Environment: Multilevel Man

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New Image. Montreal's experiment did not go unnoticed. Other cities have called on other planners to provide variations. But Ponte remains the pre-eminent multilevel man. Anyone who phones his Montreal office is likely to be given a number to reach him at work in cities ranging from Paris to Melbourne. In Miami, where the water table is too high to allow digging underground, he is proposing to put walkways through the second story of buildings and on bridges over streets. In Dallas a Ponte-designed system already exists below the ten-acre Main Place office complex. Another portion will probably be built beneath a new city hall, then spread to developments on Griffin Square and Thanks-Giving Square.

"Everybody benefits," Ponte says. "Developers get more rent. Citizens not only have a new convenience of moving around, but the city becomes a richer, more diverse place. Tax revenues go up; the towns get a new image." To be sure, such circulation systems are only realized in bits and pieces. Even so, says Ponte, "at the rate that developers have been rebuilding downtown, a complete pedestrian system can be built in ten to 15 years. You might think that this sounds visionary—and it is, to some extent. But it is also eminently practical."