Washington Avenue Livable Centers Plan

Washington Avenue Coalition and Memorial Park Neighborhood, City of Houston, Houston-Galveston Area Council, Asakura Robinson

The Houston-Galveston Area Council, in partnership with Better Houston and the City of Houston, partnered with Askakura Robinson to conduct a Livable Centers study of Houston’s historic Washington Avenue. The Livable Centers program “seeks to create walkable, mixed-use places that provide multi-modal transportation, improve environmental quality and promote economic development.” The study was a nine-month process, and engaged area residents, government agencies, businesses and institutions at a series of workshops and on Neighborland. This research informed their recommended long-term plan for the Washington Avenue corridor, which links several of Houston’s most dynamic neighborhoods.

Opportunity

Streets make up the majority of public space in almost every city — but they often go under-appreciated, serving mostly as places to pass through quickly en route to somewhere else. In early 2012, the team worked with community leaders to re-imagine the high-traffic, auto-oriented Washington Avenue as a walkable, cohesive corridor tying several of Houston’s most vibrant and distinctive neighborhoods more closely together. Asakura Robinson saw the study as an opportunity to tap directly into the wealth of creative talent along the corridor, generating insights from local residents in order to create a truly distinctive and representative street scene.

Asakura Robinson used the Neighborland toolkit to create interactive street signage and gather responses both on the street from people walking along Washington Avenue and at a series of public working group sessions. All of the data from these events was uploaded to Neighborland. This input was used to guide the discussions at a series of public meetings, where attendees were invited to vote on some of the most popular proposals.

Making it Happen

Residents’ input reflected a desire for a “complete streets” approach to re-designing the corridor: traffic calming, protected bike lanes, wider sidewalks, streetcars, and street trees. In addition to its more traditional planning and outreach efforts, Asakura Robinson took an hands-on, tactical urbanist approach to prototype these ideas, partnering with Better Houston and Team Better Block.

For the Washington Avenue Better Block, volunteers worked together to create a temporary public space activation with a variety of activities, from a free bike repair station, to ‘mock’ bike lanes, to public art installations. While the intervention lasted only for a day, it was so popular that the community has since developed a vision for the permanent reworking of the same site as a dedicated public plaza, with seating, food, play areas, and community event space.