NYU walks forward in the 21st century

NYU played host to the 10th International Walk21 conference last week, bringing together world leaders, city officials and sustainable transportation advocates to discuss initiatives to promote walkable communities.

Workshops and seminars held Wednesday through Friday addressed the themes of the conference: promoting walkable communities as sustainable communities, investing in the public sphere to promote a sustainable city, implementing design strategies for urban quality, and designing communities for active living.

Regina Drew, NYU's deputy director for strategic initiatives, said the conference is a truly international event that allows city planners and others to learn about successful, innovative projects in global cities such as Stockholm and Toronto.

Walking tours called "Walkshops" were led by Department of Transportation staff and showed off some of New York City's own walking initiatives, including the pedestrian walkways in Times Square and the High Line in Chelsea.

NYU alumnus Mark Simpson, who heads a biking design and consulting organization called BICI, attended Walk21. For Simpson, the event was a forum to discuss sustainable transportation with other planners. He found that the information given in the workshops about pedestrians could readily be applied to cyclists in the U.S.

"Without creating safe facilities and educational programming for both cyclists and motorists, planners and politicians in the U.S. will not be able to create the modal shift toward sustainable transportation like we've seen in places like Amsterdam and Copenhagen," Simpson said.

Gallatin freshman Becky Pressman said she thought having NYU host the conference is a step toward improving sustainability on campus. She believes promoting walkability will have positive effects on public health as well as the economy.

"As a university in one of the most influential cities in the world, there should be more support for walkable communities," Pressman said. "They're good for the environment, good for the body, and good for saving money."

Katie Thompson is a contributing writer.