In October 2024, the Streets for Kids project was inaugurated in the Jordão neighborhood in Recife, Brazil, a community where children faced multiple challenges accessing safe and high-quality public spaces. Heavy rains, frequent flooding, and landslide risks often made their journey to school dangerous and unpredictable. Throughout the process, children, caregivers, school staff, and residents were engaged to co-create solutions that improve access to schools, supporte outdoor play and social connection, and set a precedent for future child-focused street transformations in Recife.
Join us at Velo-city 2023 where GDCI will present at five sessions covering everything from how cycling can foster inclusion, better cycling initiatives for children and caregivers, and how tactical urbanism can change the world. Don't forget to visit us at our booth where you can learn more about our projects in-person.
Announcing GDCI’s 2023 Streets for Kids Selected Cities
Ten cities working to make streets safer, more accessible, and more enjoyable for children and their caregivers will take that work to new levels this year with the help of a global team of experts providing hands-on support.
News: Fortaleza achieves eighth consecutive year of reduction in traffic deaths
For the eighth consecutive year, the city of Fortaleza, Brazil, reduced the number of deaths in traffic in 2022. GDCI has been incredibly proud to collaborate with Fortaleza on some of this work.
GDCI’s Streets for Kids Program Helps Create Tirana, Albania’s First School Zone
At the end of 2020, GDCI selected Kahreman Yili—a busy street home to Gjon Buzuku school—as a Streets for Kids project site. The project's main objective was to address a number of issues in the area—including air pollution from vehicular exhaust, and wide lanes that enabled high travel speeds. The success of the Gjon Buzuku interim project led to the capital construction project at Edith Durham—a school located in Rruga Pjeter Bogdani, in the city center of Tirana.
Caminhos da Escola: How Streets for Kids transformed school streets in Fortaleza’s Planalto Ayrton Senna neighborhood
In 2019, Fortaleza established the Caminhos da Escola (Pathways to School) program with the goal of reducing the number of children killed and injured in road crashes.
My Way to School: Making kids’ journeys to school in Santiago, Chile, safer and more enjoyable
In 2019, the GDCI team selected the capital city of Santiago, Chile, as a Streets for Kids Technical Assistance project. Together with Ciudad Emergente, a Chilean nonprofit, we selected Enrique Soro street as the project site. The project’s main objectives were to establish safe intersections, extend sidewalks, and reduce speeds.
Committed to making its streets more cycle-friendly, Quito, Ecuador, has implemented large-scale, successful cycling infrastructure projects that make it a cycling success story.
Sixty leaders, twenty cities, one focus: How to make better streets for kids
GDCI’s first-ever Streets for Kids Leadership Accelerator welcomed 60 professionals from 20 cities around the world, all working at the intersection of children’s wellbeing and transportation. This competitively selected group came together for twelve online sessions over a six months period for an intensive course in street design best practices. Perhaps most importantly, this was a unique opportunity for them to share ideas, questions, and strategies with each other. Here’s a look back at what went into this program.
Introducing the Advisory Committee for the Bloomberg Initiative for Cycling Infrastructure (BICI) Program
The Global Designing Cities Initiative announced the Advisory Committee for the Bloomberg Initiative for Cycling Infrastructure (BICI) Program. The BICI Advisory Committee members bring decades of experience working in transportation and urban design in cities around the world. Together they provide diverse backgrounds in sustainable mobility and urban development, and collectively they will advise the city selection process, including reviewing and providing feedback on BICI’s application finalists.
On November 1, 2, and 3 we hosted three webinars about the Bloomberg Initiative for Cycling Infrastructure (BICI). These sessions provided an overview of the program, who’s eligible, the application process, and gave city leaders an opportunity to ask questions.
