#walkability

Recently I’ve been engaged in the planning of a Better Block project in Randwick, Sydney. The very first meeting was held last week, a bunch of people got together to discuss how they could change a local a street - to make it greener, safer, and more human. (Dogs were welcome, too.)

It truly inspiring to see how much enthusiasm and creativity there is amongst the community to improve the environment that’s right outside our front doors. The “Better Block” concept is about making a street more liveable for a day, to show what our streets can look like if they were less car centered. It has so far been done in over 40 places in the States. And it’s all a community initiative. This will be the first one in Sydney. (Get involved if you like, and read more about it here!)

As you may guess, I’m mainly involved in the cycling group and in the visuals/graphic design.
Have a look and get inspired by this short film I made of the first meeting: 

Sweden is decades ahead of the US and Australia when it comes to planning for pedestrians, people on bicycles and slowing down motorized traffic. But there’s still a lot to do. We are ridiculously way behind our nearest neighbour Denmark, which doesn’t make sense at all. And many cities around the world will surely overtake us in the near future if we don’t keep moving. 

Imagine if we had a “Better Block” day in Stockholm too. Which street would you like to change and what would you like it to look like? Instead of waiting for Stockholm council to actually start walk the walk… maybe we should get the community together and show the great alternative? 

Still not sure it’s possible? Hear the background about Better Blocks in this TED talk, and get a hell of a boost:

(He speaks reaally fast :)

Did you see the little featureinNew York magazine about the plans for Time Square? I am timidly hopeful, although I still don’t see myself going there willingly.

Paris Métro Coverage

There’s a saying–common in travel books–that Paris is so friendly to pedestrians, no point in the city is more than 500 meters (about six minutes on foot) from a metro station. Putting that notion to the test, this map highlights areas where the saying is indeed true. Within the départment of Paris proper, 96% of its area (excluding the large parks) is but a short walk from any RER or Métro stop.

© mapsbynik 2013
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs
Data from OpenStreetMap
Made with QGIS and Tilemill
Mercator projection