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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.
On August 17, 2019, the interim intervention was launched with programmed activities throughout the day. The team led a walk-through of the site, hosted an outdoor Zumba class in the newly created plaza, and invited a local music school to perform.
In June, our team attended the MOBILIZE Summit and facilitated a tactical urbanism workshop. Attendees helped transform an intersection, contributing to a larger low-speed zone project in the neighborhood of Praia de Iracema. Using low-cost materials, the redesign includes curb extensions that are proven solutions to reduce speeds for cars and increase safety for all road users while enhancing the public space.
The Borough of Penha, GDCI, and the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) are working together to develop the design and program for each Car-Free Friday event.
In early March, GDCI and the Mobility Department of Bogotá, Colombia, through the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), implemented a pop-up plaza in the Antonio José de Sucre neighborhood of Usme district.
The newly launched Proposta de Transformação de Espaço Público project seeks to rethink the city on the scale of the neighborhoods, prioritizing the safe movement of people rather than cars and giving greater attention to the design of the street and other public spaces.
GDCI's Board Chair Janette Sadik-Khan visited the Indian cities of Mumbai, Delhi, and Pune to teach sustainable and safe mobility lessons from New York City and the Global Street Design Guide (GSDG). All three cities have now endorsed the GSDG .
Two squares in Milan invaded by parked cars get a complete makeover into pedestrian-priority spaces thanks to tactical urban design.
GDCI has developed an educational tool focused on the Streets for Kids (SfK) program, which looks at cities through the lens of children and their caregivers.
In late 2017, the GDCI team partnered with city officials, the Albert Sabin Children’s Hospital, the World Resources Institute (WRI), and Vital Strategies, through the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), to transform the safety of the streets surrounding the hospital. This area, in Fortaleza, Brazil, is now equipped with safe pedestrian infrastructure that has reduced the number of people walking on the roadbed by 86%, and greatly improved accessibility to the hospital.
The City of Fortaleza, Brazil, launched a new Cidade da Gente (City of People) project in Dragão do Mar in August 2018. City contractors and local volunteers applied bright colors and bold patterns to the 5,000 square meter site over three days, and used 1,000 liters of paint to improve the streets’ geometry. The redesign makes streets safer and brings revived life and energy to the neighborhood.
The NACTO Designing Cities Conference brings together 800 officials, planners, and practitioners to advance the state of transportation in cities. Join us in Los Angeles on October 1 – 4!
Bogotá recently took another step towards creating safer, sustainable, and more inclusive streets by officially launching the Plazoleta Program which aims to create pedestrian plazas by reclaiming underutilized spaces all over the city.
