Urban Planning
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Uncool New York: NYC Lags in Combatting Climate Change
Chris Smith has an outstanding story in this week's New York Magazine pointing out that New York City has fallen behind other world cities in addressing climate change and challenging the Bloomberg Administration to do more. An excerpt:
January 16, 2007
Making Hell’s Kitchen Less Hellish
Monday night was the first meeting of the Ninth Avenue Renaissance project. About 130 neighborhood stakeholders filled the gym at the Holy Cross School in Midtown to begin a process to transform Ninth Avenue from a dysfunctional, traffic-choked, polluted highway into, what organizer Christine Berthet says should be "a neighborhood Main Street" for Hell's Kitchen and Clinton.
January 10, 2007
A Tale of Two Cities’ Parking Policies
As soon as Mayor Bloomberg finally decides to deal with New York City's shameful and destructive government employee parking abuse situation, all he has to do is steal the simple new parking policy being instituted by Aetna Inc., a major employer in Hartford, Connecticut. The Hartford Courant reports:
January 8, 2007
Where the Sidewalk Ends: Dubai
A few of us from Project for Public Spaces were recently in Dubai to train a group of the city's leading real estate developers in Placemaking. The largest city in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai has experienced explosive growth in recent years, emerging as the region's financial and cultural capital.
January 5, 2007
Setting the Agenda on Pedestrian Safety
On the evening of Saturday, January 10, 2004, Peter Hornbeck, 26, stepped off the curb at Park Avenue and 96th Street and was struck by a Chevy Suburban traveling 74 miles per hour. The SUV, being driven by a 26-year-old man from Queens who had had his license revoked years earlier, dragged Hornbeck for a block as Hornbeck's friends cried out in horror. The driver, Gurpreet Oberoi, sped off, ditched his SUV and continued by bus to Atlantic City, where he spent the night gambling. Oberoi's friends stayed in the city, went to the police and called Oberoi on his cell phone to urge him to turn himself in. Oberoi was arrested (NYT Select, 2nd item) days later and sentenced (NYT Select) to up to nine years in prison for second degree manslaughter.
December 31, 2006
Holiday Book Recommendations Open Thread
Some of us at Streetsblog headquarters were talking about putting together a sidebar listing of recommended books to reinforce the commentary you find on the blog. I put together a few brief recommendations of five of my favorites, but we're also interested in learning what you've all been reading and what you'd suggest to others, so treat this as an open thread on livable streets-related books now that we're in the midst of the holiday gift-buying season.
December 18, 2006
Futurama 2030 Speech: News Round-Up
Map from the city's PlaNYC web site. See more maps at Gothamist.
December 13, 2006
Futurama 2030: Bloomberg Outlines Ambitious 10-Point Agenda
Only a couple of hundred yards from the rusting remains of the 1964 World's Fair, Mayor Michael Bloomberg laid out his own vision for the future of New York City this morning. In a speech entitled "New York City 2030: Accepting the Challenge," the mayor introduced a broad plan for creating a sustainable city "making room for 900,000 new residents, upgrading aging infrastructure, cleaning up pollution, and coping with the effects of global climate change."
December 12, 2006
File Under: No Wonder New York City is Falling Behind London
While New York City inexplicably continues to open up Central Park to motor vehicles from Thanksgiving to New Year's as a "holiday traffic mitigation," London transformed its most popular shopping area this weekend into a car-free pedestrian zone for holiday shoppers and visitors. Stretches of Oxford and Regents Streets were made into car-free zones this Saturday, December 2 from 10:30 am to 5:00 pm. Mayor Ken Livingstone wants to transform Oxford Street into a permanent pedestrian zone with light rail running down the middle. This weekend's event was set up as a test. This London reports:
December 5, 2006
A CRISPier Way to Build NYC’s 200+ Miles of New Bike Lanes?
See the world's first music video about shared-lane bike markings by Streetfilms Clarence Eckerson.
November 21, 2006