The pedestrian-friendly, aesthetically pleasing streets of I’On, Mixson, and Morris Square are, unfortunately, the exception when it comes to street design.  As a growing group of people, from residents to land planners to transportation engineers, have begun to notice, these exceptions are going to have to become the norm if we want to start digging ourselves out of the environmental hole we’ve created.  Project for Public Spaces (PPS), a national non-profit dedicated to helping people build sustainable communities, has started an excellent campaign called “Streets as Places,” which, we hope, will not only improve transportation but transform it.  The information below is taken from the PPS website, www.pps.org, and describes why streets are an integral part of the creation of sustainable communities.

• A recent study of ways to encourage walking and cycling found that one of the best ways to get people out of their cars is to create great destinations close to homes and businesses so people can walk and bike rather than drive everywhere.
• A newly released publication, Growing Cooler, demonstrates that creating better places will not only be effective but absolutely necessary if we are to reverse the global warming trend.

Why is this so important to you and your community?

1. First, the transportation system is everywhere. If we can influence decisions on the dimensions and designs of roads, and the location of the networks, we can open the door to visionary community planning on a broad scale.
2. Second, the transportation agencies almost always possess the biggest public work budgets - by far - and therefore are the largest single public re-shaper of the landscape.
3. Finally, the transportation establishment has organized itself into an incredibly well-structured, disciplined and cohesive profession, designed to deliver on its perceived mandate to provide people with a system of high speed and safe roads. If we can transform the way the transportation establishment views its mandate, we can rapidly and positively affect community building around the world.

Filed under: I'On Group, I'On Village, Mixson, Morris Square, Urban Sustainability on December 31st, 2007