Quality of Life
Streetsblog Basics
Another Model: Berkeley’s Bicycle Boulevard Network
Yesterday I showed some photos of the "Share the Road" Bike Route signs that were recently installed on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn and that sparked an interesting discussion on different possible ways to design and build on-street bike paths. This summer I was in Berkeley, California for a friend's wedding. NYCSR filmmaker Clarence Eckerson was also in Berkeley recently and we both snapped a bunch of photos of that city's extensive "Bicycle Boulevard" network. For some more ideas of what might be possible in New York City, take a look:
September 27, 2006
Urban Density and a Pocketbook Plea for Congestion Pricing
Of the ten largest cities in the United States, New York has far and away the greatest population density: 26,402.9 people per square mile, more than double the second densest big city, Chicago. The chart at right shows how the largest metropolitan areas stack up in terms of core population, overall population and core population density. This fact alone should force New York City authorities to think differently than the rest of the country on all sorts of matters of public policy. New York is a quantitatively different animal than the other big American metropolitan regions in terms of percentage of people that live in the core, density and size of the core and size of the metropolitan area.
September 26, 2006
Streetfilms: Park(ing) Day San Francisco
Park(ing) Day San FranciscoA Clarence Eckerson StreetfilmRunning time: 6:51 - 22.05 MB, QuickTime
September 25, 2006
Bloomberg Sustainability Announcement
As we reported this morning, Mayor Bloomberg is in California with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to make a major policy announcement on a major, long-term, environmental sustainability initiative. The key components of the Mayor's plan include:
September 21, 2006
Street Quotes: Post-Labor Day Re-Acclimation
Overheard on Sunday afternoon in Carrol Gardens, Brooklyn where a boy of about five years of age waited impatiently to cross the street with his mother:
September 5, 2006
Car Alarm Ruins Otherwise Excellent Meal
I had dinner last Saturday with a couple of people at Enzo's Cafe on Arthur Avenue after a day spent helping prepare the route for the New York City Century bicycle tour, which this year will be sending twice as many people to the Bronx as it has in the past.
September 1, 2006
Dead Ball
Whatever you think of the idea of a highrise cluster in Downtown Brooklyn, you have to worry that the sponsors of the Atlantic Yards project suggest that creating jobs and housing justifies the kind of planning that discourages street life. Among the lowlights of the marathon August 23 "public hearing" on the draft Environmental Impact Statement covering the Atlantic Yards, consider these signs:
August 29, 2006
The Suburbanization of NYC’s Waterfront
Recently, a bunch of us took a bike excursion along the East River waterfront from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn to the new Water Taxi Beach in Hunters Point, Queens. Traffic was light most of the way and street life relatively heavy.
August 28, 2006