Meet the PeopleWay

Transportation Alternatives developed the PeopleWay as a solution to the L train shutdown. It is a transportation system for hundreds of thousands of potentially stranded commuters, and a preventative measure for the gridlock that would result if all those train riders decided to drive. The idea is to redesign streets to prioritize efficiency. If a mode of transportation can move many people, like a bus, or move one person in a small space, like a bike, those efficient modes get priority. On a PeopleWay, private automobiles, which move very few people while taking up a lot of space, are lower on the totem pole.

Here’s one way a PeopleWay could look, and the number of people it could move, from the winner of TransAlt’s L-ternative Visions Design Competition earlier this year.

9,000

people on foot per hour with the addition of five new pedestrian malls for exercise and community events

7,500

cyclists per hour on a dedicated two-way protected bikeway with bike turning bays in the center of 14th Street

25,000

transit riders per hour on an on-street bus transit-way with bus stops that double as nighttime delivery zones