Let’s make this home of ours even more livable and pleasant
I took a walk down Main Street with a group of Roosevelt Islanders.
Paul Krikler led the group and asked us to comment and offer suggestions for aesthetic improvements.
People suggested more plantings, areas for sitting,
chess tables and picnic tables in the plaza between Island House and Westview, art installations in motorgate, a skateboard park under the helix, adding swing chairs and food stalls at Good Shepherd plaza.
And more.
We all agreed that there was plenty of room for improvement. But without fixing the parking congestion on Main Street it seemed like we were ignoring the most pressing problem.
We can add foliage and seating, lighting and art to make our Main Street more inviting which in turn will help our merchants entice business. But if our street, which has to accommodate all traffic going south, is not redesigned to reflect what was originally intended, we are setting ourselves up for failure.
When I began researching, I asked AI for busy street design ideas to facilitate deliveries and tenant drop off. Here’s what AI has to say: “Designing a busy urban street to balance logistics and tenant needs requires transitioning the curb from static vehicle storage into a flexible, multiuse ecosystem.”
The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) work suggests that the only street, Main Street, would be reserved only for emergency vehicles, minibuses, bicycles and necessary deliveries.
I started walking and taking photos. My companion Jake, who is 10 months old, kept me company. We walked all over the island and documented some great ideas and some not so great. The island has developed into several distinct developments each with its own characteristics. The Cornell campus and the plazas around Southtown offer some design ideas that can be modified to the WIRE neighborhood.
The WIRE buildings, where I have lived for more than 40 years, have lost the unique auto-free characteristics that made them special and for which they were designed. They are now stressed by the auto centric neighborhoods to the South. We observed residents who had to drop the elderly, handicapped, and children into the street because they were forced to double park.
We noted that while we do have signs for resident and commercial drop off those spaces are used for parking. We saw cars driving on the pedestrian walkways and parking along the buildings. Brings to mind the lyrics from “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell – “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
We can’t go back so we have to work with the original design and find ways to control traffic and make Main Street functional for all of the 5,000 residents who live there. The suggestions by Roosevelt Islanders to enhance the existing infrastructure will be first steps to improving quality of life. An example of a successful, simple and inexpensive improvement is the addition of picnic tables behind the church that have facilitated many quiet lunches, group gatherings, birthday parties and more. Not a big change yet a big outcome. More seating with plantings in the plaza at Westview and Island House could mimic the church plaza and bookend the street.
I am hopeful that our new RIOC will address the street problem and that the group Paul has started, Roosevelt Island Refresh, of which I am a member, will connect the community around Main Street and together we will honor the original concept of a community planned around landscaped plazas and promenades utilizing picturesque river and skyline views.
According to Paul Krikler:
In addition to any changes we make on the island, we are going to need a substantial upgrade in our transit options with the planned development adding thousands more to the 12,000 people already here. We need a substantial upgrade in the subway and bus service, priority boarding at the tram and double the ferry service.
The Roosevelt Island Refresh initiative will be discussed at the Community Board 8 Roosevelt Island Committee meeting via Zoom on Monday November 2 starting at 6:30 PM. An update from RIOC President BJ Jones is also on the Agenda.
Click here for the Zoom link.