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WORLD CLASS STREETSIntroduction72%of New Yorkers supportDOT’s public plazas39acres of roadrepurposed forplazas, public seating,and traffic calmingWorld Class Streets are hallmarks of diverse, vibrantand thriving cities. The best cities in the world have bothfamous boulevards or squares, and also hundreds of localstreets, sidewalks and plazas that are treated not primarilyas thoroughfares for travel, but as places that reflect andcelebrate a city’s energy, art, and culture.In a 2008 report, urban design experts engaged byNYCDOT called New York a “city without seats,” notingthat without public seating in attractive, accessible publicspaces, it is impossible to define city streets as places.The 2007 PlaNYC report had acknowledged that New YorkCity had largely discounted its streets as public space duringthe 20th Century, allowing traditional traffic engineeringto crowd out all other considerations. PlaNYC’s vision fora thriving, attractive 21st Century called on New York to“re–imagine the public realm” and stated the ambitious goalof opening new public plazas in every community and ofensuring that all New Yorkers live within a 10 minute walk ofopen space.NYC DOT developed specific action plans to reinvent thepublic realm in both its Sustainable Streets strategic planand the more detailed World Class Streets: Remaking NewYork City’s Public Realm, published in 2008 in collaborationwith Denmark’s Gehl Architects. These strategy documentsand action plans elaborated on the problems of treatingstreets exclusively as corridors for motor vehicles, and onthe huge potential for high quality of public life inherent inNew York’s dense historic form.Left: Times Square, Cool Water Hot Island, Molly DilworthSustainable Streets: 2013 and Beyond117