Taking Back Space from Cars Doesn't Have to Be Hard

Can anyone redesign a neighborhood park? In this video, we explore how a Chicago resident developed a practical plan to make Palmer Square safer, quieter, and more enjoyable: and anyone can do something similar in their own community. Are you ready to redesign your night’s sleep? Manta Sleep offers a great line of products to get you there. Use the promo code “CarFree” at checkout for 10% off your order! https://tinyurl.com/CarFreeKeith Palmer Square, located in the Logan Square community area on Chicago’s Northwest Side, is a wonderful urban park. Not only is it a great sanctuary for relaxation and community in the city, it’s also an officially accredited arboretum. If you go back a little over 100 years, its design was even better. At some point, traffic engineers decided to cut two wide roads through each end of the park, severing off valuable acreage from the main square and greatly complicating the park’s intersections. The roads around the park are too wide all around, encouraging speeding and making the park space less safe, less accessible, more polluted, and more noisy. In this video, I feature the advocacy work of local safe streets champion Eddie Lehwald, who lives near the park. Eddie took note of the issues described above and took it upon himself to create a highly actionable plan that addresses key safety issues while maintaining the transportation functionality of the square. Together, Eddie and I dive deep into the traffic patterns in the surrounding area and scrutinize each side of the square, one by one. We discuss Eddie’s process for developing the reimagined road space around the park, which involves a few key steps: having an idea, talking to people, gathering community input, creating a concept drawing, and talking to your local officials. Eddie’s redesign redirects traffic flow around the park rather than cutting through it, regaining nearly two acres of park space without losing any parking spaces. The striking part of this story is not so much the plan itself, but the process that created it. This is a process anyone can follow: you don’t have to be a professional to do what Eddie has done. His strategy for the design improvements is equally actionable for the city’s department of transportation. Using quick-build methods such as street paint, potted plants, and flex posts, many of the changes can be implemented quickly and cheaply. This also allows the city to tweak the design as needed to better fit the community’s needs, following the Strong Towns principle of incremental change. This stands in stark contrast with the recent Logan Square circle redesign, which many locals feel was not executed properly. Eddie's approach helps mitigate some of these mistakes by implementing the redesigns temporarily first. Topics discussed in this video include: Roadway design Traffic calming Quick build methods Community engagement strategies Tactical urbanism Palmer Square history Explaining the Chicago grid system Special thanks to Logan Square Preservation for the wonderful historic photos of Palmer Square from their collection! Check out their website: https://www.logansquarepreservation.org/ This video is not sponsored by or affiliated with Strong Towns, but if you're looking for a place to get involved, use this link to find a chapter near you: https://www.strongtowns.org/local Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:36 History of Palmer Square 02:50 Modern-Day Background 04:22 Park Amenities 06:29 The Problems with Palmer Square 13:24 Manta Sleep Promo 14:42 Eddie's Process 17:36 A Reimagined Palmer Square 22:10 How You Can Take Action 24:11 Potential Hurdles for Palmer Square 25:32 Eddie's Advice 26:36 End Credits #UrbanPlanning #WalkableCities #StreetDesign