With the release of a newly charted “roadmap for truly livable streets,” the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance Campaign aims to make a healthy life accessible.
Clean air, less traffic congestion, and a world-class bike network are all part of the UWSSRC’s plan for safer, greener streets. That roadmap, laid out in an extensive 50-page document called the Blueprint, includes a plan for fewer parking spaces and more areas for public seating.
“I want to create spaces on the Upper West Side for people to commune with each other, to get to know each other,” Lisa Sladkus, a member of the UWSSRC, said. “We are asking people to get vocal. People should educate their neighbors and educate themselves, whatever the effort, whether it is taking down a parking space and adding a bench or adding a whole bike line to Broadway.”
While the goals of the Blueprint are clear, the campaign faces difficulties in spreading the word. “The biggest challenge is getting information out there and helping people really understand that the proposals are meant to benefit all members of the community,” said Peter Goldwasser, campaign member and Special Projects Director of Transportation Alternatives.
The campaign is part of the larger Livable Streets Network, an online community of advocates devoted to redesigning urban infrastructures, particularly away from automobiles. “There has been a bias in city planning that assumes cars should take up all of this public space,” Lily Bernheimer, a Livable Streets Project Coordinator, said, adding “We want to get people to look at those spaces more critically, not just allow the streets to be filled with cars that are killing children and giving kids asthma.”
Sladkus agreed, saying that UWSSRC was launched a year ago by “exposing people to the idea that you can transform your neighborhood.”
“The biggest opposition is this inertia, this assumption that this is the way it always has to be,” Bernheimer argued. “The big idea is to get citizens aware of the public street space available to them.”
After a year of events, the campaign has compiled data and created graphic representations in their Blueprint to help more effectively involve the community.
The campaign argues that the distribution of street space is illogical and unfair. According to the Blueprint, “only 10% of UWS residents commute by car,” which means that while there are “594 square feet per car” there are only “2.6 square feet per person.”
Many city officials have already lodged their support behind the campaign, like City Council Member Gale Brewer (D-Upper West Side) and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. “The Streets Renaissance campaign is a great idea whose time has come,” Stringer said in the Blueprint.
In the long term, these community advocates hope that their actions can serve as an example for other urban centers. “This should function as a blueprint for other parts of the city and other cities as well,” Bernheimer said. “It is important to start in one place to show these small changes can transform an entire neighborhood, change the way of life.”