workshop report:green ways, green spaces -new infrastructures for liveablecities

We need fewer parking spaces and more cycling in our cities – many city dwellers, initiatives and planners agree on this. But if parking spaces are to disappear, all planning projects regularly end up in bitter debates. The main question of the festival workshop with Robin Römer (cityscaper) and Jan van den Hurk (Radentscheid Aachen) was therefore: How do we bring bicycle-friendly infrastructure onto the streets and communicate the reallocation and upgrading of street space?

Above all, through communication that makes the added value of the redesign comprehensible to everyone – and for that, good arguments are needed. The participants were each assigned a role for small group discussions in digital break-out rooms. It was exciting to see how participating administrative staff discussed in the role of citizens, detached from their professional position, and how citizens represented the view of politics. The results were compiled on a digital whiteboard, on which arguments and counter-arguments quickly formed a colourful mosaic of speech and counter-speech. Here are a few excerpts from the discussion:

• Nobody rides a bike anyway!
  Where there is no offer, there are no users.
  Before a bridge is built, nobody counts how many people swim through the river.
• Trees are very cost-intensive, need water and care, and produce leaves and pollen.
  Urban climate and environmental protection may cost money.
  Climate change adaptation through greening and less asphalted surfaces offers protection against heavy rain and alleviates heat waves.
• Everyone drives a car anyway!
  More roads also lead to more car traffic, more parking spaces to more cars.
  The current focus on cars is unfair because people who don’t have/can’t afford a car are disadvantaged.
  Car infrastructure is more expensive than bike infrastructure (less sealed surfaces, less maintenance costs), therefore paradigm shift.

In a second round, different cross-section variants of a street were discussed on the basis of a concrete case, with the additional inclusion of 3D illustrations. The role play showed that in both public and political perception, the variant that offers the most parking space is usually preferred. But also that through the 3D illustrations of an avenue, the added value of a green street is understood in the first place and consequently judgements are no longer made on the basis of mere facts, for example with regard to the number of parking spaces and trees.

Text: Sonja Broy
Illustration: cityscaper