New New Yorker

I have had the fortune of working in London and Melbourne during my 10 years in transport planning and find myself entering the newest stage of my career in New York.

I have the significant advantage of working for a company that believes strongly in supporting staff requests for relocation. Arup maintains this policy to focus on our staff's career development and overall happiness, and it really works with a notably higher staff retention levels than in other comparable companies.

In planning terms, there is a lot going on here in the US. People are not afraid of identifying large infrastructure solutions for complex problems. This has its advantages and disadvantages. Whilst I admire the premise that we can design a solution to any problem, I also need to be sure we have exhausted all other options and that the major infrastructure response is the a well worked solution and not a default response.

In New York itself, the challenge is unsurprisingly to do with space, and more specifically the lack of it. I met with an interesting guy from the NYC Department of Transport who was largely responsible for compiling the recent street design guidelines for NYC. We spent some time working through the guidelines and determining how they are intended for use. The document itself appears very good and covers a wide range of issues and factors to be considered when designing changes in New York's streets. More impressive is how the document has been delivered given it has been largely endorsed by an incredible number of stakeholders and other government departments.

At its heart, the design guidelines are intended to encourage debate around the use and allocation of space within New York's highly prized streets. The guidelines encourage consideration of alternative geometries, road layouts, calming and landscaping techniques. The guidelines have effectively enable the concept of road space reallocation and alternative road user priorities to be tabled and considered.

At Arup we have been commissioned to help shape the future of downtown Manhattan and we will be looking to promote and achieve global best practice in one of the world's most iconic cities. We are working closely with NYCDOT and with these new guidelines to deliver some real change.