Activating Plazas with Transit

Transit planning consultant Jarrett Walker pools his readers' brains together to rough out what circumstances would need to be in place to create a truly transit-activated public space.

1 minute read

March 29, 2011, 8:00 AM PDT

By Tim Halbur


Walker calls them "connection-activated civic squares", and the challenge as he sees it is the ability to activate the public space with people moving on and off transit while avoiding the potential for empty, deactivated spaces at night:

"It was quickly clear from the reader suggestions that really large connection-activated squares have to be in pretty big cities. Even there, size can be a problem. "

For examples, Walker looks at Place Bellecour in Lyon, Berlin's Alexanderplatz, and Syntagma Square in Athens.

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