Suggest New Ro Improvements Using Virtual, Augmented Reality

NEW ROCHELLE, NY — Visitors to the New Rochelle Grand Market Saturday will have an opportunity to make suggestions about how the downtown area can be improved. A new initiative being tested in downtown New Rochelle allows residents and visitors to do just that, and to register those ideas on a cell phone or computer using virtual and augmented reality — the latest technologies that make video games irresistible.

Spearheaded by the arts-and-technology organization Interactive Digital Environments Alliance (IDEA New Rochelle), the project is one of 35 initiatives across the country spotlighted by the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge, which funds programs to improve city life. With its selection, New Rochelle joins the company of cities from Los Angeles to Boston that are taking unique approaches to tackling issues such as climate change and poverty. The Challenge rewards projects, like New Rochelle’s, not only address local issues but that can serve as models to be transferred to cities all over.

“Making use of virtual and augmented technologies to aid city planning is a natural,” said Amelia Bearskin-Winger, executive director of IDEA New Rochelle. “The activities offer easy ways for residents to suggest ideas that can be visualized, and recorded instantly. That input can be easily collected, compiled and analyzed. And people enjoy using the programs.”

IDEA New Rochelle is collaborating on the project with the City of New Rochelle and the New Rochelle Downtown Business Improvement District.

In New Rochelle, residents and visitors are invited to explore the technologies being prototyped on Saturday, July 21, when representatives from the Mayors Challenge will come to the Grand Market, the farmers’ market and festival that runs weekly through October. The market runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., in Ruby Dee Park at Library Green, Huguenot and Lawton streets.

Scores of market goers already tried the activities at a recent demonstration during the weekly event. An augmented reality cellphone app showed the park in real time, allowing a user to add a virtual tree, swing set, bench or other amenity with a touch of the screen. A game-like computer program Streetmix allowed them to play with ideas for Huguenot Street, adding or removing elements such as small “parklets,” a bike lane or space for a food truck. Finally, a fully immersive virtual reality program allowed users to “stroll” (or teleport) through Ruby Dee Park. Using the intuitive hand-held tools, visitors drew hearts on the areas of the virtual park they liked best.

New Rochelle and each of the other participating cities, chosen in February from more than 300 applicants, received $100,000 from the Challenge to get the program off the ground. In October, after six months of testing and refining the projects, winners will be announced. Four cities will each win $1 million to put their ideas in place. One will win $5 million.

“With this innovative concept, New Rochelle can lead the way for communities across the country,” said Mayor Noam Bramson. “By using virtual reality and augmented reality to visualize development and enhance the quality of urban design, we can foster greater public participation in choices about planning and growth.”

Photo credit: Submitted.