Article share: Redesigning Streets for Livability: A Global View
I am sharing this article on redesigning streets. It is actually a promotion for a book: “Streets For All: 50 Strategies for Shaping Resilient Cities”.
To quote from the article:
“Streets For All: 50 Strategies for Shaping Resilient Cities is an expansive 270-page volume that explores the evolving potential of the most ubiquitous public space in our cities. It offers ideas, tactics and strategies from across the world on how our streets are being, and, can be rethought, recast, repurposed and redesigned towards greater resilience and resourcefulness. The globally diverse opinions and case studies in this book remind us why cities with limited means can offer profound lessons to affluent societies that take their prosperity for granted. And in turn, how the virtues of effective urban administration and reinforcement seen in developed societies could reassuringly serve to inspire less economically developed ones.”
Traffic congestion at the UP Diliman campus
The University of the Philippines returned to face-to-face classes last week. That meant many students who have been admitted to the various programs of the university finally set foot on campus. Many, unsurprisingly, drove their own cars or were driven by their parents who themselves may probably were first-timers on campus, too. And given that many students come from middle to upper class families (they are the ones coming from the better schools and more likely to be admitted to UP), it is not surprising that many if not most have cars. The result is vehicles going around the campus even for short trips that could have been made by walking or cycling. Public transportation in the form of jeepneys were also affected as their routes were clogged by private cars. Jeepney users ended up similarly caught in traffic.
The same week, the UP Fair was also held. This was the first UP Fair in 2 years after the lockdowns. The trips generated by activities associated with the Fair contributed to the congestion along the main roads in the campus core. Note that much of the Academic Oval remained closed to traffic and these roads are the widest on campus. Still, portions were open to general traffic including sections to access the parking lot across from Palma Hall.
Will this congestion persist or will it go away eventually? Are a significant part of this actually through traffic? We’ll know very soon for sure once students settle down and realize going around on their cars are not the way to travel around the campus.
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[Updates on this later]
Caught (up) in traffic 