Public Health
Streetsblog Basics
GOP’s New Attack on Health Care Reform Bill: It Promotes Walking!
Despite a growing awareness among conservatives that walking and biking are causes worth backing, Republicans on Capitol Hill continue to condemn bike-ped programs as wasteful "pork". The GOP's latest potshots at sustainable transportation come during debate over a health care bill that focuses mainly on insurance and hospitals, but also includes a public health grant program aimed at encouraging exercise.
June 16, 2009
What’s Really Dangerous for Kids? Hint: It Has Four Wheels and a Tailpipe.
When she wrote a column for the New York Sun last year about letting her nine-year-old ride the subway on his own, Lenore Skenazy was pilloried by many as an irresponsible mom. She stuck to her guns, though, and started a blog dedicated to "sane parenting", advocating the idea that we are over-sheltering our children from infinitesimal threats such as stranger abduction. According to Skenazy, the kind of independence represented by that subway trip is necessary and healthy for children -- and their parents as well.
May 5, 2009
Shocker: Speed Limits Are Useless Without Enforcement
New research from Purdue University highlights the futility of controlling drivers' speed with signs. The Times' health blog has the story:
November 11, 2008
TA Rolls Out CrashStat Improvements
E. 33rd St. and Park Ave. was the city's most dangerous intersection between 1995 and 2005.
October 29, 2008
Streetfilms: Hiking the Heights
If you spend much time in upper Manhattan, you know it's blessed with hundreds of acres of parkland, much of which serves to showcase the area's naturally rugged terrain. To help bring attention to this sometimes overlooked resource while promoting public health, an organization called CLIMB (City Life is Moving Bodies), in conjunction with Creative Arts Workshops for Kids, hosts an event called Hike the Heights, an "urban safari" through parks from Morningside Heights to Inwood. Streetfilms correspondent Mark Read has the lowdown.
June 24, 2008
Where Would You Have a “Summer Street”?
On Tuesday WNYC's Brian Lehrer asked listeners to send in their suggestions for future "Summer Streets" locations. Responses -- which included Flatbush Avenue, one tube of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, and the Henry Hudson Parkway -- were mapped here.
June 20, 2008
Streetfilms: “Summer Streets” Kickoff
Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson delivers this snappy video recap of yesterday's press conference announcing "Summer Streets," the Ciclovía-style car-free event that will open six miles of Manhattan thoroughfares to pedestrians and cyclists for three Saturdays in August. One quote from Mayor Bloomberg, which doesn't seem to have made the cut in this morning's media coverage, addresses (tentatively) the potential of the event to change the way people look at the city:
June 17, 2008
Bloomberg, Sadik-Khan and Friends Unveil “Summer Streets”
David Byrne, Janette Sadik-Khan, Paul Steely White, Lance Armstrong, and Scott Stringer look on mirthfully as Mayor Bloomberg announces "Summer Streets."
June 16, 2008
Car-Free Saturdays Will Open Path For Peds and Bikes From City Hall to 72nd
Last month we reported that DOT was planning a major car-free event this summer in the mold of Bogotá, Colombia's weekly Ciclovía. Details emerged on Friday in the Downtown Express:
June 16, 2008
Hell’s Parking Lot
If there's one thing a neighborhood overrun by traffic doesn't need, it's more public parking garages. But that's exactly what New Yorkers who live by the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel will get if the City Planning Commission allows current development patterns to continue.
May 30, 2008