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Tactical urbanism is part of the toolkit communities have to transform their streets, fostering innovation, awareness of pedestrians and micro-mobility on the road, and community belonging. Tactical urbanism revitalizes neglected spaces by empowering citizens to reshape their surroundings with small-scale, quick interventions. It cultivates a powerful civic pride, driving positive social change and sustainable development. At Plusurbia, we believe that tactical interventions can lead to long-term change. Establishing a long-term vision is critical before Tactical Urbanism interventions are considered. We work with our clients to create roadmaps that address communities' needs and create lasting change. Exercises such as mobility master planning, corridor studies, and comprehensive planning, are critical steps in generating the long term vision for mobility in any given city or township. Comprehensive and mobility planning are a careful balance between enhancing the existing public realm while anticipating future development needs. We combine best practices in complete streets design with local knowledge of network planning. As such, site visits and community outreach are core to the process of generating viable solutions that work for everyone. A successful study takes care to look beyond crash data analysis, towards travel patterns and safety audits to identify community needs that match community desires and support economic development. These planning strategies generate high-level recommendations, such as corridor selection and prioritization, necessary for the funding, design, and construction phases of projects. In addition, long-term visions are key to define objectives that lead to short-term implementations, such as pilot projects. This is where tactical urbanism is key, by creating projects that are implementable in a short period of time, which is key to demonstrate progress. This is why we are using tactical urbanism to advance the Borinquen Trail, an island-wide trail network for Puerto Rico. Tactical urbanism facilitates practitioners and governments, along with communities, to partner on advancing the implementation of soft treatments, such as pedestrian crosswalks, bicycle route symbols on pavements, and signage that will be the base for a future street improvements through reconstruction. Most of all, it is empowering to communities that wish to support safety advocacy efforts, and this empowerment leads to public policy success as communities adopt a culture of safe driving, rolling, and walking. As an added bonus, communities may adopt these tools as a means to continue the conversation beyond pilot projects, and these desires can be supported by governments through street improvement permitting and adopt-a-street initiatives.

On Celebrate Trails Day (this Saturday, April 22), Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC), the largest U.S.-based trails advocacy organization, showcases the impact of trails and trail systems on people, places and the planet by encouraging everyone to get outside on trails. Joining this year's celebration is the Borinquen Trail in Puerto Rico as part of its partnership with RTC. In addition, Borinquen Trail will collaborate with RTC on technical assistance initiatives and advocate for funding sources and best practices in trail implementation. Since 1992, RTC has helped advocate for more than $20 billion in funds to support more than 40,000 trail and active transportation projects throughout the nation. The Borinquen Trail is a 600-mile multi-use trail for walking and bicycling, endorsed by RTC. The trail repurposes former railroad right-of-way encircling the island, including breathtaking beachfront and historic tunnel segments. The route will connect 22 municipalities and, once fully implemented, could generate up to $673 million in annual user spending through direct, indirect, and induced economic effects. Adding to this sum will be the growth and creation of businesses associated with the outdoor recreation industry, including restaurants, sports equipment and bicycle rental establishments, history and tourism groups, hotels, and more. The trail could support between 4,708 and 7,294 jobs and is expected to spur an annual $21-41 million in new island and federal tax income. The implementation of the Borinquen Trail has already begun, a critical step in the island’s journey to a more sustainable environmental, and resilient future. Last month, planning for the Borinquen’s pilot project in Playa de Ponce (in the south of the island) was completed, and new local partners are joining to drive construction and designation of the trail. When finished, it will establish a multimodal connection between two historic centers: Playa de Ponce and the municipality’s town core. The Borinquen Trail has the potential to significantly increase tourism island-wide, create thousands of jobs, and improve public health across Puerto Rico. With the rail-trail already in motion, there is much to look forward to as its route unfolds over the coming years. To learn more and support this effort, visit https://www.rutaborinquen.org. Celebrate Trails Day is the annual celebration of the spring trail season, recognized on the fourth Saturday in April. The national celebration is organized by RTC, the largest U.S.-based trails organization—with a grassroots community more than 1 million strong. RTC is dedicated to building a nation connected by trails, reimagining public spaces to create safe ways for everyone to walk, bike and be active outdoors. Follow #CelebrateTrails on social media for updates, and connect with RTC at railstotrails.org and @railstotrails on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Last January, our team collected information for an ongoing economic impact analysis of the trail, which will provide hard numbers to prove its value. Dylan Gehring and David Soto visited existing trail segments that will one day be connected and integrated into the future 595 mile Borinquen Trail. They ran trail counts every day during peak-use times and collected trail user spending data by conducting brief surveys. They also examined portions of the old railroad embankments and bridge systems that are not currently trails. Among the trails surveyed, Paseo Lineal Río Bayamón proved to be the most popular and highest-quality segment. Dylan and David conducted seven days of consecutive data collection across five trails (2 trail segments were repeated to determine the factor of difference between weekdays and weekends) which garnered about 550 responses. The selection of the trails studied was tied to the necessity of having an example of each typology: urban, suburban, rural, beachfront, and natural preserve.   This data will be used for an economic impact analysis and to continue to assess and design future segments of the Borinquen Trail.