94 years ago, RPA was deeply concerned about commercial vehicles taking up space carved out for pedestrians. We told the Times: ​“One extraordinary situation has arisen in streets in crowded centers that remain partly residential, but are partly given up to light industry. In these streets, vehicles are using the sidewalks as well as the pavements. Pedestrians having lost the use of the pavements because of fast moving traffic are now also being interfered with on the sidewalks by standing vehicles loading and unloading merchandise. The public use of many streets for travel, both by moving vehicles and pedestrians, is seriously impaired by uses that should be confined to private property.” In 2021, RPA attempted to navigate this old tension between commerce and pedestrians by holding a symposium on the impacts and opportunities of e-commerce in the region, which brought leading thinkers in the fields of supply chain management, transportation, land use, public finance, and waste management together to envision a region in which commerce is convenient, safe for pedestrians, and sustainable.

Today, Regional Plan Association continues this work through a variety of projects. The Fourth Regional Plan recommends reorienting street design and management practice. In 2020, RPA released The Five Borough Bikeway which calls for connecting all of New York City with a connected, protected, arterial bike network. Alongside Design Trust for Public Space and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, RPA participates in the Alfresco NYC coalition which facilitates roundtable discussions, grants, and awards designed to support and recognize the businesses and community groups using street space in innovative ways. Our multifaceted research and advocacy on this issue will continue as we attempt to address issues first identified 100 years ago.

RPA’s 1920s research also focused on the threat that auto-filled streets posed to the welfare of New York’s children, who had been forced to limit safe play to, at best, 25% of the street. RPA told the New York Times that motorists ​“should be prepared to concede that the closing of certain streets in New York to traffic, so that they could be used as children’s playgrounds, is merely a grant to the children of the user of certain streets for loss of partial use of all streets, in the interests of fast traffic.” More than 90 years later, RPA continues to revisit and expand upon this issue, examining how the added open space provided by car-free streets can deliver New Yorkers of all ages the safety and improved quality of life we deserve.