5.2 Project Underway (Rockaway Freeway) in New York, USA

could have potential beyond its current main function as a transit route and secondary exercise space.

5.2 Project Underway (Rockaway Freeway) in New York, USA

Project Underway was a neglected and underutilised underpass space 5-mile long connecting both the east and west end of Peninsula. In 2015, “Rockaway Waterfront Alliance (RWA)” organisation started to transform it into a safer and easier access for the surrounding communities through the project. This project saw a collaboration between the neighborhood and governmental agencies, in hosting a variety of activities for community and to address oversights in management of the property. RWA strives to empower residents and enrich communities though advancements of physical, economic and social sustainability of the roadway.

Figure 6: Project Underway (2015)

Throughout a periodic schedule of exhibitions and workshops (i.e., Bike Parade, Bike Bonanza, and Far Rock Block Party etc) (see Figure 6 above), Project Underway demonstrated active mobility and traffic fluidity. Drawing parallels to the AMK linear park, it seem to reflect unexplored opportunities of the linear park to enrich community spirit. Thus, Project Underway offers relevant references to suggest that the linear park could be improved through community engagements.

6. Preliminary Findings

SO1 is conducted on Saturday, 17 October 2020 from 1430 to 1930hrs, with one break in between. The team’s main aim during this stie visit was to observe users using the space for purposes on top of its original transit and exercise intentions. Our team found that users of the space can be categorised into transit, exercise and relaxation. The modes of transit are predominantly by foot and bicycles and are concentrated in the section near the MRT. Majority of people exercising are joggers, brisk walkers and cyclists, and those relaxing are mainly found on the bolted benches provided. In addition, two teenagers are spotted skating on an empty space, away from the transit crowd.

Figure 7: Art Installation by URA and artwork on floor

Figure 8 (Left to Right): NParks terrarium (Day, Night)

Instances of social activities and interactions, spontaneous or otherwise, are unfortunately missing. The presence of art installation on three pillars and on the floor surrounding these pillars is good as transparent to users (see Figure 7 above), as none were found to offer a sideglance, not to mention stop and interact with them or with each other. The same is observed for the terrarium by NParks which seem to have been abandoned and forgotten (see Figure 8 above).

There are very little seating options that may promote social life, with only 8 metal double-seat bolted benches along the entire 1km stretch of which all are in the section near the MRT (see Figure 9 below). It is also worth noting that there are no power sockets, vending machines, water coolers and portable toilets, which are amenities that may encourage different utilisation of,and time spent at the space. Additionally, despite this space being a public space, it contains next to no litter, personal items and vandalism, except for one inconspicuous graffiti on the floor (see Figure 7 above, top right), to suggest that the space is claimed by residents. Lastly, our team feels that the space is not visually appealing with too much cold grey concrete.

Figure 9: Near the start of the space (note the lady on the right corner)

In contrast, the space is found to be breezy and not humid, clean with no funny smell, and relatively bright during the day and well-lighted in the evening. Two young skaters are found (illegally) practicing their craft, one elderly lady informally hawking flea-market items on the bench, and one lady hanging out serenely on the floor (see Figure 9 above, right corner). A young boy is observed cycling up and down numerous times dressed in casual clothes. Even the two exercise stations (out of three) (see Figure 10 below) which appeared old and worn are still attracting users.

Figure 10: User of the exercise stations (SO1)

The findings from SO1 thus lend support to our hypotheses that people do see the space in personal ways or as extension of their homes, and the space is underutilised but definitely has more potentials yet to be explored and examined.

On Saturday, 31 October 2020 from 1315 to 1415hrs, we conducted SO2 and interviews. The bar chart (see Figure 11 below) reiterated our initial findings from SO1, with commuters being the largest set of users. In addition, it is observed that people found relaxing are majority middle-aged to elderly men of different races (i.e., Chinese, Malay and Indian). Those found relaxing on the floor are all foreign workers having their meals. SO2 again showed no evidence of social activities and interactions or people claiming the space for their own. Unlike in SO1 however, there are no interesting observations of other informal usage whatsoever.

Types of activities and number of occurences (SO2)

Transit (on foot)

Transit (on foot; cutting across)

Transit (on bicycles)

Delivery (on bicycles)

Exercise (Cycling) 30

11

18 56 228

Exercise (Jogging) 10

Relaxing (on chairs) 15

Sitting on the floor 7

0 50 100 150 200 250

Figure 11: Types of activities and occurences during SO2

Of the five interviews conducted, all are male, middle-aged to elderly, retired and frequent users of the space in the daytime. Our team acknowledges the limitation of the above results and the difficulty of obtaining respresentative interviews, and have to adjust and redesign our work through what Creswell (2018) described as ‘emergent’. First of all, we have to expand our

interviews off-site to the vicinity area to include people who may not have set usage of the space to counter spatial bias and user bias. For this purpose, and to gather information more effectively and richly, our team redesigned the interactive sessions with stickers and CAD drawing, as detailed in Section 4.4 above.

Secondly, our team supplemented face-to-face interview with phone interviews of people living in AMK. Lastly, our team designed SV2 as detailed in 4.3 above for passive sampling the wider population to gather general sentiments and suggestions for the space. In this manner, our team altogether conducted 12 interviews and gathered 44 online responses. It is worth noting that there is a juxtaposition of results between phone interviews and face-to-face (e.g. “Weekend Flea Market (like Bangkok Chatuchak Weekend Market)” from Interviewee 1, Appendix 8, vs “Flea Market with handicraft” from Person 9, Appendix 9). These results that cut through multiple sources of data aligned with Creswell’s (2018) characteristics of qualitative research. The combined results of all interviews and SV2 will be discussed below. SO3 is conducted on Tuesday, 15 December 2020 from 2230 to 2330hrs, to capture any unusual uses on the entire stretch of the space at odd hours. There is less commuters but there are people still exercising. No group activities, social interactions, or people hanging out are witnessed. The most significant discovery is the addition of an assortment of metal and plastic chairs, stools and a rack (see Figure 12 below). Some of the chairs are chained to the fence. The rack is situated between two chairs suggesting its intention as a side table. This is a sign that people are claiming the space, possibly due to lack of seating options.

Figure 12: Space at 2300hrs (15 December 2020)

Finally on Thursday, 17 December 2020 from 1045 to 1530hrs, with one break in between, our team conducted SO4 and final face-to-face interviews. The purpose of SO4 is to follow-up on the discovery of personal furniture in SO3. A user is observed taking advantage of the added chair for a rest after exercise (see Figure 13 below) and such usage is also confirmed in interviews. We are however unable to undiscover if there are other motivations behind the additions, nor witness social gatherings and interactions as a result. On general note, SO4 revealed that the pace of the space is considerably slower than over the weekend at the same time with noticeably fewer users.

Figure 13: elderly man sitting on provisional furniture in the space

For the interviews, due to the adjustments made as described above, our team scouted the vicinity of the space to catch a more diverse range of residents in terms of age, gender and ethinicity. Compared with the first set of interviews, different perspectives and novel options are indeed successfully brought up, confirming the need to counter spatial bias and user bias from interviewing existing users in the space and proving the effectiveness of our interactive redesign. For example, there are suggestion for a historical display of AMK town and even a rock climbing wall. These residents who are non-frequent users of the space also remarked that they would use the space more often if it were to be improved!

The combined results of all the interviews show that two thirds of interviewees are there for exercise mainly to keep fit, followed by transit for the shelter and convenience. Half of them are frequent users of the space. All but one would like to see more art or other aesthetics in the space. In the interactive portion, photos for exercise (Photo 4 Exercise Stations) followed by enhancing aesthetics (Photo 2 Graffiti, Photo 6 Installations and Photo 2 Paintings) are most

popular. This is in contrast with the results of SV2, which attracted 96% of respondents aged 21-40, where Photo 5 Outdoor Cinema, Photo 1 Swings and Photo 6 Installations are most popular in that order (refer to bar chart ‘Which do you like?’ in Appendix 10).

For the improvements to the space, the majority of interviewees want more seating options, followed by exercise options including water coolers, and lastly children-friendly play options. In addition, they value the space for its convenience and shelter and the fact that it is free. One of the interviewee showed strong disapproval for the terrarium, stating “it is a failure, we should remove it” which affirms our own observations, although other asesthetics or greenery to the space is welcomed. This is consistent with the comments such as “make it more beautiful”, “now very ugly, dark and grey”, and “something interesting is needed”, and also strongly corresponds to comments by respondents in SV2 which include “Allow people to do street art”, “Make colorful!, and “Night lifts for (different) experience”.

The suggestions for activities are more diverse including flea markets, outdoor cinema, pushcart events, books for reading when the interactive-participatory semi-structured interviews are performed. However, we note that there are contrasting perspectives, for example people asking for skate park vs those who consider it a danger to other users of the space. On an interesting note, none except one phone interviewee opted for mahjong tables. Please refer to Appendix 8 for detailed results of the phone interviews, Appendix 9 for detailed results of the face-to-face interviews, and Appendix 10 for detailed results of SV2.

7. Conclusion

It was a serendipitous encounter with the linear park under AMK MRT viaduct by one of our team members, who felt the space to be intrinsically healing physically and mentally, that our initial idea to study the space was conceptualised and our hypotheses formed. Cities represent the strangest "proximities and multiplicities" (Meskell, 2009) because of the way it is interacted with, and vice versa. Jacobs (1992) agrees that more engagement among neighbourhoods would lead to more community cohesion and social capital. Most importantly, “vibrant city life does not happen by itself” (Gehl & Svarre, 2013: 3), therefore, our team hopes to intervene to stimulate public social interaction, but also elaborate mundane daily life experiences

By studying the current users and usage of the space first-hand on-site as a team on SO1, our team witness people using the space for purposes on top of its original transit and exercise intentions (i.e. resting on the floor, skating, and selling flea-market items). Following that, our team reserched case studies overseas to learn how the space may be value-added and reinvented, and from there, purposefully devised a semi-structured interview framework combining survey questionnaires and interactive-participatory ellicitations. This allows interviewees to actively participate and steer the direction of the conversation, by use of illustrations to elicit suggestions andnovel ideas, thus leading to richer, deeper and more fruitful results. We also adjust to better serve our purpose our methods as we went along and learn more about the space.

The analysis of two case studies resonates with our hypotheses as stated above. Urban interventions are required to transform underutilised urban spaces as seen in the Underline, Miami. Additionally, Project Underway, New York, shows that the implementation of arts and activities have proven to greatly increase the social (and economic) revitalisation, which ultimately led to uses other than commuting. With the collaborative efforts of the local community and authorities, planners are able to design a space for the people, together with the people.

The preliminary findings above support our first hypothesis that people value the space but they also overwhelmingly believe improvements are needed, which confirms that the space has potential for vibrant social life though some government interventions are necessary to make it work. Through a widening of interview targets and broadening the study to the general public using SV2 to capture non-users or non-frequent users of the space, the preliminary findings again support our second hypothesis that the space is currently underutilised. From the comments of the respondents, it appears that a lack of asesthetics is the main reason for underutilisation.

However, our team do acknowledge several limitations in this proposal to be corrected or avoided in a full-scale study, if our proposal to study the space were to be approved. Firstly, our team altogether conducted four on-site fieldwork but did not manage to cover different timings over weekdays and weekends such as during the small hours (i.e., late night and early mornings). Secondly, our team face constraints during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the ratio of participation on the street is relatively lower than expectated and people are cautious to speak to strangers. While the wearing of masks lower the risk of disease spread, they prevent people from seeing our faces and thus heightened sense of strangeness. Lastly, the small data set collected are limited in respresentation, for example only one quarter of interviewees are female and one third below age 40, while the respondents in SV2 is over-represented by age 21-40. Small date set also posed challenges in getting definitive suggestions to the space.

Overall despite the limitations, we hope to have convinced you that the preliminary findings are strong enough to lend support to our proposal to fully examine and explore the hidden potential of the space in a full-scale study. Such a study would also be relevant to other similar transit pathways, public areas and forgotten spaces to open up their potential. We are open to discussion as to the duration and funding of the full-scale study. With this, thank you for reading our proposal and we sincerely wish to gain your support.

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