‘The biggest public spaces are the streets’

Bikeway improvements, such as the cycle track Honolulu has just built, are not the only concern for Gil Penalosa and his advocacy group, 8-80 Cities, but they’re a big part of it. The Canadian nonprofit’s website, 8-80.org, proclaims that the organization is "dedicated to contributing to the transformation of cities into places where people can walk, bike, access public transit and visit vibrant parks and public places."

It’s one facet of relatively new thinking in urban planning circles, that city streets are more than just a conduit for cars but the largest part of the public asset that a city offers its residents, he said.

"When we look at any city from the air, the biggest public spaces are the streets," Penalosa said, during a recent Honolulu visit to speak at a city-sponsored transit symposium. "Between 15 and 25 percent of our cities are streets. Of the public spaces that belong to everyone, about 75 to 90 percent are streets."

Many of the slides Penalosa will screen in his presentation depict European cities, but advocates are making the case even in car-loving America. PeopleForBikes, an organization including both an industry coalition and a charitable foundation, launched what it calls the Green Lane Project (peopleforbikes.org/green-lane-project), pressing for protected bike lanes in the U.S.

It lists various best-practice forms that protection takes, including delineator posts, bumps in the road surface and planters, as well as methods Honolulu has deployed: striped buffers, barriers and a row of parked cars.

The site also has videos to show what other cities are doing. If some of these model streets, adapted for pedestrians and cyclists, look a little chaotic, that’s the whole idea, wrote Dick van Veen, a columnist for the Green Lane Project.

"Here’s the basic principle so many Americans fail to understand: Uncertainty can be a good thing," according to van Veen. "Moving across these streets is not a matter of blind obedience to lights and signs. As a result, traffic slows down and people look more carefully. … The result is that traffic moves through urban space at an appropriately human pace that promotes accessibility for all users."