2023 Freetown DAT Report - Flipbook - Page 5
Freetown DAT
Introduction & Design
Principles
Freetown is building a richer, more sustainable, and
resilient city - empowering people and strengthening
their neighborhoods, economy, and connections to their
history.
This report explores how a cable car mass transit
system can connect the community and the people,
neighborhoods, economy, and history. While the
construction of the cable car system will take years, this
foundational work can begin today and would be highly
effective even if the cable car system is delayed.
Freetown City Council initiated the cable car mass
transit project and conducted the initial feasibility
planning, identifying the potential four cable car pilot
sites and a future build-out scenario. This pilot phase
includes stations at-or-adjacent-to Government Wharf,
Annie Walsh Memorial School/Eastern Police, Hillside
Bypass, and Kissy Ferry Junction. The C40 Cities
Finance Facility (CFF) then obtained the funding for
and the services of an outside consultant to test the
technical and financial feasibility of this initial phase.
The Architects Foundation, the philanthropic arm
of the American Institute for Architects, agreed to
donate their time and resources to explore how cable
car stations could fit into the context of the four pilot
sites selected by the Freetown City Council. The team
can share its technical expertise and experience from
many other settings. The team does not, however,
have the local knowledge of Freetown’s wants and
aspirations. All decisions should be locally made, and the
recommendations here should be considered within that
context.
The single most important way to view the cable car
system is that it is a part of a broader transportation and
community system. It is not sufficient or wise to simply
build four cable car stations and connecting cable in
Freetown. Addressing the broader area improvements
is critical both to make the cable car system a success
and to leverage its economic and quality of life potential.
Without system integration, the cable car investment
could create new congestion points and challenges.
This report and its recommendations are built on ten
critical ten design principles:
1. All investments should, first and foremost, serve the
residents of Freetown.
2. Serving residents will attract international visitors’
spending and investments.
3. Placemaking that builds on Freetown’s unique story
and heritage is the most cost-effective way to build
community pride and attract visitors. Sierra Leone’s
unique history should be celebrated at every opportunity.
4. A cable car mass transit system will increase travel
speeds and reduce roadway congestion.
5. All cable car stations should improve their host sites
and be designed with careful consideration of their
context within the neighborhood.
6. Prior to the development of a cable car system, all
means of connecting transport should be addressed,
including other mass transit (such as buses), motor
vehicles, pedestrian travel, and ferry service.
7. All recommendations outside of the cable car
system should have independent benefits even if the
construction of the cable car system is delayed.
8. Downtown and its waterfront’s development
opportunities provide the greatest economic and
community returns and the least adverse environmental
effects.
9. Pedestrian travel is the least expensive way to move
people per kilometer of travel - any investment that
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improves pedestrian travel can serve residents and
decongest roadways.
10. New investments must be environmentally sensitive
and resilient.
While these design principles guide this report, many of
them could be applied to other Freetown opportunities.
This work builds upon Freetown City Council’s cable
car feasibility studies, Transform Freetown, informal
settlement improvement efforts, Central Business
District Urban Regeneration Programme, the 2014
Structure Plan, and other planning efforts. It also builds
on the work of others, including both Freetown Options
for Growth and Resilience and Freetown City Hazard and
Risk Assessment (World Bank) and the Sierra Leone Freetown Water Supply and Sanitation Master Plan and
Investment Studies (African Development Bank Group).
Our hope is that this report will inform Freetown’s urban
regeneration and cable car planning work, the upcoming
Urban Regeneration of Freetown’s Central Business
District program with Zurich, Switzerland, and other FCC
planning work.
The Design Assistance Team Program
A program of the Architects Foundation and
administered by Communities by Design, Design
Assistance Teams (DATs) bring together architects
and other multi-disciplinary experts to work alongside
the residents and stakeholders of host communities
on key local issues. For over half a century, design
assistance teams have worked with communities to
envision brighter futures and build the strategies to
realize them. The program was founded in 1967 as a
response to the democratic call to action that the civil
rights movement sparked in cities across the country.
One of the founding volunteers was David Lewis, a
South African exile who was active in anti-apartheid
efforts there before coming to the United States in the
1960s. He – and other founders of the DAT program –
developed the methodology with several core operating
principles, including an emphasis on local democracy
and citizen participation as the driving element of all
planning and design, the independent public service
role for professionals beyond the normal constraints
of politics and agenda-driven decision-making, and
the need for a more holistic, interdisciplinary approach
to designing our communities. As David Lewis liked
to say, “the foundations of our cities are the people.”
He believed that American Urbanism was based on
democracy and that urban design should represent
the values of a society through its physical framework
– connecting citizens to one another and enabling the
unique community identities that our cities produce
through that interaction. As such, the work of healing
and repairing the urban wounds and trauma of the past
in cities in the US and globally has been at the center
of the design assistance team’s mission for decades.
The DAT program is honored by the opportunity to work
with the citizens of Freetown on a plan for the city’s
revitalized future.
“We aren’t going to rebuild our
cities from the top down. We
must rebuild them from the
bottom up.”- David Lewis, FAIA
