Further to the Darren Proulx post 0n how snow can show the desire lines of drivers, and essentially how much of the road space is actually being used by automobiles, here’s another angle used in New York this week:
Clarence Eckerson made a splash with a pair of videos (see below) that documented the latent traffic-calming measures lurking in New York’s streets, revealed by heavy snowfall. These “neckdowns,” left behind by snowplows, provide an existence proof of the ways that changes in curbs and streets would make things safer for drivers and pedestrians.
With the current NYC snowpocalypse upon us, Eckerson is back in the streets, calling on people to document and tweet the city’s ice-neckdowns, tagging them with #sneckdown (they’re also documenting unplowed bike-lanes). It’s a marvellous example of live, networked urban theory, and shows how people can organize to build the evidentiary basis for real change to their cities.
