Out of Town

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:

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. 

The Vauban Department of Transportation gets to work. Schritt Tempo: Walking Speed.

Following the news about the new sidewalk extensions and bike racks being installed in place of car parking space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Clarence Eckerson of Streetfilms sends along this short video looking at on-street bicycle parking in Portland, Oregon, that cyclists' Shangri-La. As Greg Raisman from Portland DOT says, "After we put it in, it was so successful that businesses two blocks away unanimously asked for another one..."

In just the last ten days here in New York City a 7-year-old boy was killed in the crosswalk by a trucker trying to beat a red light in Brooklyn, a young woman on the Upper East Side and a Brooklyn Heights law professor were crushed to death by private sanitation trucks, and a 12-year-old boy was mowed down by a hit-and-run driver in Queens. The list goes on. Yet, none of these horrible killings of innocents on the streets of New York City merited even a mention from Mayor Bloomberg or any other high level city official. Apparently, in America's safest big city, this is just business as usual.

November's Governing Magazine has a great story on how big cities across the U.S. are gearing up to make themselves more bike-friendly. There is no mention of New York City, but check out what Chicago is doing and how they are doing it:

Anyone who is upset about cars driving on the Hudson River Greenway or has doubts that New York City's bus rapid transit experiment will work without physical barriers to prevent motorists from driving and parking in bus lanes will find profound satisfaction in this video from Manchester, England.