with the community. This is a horrible precedent to set. @fgopenstreets

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

New York City priorities in a single image: 1) cars 2) trash) 3) people

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

One year later, @DanRather nailed it.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

In Heidelberg, Germany residents are given one year of free access to public transport after selling their car. This type of pragmatic policy incentive should be offered in every city with a usable PT system.

The City Where Cars Are Not Welcome (Published 2021)

As automakers promise to get rid of internal combustion engines, Heidelberg is trying to get rid of autos.

www.nytimes.com

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

UPDATE: Louisville, KY quietly overtook Vancouver, and two others in the top five North American cities, with 11 miles of #Covid19Streets #OpenStreets 1) Minneapolis: 18 miles 2) Denver: 13.3 miles 3) Louisville: 11 miles 4) Vancouver, BC: 10.53 miles 5) Portland, OR: 7.5 miles

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

Top 5 North American #COVIDStreets #OpenStreets responses: 1) Denver: 13.3 miles 2) Minneapolis: 10 miles 3) Portland, OR: 7.5 miles 4) Cleveland: 6 miles 5) Winnipeg, MB: 5 miles

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 months

🧵 Urbanists and transportation advocates often share this photo of Dr Martin Luther King Jr cycling each year. But the sad reality is that today, most streets named in his honor are not bikesble; they divide communities rather than unite them. Here’s Detroit.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

The gorgeous flowers lining this one block of the Allen Street protected bikeway is one of #BikeNYC ’s loveliest moments right now.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

Update: the driver has been charged. The vehicle driven has garnered 161 violations since 2017. That’s one violation every 9 days or so. It’s a massive failure of local and state government to allow people like this to continue operating a motor vehicle. 🤬

Driver charged with fatally striking 3-month-old baby in Brooklyn tried to flee by carjacking...

A driver charged with fatally striking a 3-month-old baby girl in Brooklyn abandoned his crashed car and tried to flee by carjacking another vehicle, cops said Sunday. Tyrik Mott, 28, was allegedly…

www.nydailynews.com

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

Whoever did this has my utmost respect. #Brooklyn #BQE

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

9 months

“The market wants parking.” The market:

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

Hard to believe this hasn’t always been our city May - October.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

In Oslo, no parking doesn't mean no business. "Well, according to the city, since all those parking spots disappeared, pedestrian activity in the area has risen by 10%." percent.

Welcome to Oslo! NO PARKING.

More and more European cities are effectively banning automobiles from their city centers—and it seems to be working out just fine for local businesses.

www.nrdc.org

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

How does a city add 30,000 people within one square mile but not add any new road capacity? By building densely and investing in walking, cycling, and transit. 👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻

@mdasilva.bsky.social

@mdasilva1563

3 years

I added all of Downtown Jersey City's Census tracts together and got a population of 73,350, showing 59.4% growth from the 2010 population of 45,992. Super impressive stuff!

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 years

It was supposed to be the end of the city. However, in an increasing number of New York neighborhoods it feels like just the beginning...

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

Curbless in Nashville.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

2 years

The @Open_Streets movement has measured many positive impacts (pollution/noise reduction, physical activity gains, economic impact, participation rates). Harder to quantify is the collective joy, the wave of free-flowing endorphins and eye contact that temporarily restores trust.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

UPDATE: Barcelona will pedestrianize 7.5 miles of linear streets (322,000 square feet of space!), build 13 miles of additional bike lanes, and add bus lanes to make transit more competitive. #Covid19Streets

Barcelona convertirá espacios destinados al coche en aceras ampliadas y carriles bici

La necesidad de preservar una distancia mínima entre las personas que salgan a la calle en el progresivo desconfinamiento de la ciudadanía obliga a tomar medidas en nua

www.lavanguardia.com

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

2 years

Why do we continue to tolerate this, New York City? Why are parked cars and garbage more important than people walking? People with strollers? People with wheelchairs? @crystalrhudson @BKBPReynoso @NYCMayor @NYCSanitation

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

In front of this Paris school on-street parking was removed and replaced with a wider sidewalk, planters, seating, and a raised crossing. This and other variants should be the norm in US cities, never the exception.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

6 years

Two different types of bike parking at the same Brooklyn business. So, here, once again, is your quarterly reminder that the design of such things matters.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

Just flew over Louisville at rush hour. They built a massive new interchange to “fix” congestion they don’t have. If @AOC ’s #greennewdeal or derivatives thereof don’t attack these wasteful subsidies / poor land use policies then we are literally sunk. (4 images for emphasis)

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

3 months

Who saw this coming? Everyone saw this coming. "But now Open Streets have entered their real-estate amenity era, where they are placed on par with parks and subway stops." "Newer families are looking for space to roam, not park." @JohnSurico @Curbed

A Three-Bed, Two-Bath, One Open Street Apartment

How a pandemic-era open-space program became a hot real-estate selling point.

www.curbed.com

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

At 203.1 miles (327km), Montreal's full package of #Covid19Streets surpasses Lima, Peru's 187 miles of temporary bikeways, placing it only behind Paris as the city with the most extensive response.

Montreal's summer plans: An extra 327 km of bike paths, pedestrian lanes

montrealgazette.com

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

6 years

“The fundamental reason why a dense network of small streets out-performs a sparse hierarchy of [wide] streets is that streets become less (not more) efficient as their size increases."

Why street grids have more capacity

The greater choice offered by well-connected street networks leads to more capacity and efficiency, according to pioneering smart growth engineer Walter Kulash.

www.cnu.org

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

We installed some signs in Lewiston, Maine today.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

The fact that a mere $100 metal barricade completely breaks the functional fixedness of how people understand how and who uses street space is an underexplored phenomenon right now. Literally, this is all it takes. #OpenStreets #Covid19Streets

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

“A couple of decades ago, it was perfectly normal to smoke cigarettes inside...Today, very few would do that. I think it’s the same with cars in the city center. One day we will look back + ask ourselves why we ever thought that was a good idea.”

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

Here’s a thought: sell and turn them into housing for people, not cars.

9News Melbourne

@9NewsMelb

4 years

Car park operators are losing tens of millions of dollars every day and say they'll need to recover costs after the pandemic. @Fi_Willan #9News

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

7 months

That’s the out of service bus driver trying to find the owner of a double parked car-for 30 minutes-that blocked the street, between unbelievably loud fits of honking. She told me she didn’t want the driver to get a ticket but waking all the little kids on our block was fine. 🙄

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

Top 10 #Covid19Streets (active or announced) by lane miles: 1) Paris (403.8) 2) Lima (187) 3) NYC (100) Portland (100) 4) Oakland (74) 5) Bogota (49.7) 6) Quito (38.9) 7) Auckland (37.9) 8. Minneapolis/St. Paul (36.8) 9. Burlington (25.8) 10. Milan (22) Total: 1,076 miles

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

“The transportation agency is considering carving out temporary bike lanes and taking away traffic lanes from cars by using orange cones or movable barriers.” Call me 🤙? #tacticalurbanism

A Surge in Biking to Avoid Crowded Trains in N.Y.C. (Published 2020)

More New Yorkers are turning to cycling to minimize their coronavirus exposure. Citi Bike trips surged to more than half a million this month.

www.nytimes.com

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

8 months

Pearl Street Triangle Plaza appreciation 🧵 In 2007 I was living in Miami and this image totally rocked my world. A rapid but simple transformation made with low-cost and flexible materials. 🤔 I wanted to live in @JSadikKhan ’s New York City.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

Winning @TheWarOnCars . Oslo has only 50 parking spaces in the city center. A common sense policy where walking, cycling, + transit all work together with good land use mix, a moderate density, and a number of connected pedestrian streets and public space.

Norway’s capital is the latest city to declare war on cars

They paved the parking lots and put up a pedestrian paradise

www.economist.com

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

If you could add 87 linear plazas to your city at once, save 100,000 jobs by removing asinine bureaucracy, remove thousands of parking spaces in your city in one fell swoop, and more permanently activate streets and sidewalks, would you? NYC just did.

'Permanent and Year-Round': Mayor's Restaurant Plan is a Long-Overdue Shift of Public Space from...

Tens of thousands of parking spaces will be permanently repurposed from free private vehicle storage for use by the city's struggling restaurant owners as part of a revolution in public space...

nyc.streetsblog.org

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

Portland, Maine closed several streets to vehicular traffic for dining but barricaded them with concrete blocks stacked on top of each other. Here, they have adapted, adding the skills and resources of the parks and rec department. Pic: Troy R Bennett for the Bangor Daily News

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

6 years

If you have a driveway, make it a garden you occasionally drive over.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

7 years

1926, people. 1926...

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 years

Verandah Place, a residential street in Brooklyn without on-street parking. It’s unclear how these people survive...

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

5 months

Balmy and high 50s. Starting next year everything you see here won’t be allowed in NYC November 30 - April 1st.

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Mike Lydon

@MikeLydon

4 years

Why walkability matters: running out of milk just before toddler bedtime shouldn’t require a 20 minute there and back trip down the arterial, only a 200 ft. walk. In most places in the US we unwittingly eroded the solution to a problem most no longer recognize: proximity.

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