Out of Town

Cyclists queue up on Brunswick Street in Melbourne.

The much-hyped and much-criticized Tata Nano, a car that will hit the Indian market retailing for a mere 100,000 rupees -- the equivalent of $2,500 -- got a perplexing nod of approval from the Economist newsmagazine last week:

Through circumstances too convoluted to go into here, I found myself on a huge cruise ship over the holiday break, bound for the Eastern Caribbean. Our first port of call was San Juan, Puerto Rico, which is much the same as Aaron Naparstek left it two years ago:

Top brass at the NYPD usually (but not always) cast a blind eye toward police officers who show disregard for the city's parking regulations. It's a sharp contrast to the NYPD's "broken windows" school of policing, which promotes aggressive enforcement against minor scofflaws (like my friend Katie who recently spent a night in the box for a supposedly unpaid off-leash dog walking summons).

London retailers enjoyed a £100 million spending spree as Oxford, Bond and Regents Streets were closed to motor vehicle traffic for a day

Artist Michel de Broin removed the engine, suspension, transmission and electrical system from his 1986 Buick Regal. He then equipped it with 4 independent pedal and gear mechanisms transforming his old Buick into the "Self Propulsion Car." De Broin's piece was shown here in New York City back in 2005 at an Exit Art exhibition entitled "Traffic".

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel with comrades Karla Quintero of Transportation Alternatives and Streetsblog editor Aaron Naparstek to Bogotá, Colombia to document some of the amazing advances going on in the livable streets movement there. We spent an entire Sunday, from 5am 'til nearly 5pm, riding bicycles around during Ciclovía, a weekly event in which over 70 miles of city streets are closed to traffic and opened to walking, biking, running, skating, recreating, picnicking, and talking with family, neighbors and strangers. Ciclovía was simply one of the most moving experiences I have had in my entire life (no pun intended).

The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy has chosen Paris for its 2008 Sustainable Transportation Award. In a letter from the ITDP Board of Directors to Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, the Institute praises the French capitol's recent transportation policies, most notably the Vélib project:

Infuriated by reckless idiots speeding down your neighborhood street? Tired of waiting for city government to do something about it? Then you will probably enjoy this German guy's homemade traffic-calming system, inspired, perhaps, by the legendary killer bollards of Manchester, England.