A car-free neighborhood in Cambridge

Black indicates buildings; white represents streets, squares or courtyards. (Note: the drawing is intended to illustrate the scale of the neighborhood; it was not done with detailed knowledge of the site)

A car-free North Point neighborhood would be traversed by a network of streets designed solely for pedestrians, cyclists, and emergency vehicles. Streets are narrow, reflecting their role as public, social spaces (Alexander, 1977). They have a high level of social contact; Donald Appleyard's Livable Streets study shows that the level of traffic inversely correlates with the level of social contact. Roads provide access to the garage on the edge of the neighborhood. Buildings are between four and six stories tall; shorter buildings do not make good use of the area, and taller ones remove people on upper floors too much from city life (Alexander, 1977). Buildings are attached to each other, arranged in blocks enclosing a central courtyard of green space. This courtyard may be public or divided into individual gardens. Streets are arranged in an irregular pattern. This creates more diversity and interest; many people feel that medieval quarters of European cities, with their irregular, narrow street pattern, are the most pleasant urban form in the absence of cars (Crawford 2000).

Residents may own cars, but they must be parked in garages at the edge of the neighborhood; each parking space must be purchased or rented. Garages are more expensive than surface parking, but unlike in most urban areas, parking is not subsidized - its full cost must be paid for by those who use it. Following the practice in the new Vauban neighborhood in Freiburg, Germany, the cost of purchasing a parking spot in the neighborhood garage is roughly $10,000 (Forum Vauban 1999).

The excellent public transport connection, the necessity of paying for parking, and the already low level of car usage in Cambridge ensure that only a minority of residents of the neighborhood drive at all, and many of those that drive do not do so regularly. These residents require little expenditure on road improvements outside the neighborhood to accomodate increased traffic.)

The neighborhood is quiet; the loudest sounds are normally other peoples' footsteps, aside from Green Line and Commuter Rail trains. With no cars competing with pedestrians, residents can be more relaxed and do not need to constantly look over their shoulder.

At the heart of the neighborhood would be a car-free "bicycle boulevard" with neighborhood stores. This boulevard would be a long-range bicycle path, an extension of the the  popular Minuteman Bikeway/Linear Park which the Friends of the Community Path   are working to build.