Search results

Sadik-Khan's Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution, plus a visual account of Seattle's downtown biking and pedestrian infrastructure

by Tom Johnson on Nov 3, 2024
categories: technical-writing

Janette Sadik-Khan served as the Transportation Commissioner in New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg from 2007 to 2013. During this time, she undertook one of the largest attempts to incorporate pedestrian- and bicyclist-centric changes to the city's roads and transportation system, rather than maintaining a car-dominant approach. Her book, Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution, authored by both Sadik-Khan and Seth Solomonow, recounts their strategies, attempts, and outcomes across many different projects and initiatives.

As she changed the status quo of driving, she ran across fierce opposition and criticism, especially from those who feared the changes would hurt their business or worsen traffic congestion. However, despite the opposition, she made more improvements to biking infrastructure, pedestrian plazas, street design, etc. during these 6 years in NYC than other cities, even Copenhagen, accomplished in much longer time spans. The book is highly readable and includes many photos and street design diagrams to illustrate concepts.

Street design principles

One of Sadik-Khan’s strategies is to focus on street design. She argues that the streets are already wide enough to accommodate more types of traffic, such as pedestrian, bicyclist, and dedicated bus lane traffic. We just need to adjust the street design a bit. The following are a few street design principles Sadik-Khan focuses on:

  • Reduce the number of lanes. Narrowing streets from three lanes to two might slow traffic but not in a noticeable way. In fact, narrowing streets prompts drivers to drive more cautiously, reducing the number of accidents and thereby keeping a steady flow of traffic. Speed reductions can also be offset by better intersection light timing.
  • Add protected bike lanes through floating parking spaces. Instead of having cars park next to the sidewalk, a lane of floating parked cars (floating out into the lane) can act as a barrier between the bike lane and cars.
  • Shorten the crossing distance. Shorten crossing distances at intersections through curb extensions and floating islands. The shorter the distance pedestrians need to walk, the fewer accidents.
  • Use paint to add visual cues. Painting bike lanes green signals the space’s usage to drivers. Use other paint generously to indicate crosswalks, paths, intersections, and more.
  • Pay attention to desire lines. If people take shortcuts, formalize those shortcuts into crosswalks or walkways. This prevents people from jaywalking across busy roads to save time instead of following a more distant path.
  • Convert poorly used dead spaces near intersections into pedestrian plazas. For the many oddly shaped triangles and other dead spaces, instead of devoting them to a few random parking spaces here and there, convert them into pedestrian areas.

Examples of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure in Seattle

I bike through Seattle multiple times a week (commuting to work). As I decided to follow the downtown city route from King Street Station along 2nd Avenue, I started noticing street design in a way I hadn’t before. Here are a few examples of street design illustrating many of Sadik-Khan’s principles in Seattle.

Protected bike lane with plants
Protected bike lane along with a use of plants to create more visual protection and separation between cars and cyclists. I love this design pattern for bike lanes.
Plants separating pedestrians and bikes
Plants (especially if more were used here) creating separation/guardrails for pedestrians from bikes.
Overgrown plants in planters
Weeds and graffiti taking over the plants. Simply adding planters here isn't a hands-off solution because it requires someone to maintain them.
Elevated sidewalk sections
Elevated and distinct sidewalk sections in areas where bike paths have pedestrian crossings into hotels or other areas.
Green painted bike path
Parts of the bike paths painted green during driveway intersections, signalling to drivers the presence of bikes.
Red crosswalk
Use of paint for a large, red crosswalk to signal heavy pedestrian traffic (this is right outside Pike Place Market). This is the only red crosswalk I've seen in Seattle.
Dedicated bike traffic signals
Dedicated traffic signals for bicyclists, legitimizing their presence on the street rather than making them feel like intruders on either pedestrian sidewalks or car-centered streets.
City art near empty lot
City art to enliven the place and create a sense of community and vibrancy, especially to offset the empty lot. Before this area became an empty lot, some buildings burned down here. There's a nearby senior citizen's home, and there are also homeless people frequently hanging out nearby openly doing drugs. Is the art a distraction? What is its message here?
Street closed to car traffic
Streets closed to through traffic for cars. Despite the pedestrian-friendly design, the area struggles with maintenance and safety issues that can make it feel unwelcoming to many visitors. It often smells of marijuana smoke and dog poop (due to a nearby dog park), and frequently ambulances of fire trucks cut through it. There are often more city ambassadors (wearing bright green jackets) here.
Bike signals and metal stands
Bike signals that turn green a couple of seconds before the automotive traffic light turns green. Additionally, metal stands allow bikers to rest without unclipping while also creating even more of a visual barrier.
Bike lane counters
Counters to gather evidence about the number of bicyclists using the lanes to gather data reinforcing their usage.
Artistic bike posts
Artistic bike posts where you can lock your bike. These are just weird and postmodern enough that they're quite eyecatching, like stacked upside chairs?
Painted crosswalk and stop line
Generous use of paint to encourage proper stop lines and walking spaces. Notice how much emphasis the stop line has and the space between the stop line and the cross walk. Why are the crosswalk lines spaced out and grouped in pairs?
Protective barriers near turn lane
Protective barriers next to turn lanes to prevent cars from cutting corners. Helps cars see cyclists and pedestrians better. I've never seen bikes locked up here.
Shared ebikes and escooters
Shared ebikes and escooters using the dead space in the corner-cutting areas, helping make them visible to cars and also out of the way for pedestrians.
Bus stop on side street
Bus stops positioned on less congested side streets so they don't jam up traffic.
Unused triangle space
Could this triangle of unused space be converted into a pedestrian plaza instead? Or do the parked cars deter homeless encampments? Mostly, flocks of pigeons hang out here. In Sadik-Khan's book, she notes that after the new NYC mayor's administration took over (post-Bloomberg), they almost ripped up the Times Square pedestrian plaza reconstructions that were accomplished during Bloomberg's time because the plazas had been overrun by aggressive "hucksters," "shysters," and "desnudes."
Small pedestrian plaza
Another triangle that has been converted into a small pedestrian plaza. However, this space is sometimes occupied by people smoking and loitering — but also people waiting for the bus. One time I passed, someone had a small fire and was burning things while everyone around him ignored it.
Island separating paths
An island used to help separate out paths near confusing intersections. Here this is a five-lane intersection, which creates non-standard, confusing turn paths for cars and creates more risk for pedestrians. The island prevents what would be otherwise chaos.
Five-way intersection
This is the Google Maps view of this same 5-way intersection from the preceding image. These non-standard, non-grid intersections pose challenges for safe pedestrian and bicycle crossing.

Although most of the downtown biking infrastructure is pretty good, there’s one segment, specifically from King Street Station along 2nd Avenue outside of Seattle Lighting, where there protected bike lane pattern was abandoned.

Bike lane disappearing
This confusing disappearance of the bike lane, where the lane of parked cars reverts to its position next to the sidewalk and the bike lane blends in with the street, baffles me. I'm not sure why the floating lane pattern was abandoned next to the most popular train station downtown.
Missing bike lane
Here's another view, captured from Google StreetView, showing this disappearance of the lane. Why didn't the Transportation department start the lane where King Street Station begins?
No bike lane option
Here's the view from the other direction. As you can see, there's no way to go this direction without either going the wrong way in the bike lane or by riding down this often pedestrian-filled sidewalk. Seattle DOT, what happened here?

Strategies

Sadik-Khan also explains various strategies she implemented to help drive this change:

  • Low cost, temporary installations first, then permanent later. The temporary installations can prove an idea, such as how increased pedestrian traffic might change an area. Additionally, the temporary installations/changes can help bring about improvements faster than devoting millions of dollars toward a complete street overhaul that might not even be proven out. Temporary installations allow iterative development and help generate community support, as they allow people to realize that changing the status quo can be beneficial.
  • Use data to support the changes. This is especially important when critics claim that the changes slow traffic or hurt their business. Data can help garner public support and fuel momentum for more permanent changes.
  • Avoid overestimating the extent of support of a few loud critics. Those who opposed the changes had loud voices and seemed like they had more support than they actually did. Surveys showed that the community majority often supported the changes. Some blogs, especially in support of the transportation changes, can exert outsized influence to increase support and counter the vocal critics.
  • Import and export ideas. Import ideas from cities around the world where transportation changes are working, from Amsterdam and Copenhagen to Brazil and more. Additionally, you can export your successful ideas to other cities. Given that changes often work across cultural and country borders, we should look for successful models and borrow from them.
  • Maps support discovery of new places. Maps can help unlock new areas of the city, inviting people to explore new places off their beaten path. Place frequent maps on sidewalks, and orient the maps based on the direction people are facing.
  • Bus rapid transit, congestion pricing, and bike share. Provide dedicated lanes for buses, including curb extensions at the bus stops. Congestion pricing and bike shares might be somewhat dated, since congestion pricing was never successfully implemented and the bike share was replaced by randomly parked ebikes and e-scooters.
  • Increased foot traffic supports business growth. Those areas where parking spaces were removed in favor of pedestrian plazas often led to economic growth for the businesses. People on foot and bikes might spend less money but tend to shop more frequently, spending more over time. Many business owners overestimate the amount of business from people in cars.

Overall, Sadik-Khan’s tenure demonstrates how much a transportation champion can accomplish in a short time when armed with vision and courage to challenge the status quo. Many of her changes endured beyond her administration, making Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution not just an inspiring read, but a blueprint for transforming any city’s infrastructure.

I highly recommend Sadik-Khan’s book, Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution. This is an inspiring, optimistic record of one of the most transformative periods in New York City’s history.

About Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson

I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.

If you're a technical writer and want to keep on top of the latest trends in the tech comm, be sure to subscribe to email updates below. You can also learn more about me or contact me. Finally, note that the opinions I express on my blog are my own points of view, not that of my employer.

© 2024 Tom Johnson