Unveling the Blueprint for the Future Upper West Side

Following a year of community-driven planning, the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance Campaign will unveil its blueprint for bikeable, walkable and high-performance streets. The Blueprint for the Upper West Side: A Roadmap for Truly Livable Streets, puts forth designs showing the impact of safer crossing for pedestrians, physically-protected bike lanes, better-managed parking and restricted through-traffic on residential streets. This is the first neighborhood-wide plan incorporating the full range of improvements currently being applied and examined street-by-street by the NYC Department of Transportation.

Some of the brightest minds in engineering, design and transportation lent their expertise to residents' efforts. Acclaimed Danish urban planner, Jan Gehl, brought a lifetime of experience reworking the streets of Copenhagen, London and Stockholm to better serve bicyclists and pedestrians. The world's foremost expert on parking reform, Dr. Donald Shoup of UCLA, showed how to eliminate double-parking altogether. But it was the intimate knowledge of local residents and businesses that drove the campaign.

"We're lucky to find ourselves in a very progressive time for New York City streets," says Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives, one of the campaign sponsors. "Ground-up planning efforts like the UWS campaign mean that we'll have strong advocates for safer streets, no matter who is running the show down at City Hall."

"I applaud this year long process, culminating in this blueprint," says Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. "Residents on the Upper West Side have long suffered from congestion, uncontrolled car traffic, and dangerous intersections. I look forward to working with my colleagues to help make this community's streets more livable."

"As a proud member of the campaign, we are excited to implement livable streets improvements on our block," says Dee Rieber, President of the West 75th Street Block Association. "Today's blueprint is an amazing resource and we are poised to be leaders for its success."

The public is invited to attend the blueprint's unveiling tonight at 6:30 pm at P.S. 87 (160 West 78th St. between Amsterdam Avenue and Columbus Avenue). The full blueprint is available for download at http://transalt.org/files/newsroom/reports/UWS_Blueprint.pdf

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