"If you plan a city for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places," notes PPS president Fred Kent.

This is the bold idea behind PPS's new initiative "Community Building Through Transportation," which applies the principles of Placemaking to turn streets and transit systems throughout the world into vital public places where people naturally want to gather. These improvements obviously boost a city in terms of social appeal. But that's really just the beginning.

Great streets, in the memorable words of William H. Whyte, are "the river of life, the place where we come together" - a natural setting for commerce, strolling and socializing as well as transportation.

"People have always lived on the streets," explained Berkeley urban design professor Donald Appleyard. "They have been the places where children first learned about the world, where neighbors met, the social centers of towns and cities."

We lost this sense of community over the 20th Century as auto traffic squeezed out street life. Appleyard's own research showed that people living on busy streets have fewer friends and social contacts than those living nearby on quieter residential streets. (Sadly, Appelyard died after being hit by a car on an Athens street in 1982.)

The 21st Century, however, is shaping up as a wonderful opportunity to bring our streets back to life. Everywhere we look, PPS finds more evidence that people are ready to think more broadly about streets as places, not simply as traffic corridors. There's a growing movement to reclaim the roads in our neighborhoods as mixed-use spaces that can be used for a variety of activities - transit, bicycling, walking, neighborly conversation and kids' games - rather than being the exclusive domain of cars. These kinds of bold moves give us great hope for cities in the future.

The role of streets in towns and cities will change dramatically in the coming years. They will be seen as assets - a public commons - that enrich community life and encourage diverse forms of transportation instead of as a necessary evil, which is how they are often viewed today.

The transformation of our streets into great places that foster community and accommodate many forms of travel is not simply pie-in-the-sky dreaming. The launch of the "Building Communities Through Transportation" campaign comes at a pivotal moment in history. Rocketing gasoline prices, declining oil reserves, rising anxiety about global climate change and continuing wariness about the state of the economy is raising widespread rethinking about our transportation future, not just in the U.S. but around the planet. The automobile is not about to disappear, but it could play a very different role on the streets of the 21st Century.

This is hard for people to believe because the conventional wisdom almost everywhere asserts that: We will never, ever get out of our cars. It's an almost universal myth that people love their cars more than anything, and will never allow any infringement on their right to drive as fast, far and frequently as possible.

But what PPS has discovered in 33 years of doing street projects is just the opposite: people everywhere want high-quality destinations where they can safely and comfortably enjoy themselves. Streets can do more than move cars; they can be way of connecting communities rather than dividing them.

The very best streets offer great pedestrian experiences. Interesting things to look at and do as we wander down the street make everyone happy.

The great cities of the world - places we save our money in the hopes of seeing one day - are criss-crossed with great streets that do more than simply move traffic; they also link favorite destinations large and small.

An Historic Moment for Making Change

We are seeing profound changes all around us right now:

*Gas hit near four bucks all across the U.S. over Memorial Day weekend and does not appear to be going down.

*USA Today reported that February was the fourth consecutive month in which miles driven in the U.S. declined according to Federal Highway Administration data.

*A USA Today/Gallup Poll of American households found that ?84 percent are consolidating errands or taking other steps to reduce driving. Nearly one-third say they?re using alternative ways to get around?

* ?In almost every transit system I talk to, we?re seeing very high rates of growth in the last few months,? William Millar, head of American Public Transportation Association told the New York Times.

* Small and large U.S. cities alike are experiencing substantial increases in public transportation ridership, including Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver, Charlotte and cities and suburbs along the Tri-Rail train line in southern Florida.

*Even in a region that has long depended on public transit, the New York Times reports that passengers on New York subways and New Jersey Transit commuter trains have rose five percent in January and February this year over last year.