Tactical Urbanists transform streets overnight

From guerilla gardening to pop-up parks, tactical urbanism is catching the world by storm. The growing movement is characterized by the temporary altering of city infrastructure through citizen-led initiatives.

When tactical urbanists see something wrong in their cities, they start dreaming up ways to fix it themselves. Their creative, inexpensive solutions allow for the faster completion of projects that bring immediate benefits to their community, such as safer roads.

In Jersey City, this meant quickly setting up temporary bike lanes to reduce pedestrian fatalities. The result of this experiment in tactical urbanism was so successful that permanent designs were adopted by city officials within a year.

This video was created in partnership with Ford.

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[freethink]

What would you like to change in your town or city?

[jeremiasrobinson]

This reminds me of the guy who changed the signs over the freeway in L.A. to be less confusing and make more sense. After he did it there were fewer accidents at those exits.

[DanteYewToob]

I’m noticing an alarming increase in these groups and programs of people feeding the homeless fixing cities, and even educating kids…
Is the government just not getting the hint… orrr….?

[TheGoodContent]

Are you telling me that people using their money, time and work to fix things that the city should fix is well received by the city? Mind blowing...

[loodath]

"Cities are embracing the approach" Of course, because it's a win/win situation for them. We keep paying taxes to the cities to get things like this done, but we're also the ones doing the work now. If the cities are paying these people, that's one thing, but if we're doing the work now without pay, then why are we still paying the cities taxes to take care of things like this??? They're just pocketing the money.

[TheRampax]

Here in the UK, many temporary bike lanes were set up during Covid, but now councils are removing them due to protesting motorists. Unfortunately local councils just want an easy life, so anything that involves "taking space away from motorists" just doesn't get past planning.

[strausan]

the fact that this was sponsored by ford, notorious for having destroyed urban centres through buying and dismantling streetcars, lobbied against good public transit, bike infrastructure... makes me think this video has some ulterior motive...

[avarmauk]

Pretty sad that such a movement is required

[jylecrennan]

I like how it’s essentially crowd sourced infrastructure. Very cool

[TheMrCrayton]

If ordinary people are fixing road problems why are we paying taxes?

[ratty]

So why aren’t the people PAID to do it, doing this?

[NoSkillsNoFun]

While I love the spirit of the movement, and I strongly believe that something like that strengthens the community, it's also weird that volunteers have to fix / force change in their enviroment via semi-legal action, depending on the exact case. But I know that beaurocracy is slowing stuff down to the extreme, and reconnecting politicians and city planers with the community could lead to some impressive changes down the line. In the end, someone needs to care, signal wishes / demands and provide reason for change.

[dimasakbar]

Now, too bad this movement cannot curb the root of problem, that is car-centric urban planning. For that, require the city and/or state to actually do something.

[rainbowroadthekilljoy]

Someone in my county started planting flowers in pot holes so they would actually get filled

[somedandy]

Seeing that guy with the motorized scooter made me think: cities really need to embrace PEVs, and put up signs that ask riders to be courteous, rather than tell them "No motorized vehicles!" Electric skateboards and EUCs have braking systems, and hence are safer in many ways (both to rider and bystander) than conventional push-to-go boards. It's only when people are reckless show-offs (as with anything) that such conveyances get dangerous. America should take a leaf out of Japan's book and ASK people to behave in a certain way, rather than ORDER them to.

[lalaland]

Didn't know this kind of thing had a name

I'm always thinking of ways to better my city and how to get people to take part 🤔

[uppityglivestockian]

This makes sense if you live in a community that agrees and is amenable to it. It's certainly preferable to waiting for electeds and bureaucrats to do it and to do it efficiently, beautifully and at a decent cost, which govts are never good at. So how can we get out tax dollars back to pay for this instead? Oh yeah, that.

[barrjensen]

Awesome. It’s voluntarism at its core. We should all take responsibility for our lives and communities!

[nicholasn.]

The “I’m sick of this sh*t” movement. I might try to join one of these groups. The bike lanes in my area are neglected

[mrmoneyhacks]

In our "poor" countries, our government fixes the roads themselves.