If you’ve ever walked or biked around downtown Columbia, you’ve probably encountered impatience from drivers waiting for you to clear a crosswalk or pedal through an intersection. The unspoken assumption in this scenario is that streets are primarily for cars, and any other uses take a back seat (so to speak) to this imperative.
But it wasn’t always thus. Pedestrian traffic once dominated city streets, and for a brief period at the dawn of the last century, bike paths were commonly built along connecting roadways (in part because the roads themselves were so bad at that time). A pedestrian or cyclist’s injury or death in a car accident is now viewed as tragic but perhaps unavoidable, but early in the automobile era, when cars were still something of a novelty, such an event often sparked public outrage.
By the 1970s transportation planners began having second thoughts about the “auto-centric” nature of street design, which had accelerated after World War II. The “Complete Streets” movement, as it is now known, aims to put pedestrians and cyclists on an even footing with drivers through improved infrastructure (sidewalks, crosswalks, etc.), “traffic-calming” designs, and full accommodations for cyclists and users of public transit.
To promote awareness of the complete-streets concept, many communities around the world hold what are known as “Open Streets” events. These originated in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1976, with the name Ciclovía (bikeway), and involve temporarily closing off a few streets to auto traffic for biking and a variety of other activities. The first open-streets events in the US took place in 1983, and they are now held in more than thirty communities across North America, including Columbia.
To learn more about this year’s Columbia Open Streets celebration, visit the Columbia Open Streets website. For more information about the worldwide open-streets movement, visit the Open Streets Project site.