Studies & Reports
Streetsblog Basics
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
$100 for a Year’s Worth of Parking
A new report [pdf] from the New York City Independent Budget Office explores the idea of a residential permit parking program:
March 7, 2007
New York Could be a Global Leader in Alternative Energy
The Syracuse Post-Standard reports:
February 23, 2007
Living Near Shops and Transit Makes New Yorkers Less Fat
A new Columbia University study published in the American Journal of Health Promotion, yet again, links livable streets to improved public health. The study reports:
February 15, 2007
Gridlock Sam: Avert Climate Catastrophe, Ride a Vespa®
While Parisians are starting to complain that "an invasion of noisy scooters and motorcycles and a rise in accidents involving pedestrian and motorcyclists" is one of the "unintended consequences" of Mayor Bertrand Delanoe's traffic reduction policies, "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz's consulting firm just issued a report claiming that New York City could better meet its long-term sustainability goals by adding more scooters to the traffic mix. Commissioned for Piaggio, the Italian manufacturer of Vespa scooters, the study says:
February 12, 2007
The Subway Should Be Free
George Haikalis of the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility, with microphone. Environmentalist Theodore W. Kheel, seated next to him, at far right, would reduce the subway fare to nothing.
February 9, 2007
Teaching City Gov’t to Count More Than Just Cars and Trucks
Transportation Alternatives issued a new study by transportation consultant Bruce Schaller today called Traffic Information in NYC (PDF file). The report, according to T.A., "uncovers large gaps in what is known about traffic and transportation in New York City."
January 23, 2007
The Times is a Changin’
A chart illustrating the number who commute by auto to the Central Business District from Bruce Schaller's study for the Manhattan Institute, Battling Traffic: What New Yorkers Think About Road Pricing.
January 12, 2007
Public Health and Livable Streets: Making the Connection
Thirty years ago the health arguments against car-dependence were 90 percent about air pollution and 10 percent about physical inactivity. Now, with tailpipe pollution down and obesity and diabetes up, those percentages are reversed. The latest evidence is a valuable new report, Steps to Get New Yorkers Moving (PDF file), from the Public Health Association of New York City.
January 11, 2007