Car Culture
Streetsblog Basics
Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?
Yesterday marked the opening of the Sexy Green Auto Show at the Eden Project bio theme park in Cornwall, UK. It's a display meant to demonstrate that "green" cars (like the Ford Focus Flexi Fuel bio-ethanol number at right) don't have to fit the clunky Birkenstock stereotype. As the Guardian notes,
March 30, 2007
Ungrateful Liberal Scum, “We Do Not Summons Our Own.”
A certain sense of entitlement emerges in the UncivilServants comments section. Posted verbatim, no spelling check:
March 28, 2007
Ad Nauseam: Tiki Barber and His Cadillac Escalade
While reading the NY Times essay about the woman who drives back and forth across the Brooklyn Bridge the other day, I was reminded of the Tiki Barber ads for the Cadillac Escalade. The spot that premiered during the Super Bowl is a moody, impressionistic montage that shows the former New York Giants running back driving solo through the streets and over the bridges of New York, talking about "seizing opportunities." The tagline is "Life. Liberty. And the Pursuit."
March 28, 2007
Going Nowhere Fast
This weekend's City section of the New York Times featured a
mind-blowing essay by children's-book writer Sarah Shey about her habit
of taking her one-year-old son out for drives in the city -- drives
with no destination or purpose in mind, in which she crossed and
recrossed the Brooklyn Bridge endless times.
March 26, 2007
StreetFilms: Interview with Parking Guru Donald Shoup
"I don't see why people have to pay market rents to live in a neighborhood but the cars should live rent-free. In New York you have expensive housing for people and free parking for cars. You've got your priorities exactly the wrong way around."
March 20, 2007
Mayor Bloomberg at the Crossroads: Who Will Run DOT?
With DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall set to depart city government in three weeks, sources say that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is close to announcing her replacement. The Mayor's choice will have a profound impact on day-to-day neighborhood life as well as the City of New York's long-term future. Though the DOT commissioner job search has barely been covered by the local press, this may very well be one of the most important decisions of the last 1,000 days of the Bloomberg Administration.
March 20, 2007
Things Heating Up Over at UncivilServants.org
Over at the site UncivilServants.org, the Transportation Alternatives project where readers can post photos of illegally parked cars sporting government-issued parking permits (like the court officers above who are comfortably ensconced in a no-parking zone on Crosby Street), there's a hot thread on whether showing the plate numbers of the vehicles constitutes a potentially dangerous invasion of privacy for police officers and others who are caught in violation. What do Streetsblog readers think?
March 19, 2007
Defending “The Bailey’s” Right to Kung Pao Chicken and an SUV
DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall and her husband Senator Charles Schumer enjoy a meal with The Bailey's.
March 14, 2007
Parking Permit Abusers Being Cleared from Chinatown?
A Chinatown tipster sent along these remarkable pictures yesterday of what seems to be an effort to cut down on placarded vehicles clogging the neighborhood's streets:
March 13, 2007
Parking: If You Build it They Will Come… in Their Cars.
This is the second in a three-part series on New York City parking policy.Part 1: The New York City Parking Boom
March 12, 2007