Smart Growth America advocated for creating more spaces for people long before the pandemic, and we’ll continue this work after. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if some of the successful open streets pilots become permanent so we can begin to more properly distribute our public space between cars and people? The better looking and more clearly demarcated these open streets pilots are, the more likely they are to stick around after the pandemic. Artists can help make that happen.
For example, the small city of Emeryville, CA has closed parts of Doyle Street to vehicles to create more space for people. Doyle Street is an on-street portion of the Emeryville Greenway, a multi-use trail that connects Emeryville to its neighbors, Berkley in the north and Oakland to the south. While most of the reception has been positive, some residents in the area have complained about the aesthetics and execution of the project. Tapping the creativity of the arts community could help this project and others like it garner more public support.
3) This is a great chance to introduce city transportation staff to artists as a resource they can tap in the future.
We don’t have to wait for the next pandemic to bring artists onto transportation project teams. We already know that their involvement can help bring new, out of the box approaches to deliver better transportation projects. With cities exhibiting new comfort with experimentation, largely out of necessity, now’s the time to double down by trying out new partnerships with the artists and designers whose skills would be as useful as they would be on any transportation project.
Every community in the country has artists, and most have organizations that specialize in curating, hiring, and setting up partnerships with artists. Now’s a great time to start partnering with these organizations; with resources diminishing and need increasing, we’re only going to find a path forward by relying on one another.
Stay tuned for more information about some upcoming opportunities from Smart Growth America to foster these connections and help implement these three pieces of advice.