Quality of Life
Streetsblog Basics
Congestion Relief: It’s About Your Health
Yesterday's New York Times editorial on transportation policy makes a strong case for linking concerns about traffic congestion to concerns about health. It's worth looking at the full text of All Choked Up, the report from Environmental Defense that the paper references when arguing that in order to achieve his goal of a sustainable city,
April 2, 2007
Breaking News: Frieden Tapped as DOT Commish
Please note: This was an April Fool's Day post...
April 1, 2007
A Tale of Two DOT Plans
Looking down Park Slope's 9th Street at Prospect Park West. They call this "excess capacity."
March 29, 2007
Opposition Brewing to DOT’s Proposal for 9th Street Bike Lanes
Tonight, 6:30 pm at Old First Church on 7th Avenue and Carroll Street, the transportation committee of Brooklyn Community Board 6 hosts a blockbuster follow-up meeting to the "One-Way? No Way!" extravaganza of March 15.
March 29, 2007
A Community Workshop to Re-envision Grand Army Plaza
All across the city neighborhood groups are coming together to re-envision and plan their own communities. In the last few months we've seen valuable community-planning processes taking place in Hell's Kitchen, the Meatpacking District and, to a certain extent, along Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. People aren't waiting around for real estate developers or city agencies to tell them how their neighborhoods should be. They are going out and doing the thinking and planning themselves.
March 29, 2007
DOT Makes the Case for Bike Routes Parallel to W. Houston St.
Last Tuesday night Ryan Russo and Josh Benson from the Department of Transportation presented a plan to Manhattan's Community Board 2 to create a safer east-west bike route across Lower Manhattan. With three cyclists having been killed on Houston Street over the last two years and major reconstruction of the street currently underway, members of CB2 led by Ian Dutton have been advocating for a physically-separated bike lane to be built on Houston Street.
March 16, 2007
StreetFilms: One Way is the Wrong Way
StreetFilms: One Way is the Wrong Way Running time: 5 minutes 10 seconds In Park Slope, Brooklyn, the Department of Transportation has put forward a plan to convert a pair of two-way neighborhood avenues to one-way operation. DOT says that the plan is designed strictly “to make it safer for pedestrians crossing the street,” but … Continued
March 14, 2007
DOT’s Park Slope Proposal: Is this Atlantic Yards Planning?
Last week, DOT quietly revealed that it was planning to narrow Fourth Avenue and transform Park Slope, Brooklyn's Sixth and Seventh Avenues in to one-way streets. Agency officials say that the the changes are being proposed for no reason other than "to make it safer for pedestrians crossing the street."
March 13, 2007
City Finally Finishes Eight-Year-Long Truck Study
Yesterday, the Department of Transportation announced the publication of its Truck Route Management and Community Impact Reduction Study. The study, which began over eight years ago (PDF), recommends the establishment of an Office of Freight Mobility, new educational materials and public outreach efforts, improved street signs, better enforcement, and some policy and regulatory changes -- for example, requiring trucks over 26,000 pounds operating on city streets to be equipped with a convex mirror to help reduce blind spots.
March 9, 2007
Report from Atlanta: Don’t Walk This Way
I can't get behind Prevention Magazine's ranking of New York as 39th among the nation's most walkable cities. But after spending three days in Atlanta for a conference recently, I have no problem understanding why it rates 86th.
March 9, 2007