The Washington Nationals opened a new baseball stadium, National Park, last week, and tried all kinds of nudges to get people to come to the ballpark on or in anything other than a car. Using creative choice architecture, the architects only built a few parking lots nearby, and offered a free bike valet. The city enhanced the nearest subway stop, and added lots of new buses. A public awareness campaign topped off the initiative. Adam Stein says the effort worked.
Many predicted various bad things that would happen as a result of the lack of parking. Here’s what actually happened: on opening night, 21,492 baseball fans (out of a total of 25,000) took a train to the ball game and watched the Nationals beat the Braves in an auspicious debut for their new stadium. Nearby parking lots remained conspicuously unfilled.
Tags: baseball, choice architecture, environment
April 7, 2008 at 3:29 pm |
Here’s a nudge I have written about. In this case, developers refused to follow an ordnance especially design to promote sustainable and humane small scale development, until they were given a little nudge:
http://enigmafoundry.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/design-pays/