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ITE Members, Let’s Embrace Our Role as Placemakers

By Mr. Michael Sanderson P.E., PTOE, LEED AP posted 04-24-2018 05:40 PM

  

In the typical modern city, our streets and roadways when added together make up the largest portion of public open space. These corridors are the threads that stitch the fabric of our communities together. They provide the transportation connections that allow us to move about from home to work to shopping and recreation. They deliver people and goods from origins to destinations. But, beyond their obvious transportation function, these are also the spaces where we most often interact with our fellow citizens, friends, and neighbors. Unfortunately, for too long, we’ve designed these spaces for cars first and people second. Because of the nature of these designs, we mostly interact with our fellow humans from inside our cars with a glance or nod as we whiz by or sit in traffic.

Given the vast amount of public space devoted to transportation, it is easy to see how the way we plan and design our transportation corridors has an outsized impact on the way our communities look. But beyond just visual aesthetics, our approach to transportation design has a very real impact on the way we live. Our level of physical activity, as well as the amount of social engagement we have with our fellow citizens, are largely a result of our built environment. Since transportation planners and engineers, and ITE members specifically, are responsible for the planning, design, and operation of our transportation corridors, we are in the best position to effect positive change for millions of people
by thinking differently about how we allocate and use the public space with which we are entrusted. If we are thoughtful and creative in our approach, we can create spaces that encourage positive social interactions, promote healthy lifestyles, and improve quality of life.

The essence of placemaking is a people-centered approach to design in which we aspire to create spaces that have a “sense of place,” which is to say they have a sense of identity, character, and qualities that are attractive to people. It is an aspirational approach to planning and design where we aspire to go beyond the merely functional to create active, beautiful places that are the foundation for enduring communities. This role of the placemaker is often left to the architects, landscape architects, and
community planners, but it is a way of thinking that transportation professionals should no longer abdicate to others and begin to embrace and celebrate as our own.

From a placemaker’s perspective, streets are public spaces with endless possibilities. Street corners become well-lit, amenity-rich places to gather. Transit stops become opportunities to create plazas for activity or respite. Parking lots become weekend street hockey courts and farmers markets. Corridors become truly multimodal, active places where people have a real and equitable choice of transportation options that fit their lifestyle and their means. And everywhere along our street frontages, we begin to see opportunities for pocket parks, public art, landscaping, and people-focused amenities.

Should every street or roadway be devoted to pedestrians and parks? Surely not. We still need to embrace a systems-approach, be sensitive to context, and acknowledge the role and appropriate place for cars. But, as a traffic engineer, I now know that I have for too long been complicit in designing a built environment that is not very people-friendly. A shift in the balance from cars to people, from road building to placemaking, would be a healthy change for all of us, and ITE members should be Leading the Way.

From the President's Message in the April issue of ITE Journal.

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