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Streets as Public Space

RPA has long advocated for prioritizing people over cars. We are now building momentum for large-scale, permanent changes to promote transit, biking, cycling, and walking on streets.

As COVID changes transportation, let’s make sure it changes for the better.”

Action

Research

Intro Chinatown
The Alfresco NYC coalition collaborated with designers, advocates, and public realm stakeholders across the City to develop policy recommendations and design guidelines for the city’s permanent Open Restaurants program.
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ROW Rendering 5
New York City can use our 32,000 acres of roadway to prevent flooding and adapt to climate change, support transportation alternatives and better goods movement, and expand access to economic opportunity. Here’s how.
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29 Newark Bus Better Service Report copy
NJ Transit has plans to make bus travel easier and more equitable for riders. More funding and better traffic policies can help achieve this.
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Bicycle Bike NYC 17
We need an evolution in how we manage and use city streets. We need to develop a network of priority, high-capacity, protected bike lanes that serve as the heart of a comprehensive and cohesive bicycle network.
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Reimagining BQE Featured Image
This report seeks to expand the list of realistic alternatives for restoring the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) as a safe, efficient corridor for moving people and goods.
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Parking Lot Shutterstock
Alongside Pace Land Use Law Center and Tri-State Parking Initiative, RPA called for progressive parking strategies in this 2018 report such as lowering minimum parking requirements, pricing parking smartly, and establishing vehicle permit programs.
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Events

RPA Lab

Eric Adams Priorities Wikimedia Commons
Adams must expand access to housing, get New Yorkers back on transit, and restore faith in government.
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Flooded Subways
How many subway entrances will flood during New York City’s next severe rain storm? We counted.
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Bikeways Detailed Small DZ v1 01
RPA updated maps from our Five Borough Bikeway report to track the city’s progress against our 425-mile vision.
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Commuters to CBD 01
How will we get people in and out of the Manhattan Central Business District post-COVID? We modeled and compared two plausible scenarios for the next six-to-nine months.
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Healthy Regions Planning Exchange Oakland Transit Equity
As part of RPA’s Healthy Regions Planning Exchange, Oakland DOT Chief Ryan Russo described his agency’s efforts to make equity a central component of its work, especially its street redesigns.
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From the Fourth Plan

From the Archive

1975 Pedestrianson Sidewalk
How do people walk in a city? This essentially is the subject of this report by Boris Pushkarev with Jeff Zupan. It examines how people navigate on a sidewalk or plaza, how much space they take up, and how much space they need. This was noteworthy in 1975 because so much analysis to-date focused on examining the habits of cars.
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