Pop-up Demonstration and Pilot Projects

Tactical urbanism: a citizen-led approach to neighborhood building using short-term, low-cost, and scalable interventions to catalyze long-term change.

Reconfiguring roadways and public spaces can help calm traffic and achieve more walkable-, bikeable-, and activity-oriented places. But permanent, large-scale changes can be difficult to launch. Often described as “tactical urbanism,” these pop-up demonstration and pilot projects are designed to provide low-cost, temporary built-environment changes that can transform public spaces to vibrant, activity-oriented destinations and calm traffic.

 

 

 

A screenshot of the opening page of the Tactical Urbanism GIS story map which features a young girl smiling as she helps to paint lines on the street for a pop-up projects.

View this  GIS story map to learn how tactical urbanism in Delaware has  been used to test a pop-up bike lane and transform a street to a vibrant cultural corridor, calm traffic with a temporary traffic circle, and convert on-street parking into a portable parklet.

 

 

View the Adobe Spark page below to learn more about how pop-up demonstration and pilot projects collaboratively engage community members to temporarily transform and co-create high-value public spaces—including streets.

Pop-Up Demonstration and Pilot Projects

Helpful InfographicsThrough interviews with pop-up project organizers, this timeline framework was identified to create targets for implementing a pop-up project. This framework provides a best practice guide for individuals to assure they have engaged all needed partners and are creating a community dialogue for evaluation.Through outreach across the state of Delaware, three case studies for pop-up demonstration and pilot projects were featured on the Complete Communities Toolbox. This infographic summarizes each case examined, all of which used low-cost materials to put in place a temporary traffic calming structure.

Infographic about the five characteristics of tactical urbanism. One, a phased approach to instigating change. Two, ideas for local challenges. Three, short term committment and realistic expectations. Four, low risk, high reward. Five tri-sector engagement among participants.