Aaron Naparstek

After Copenhagen, I visited Holland for a few days as a part of my German Marshall Fellowship. I will be writing more about some of the people I met and spoke with there, but for now I just wanted to share these photos from Amsterdam:

The Citizen commuter bicycle from Breezer.

Project for Public Spaces just published a great piece of work that is very much worth a download. The paper is called "Nine Ways to Transform New York into a City of Great Places." From the introduction:

By way of Clarence Eckerson, who is always keeping an eye on Portland, BikePortland has coverage of International Walk and Bike to School Day.

Transportation Alternatives' new study, Traffic's Human Toll, is getting picked up all over the place (CBS, NBC, Post). The report is an update on the famous Appleyard Study and it found that New Yorkers who live on high traffic streets have a measurably lower quality of life. Not exactly a huge surprise, and yet this is the first time that anyone has ever quantified it. The study is yet another argument in on behalf of an aggressive traffic reduction program for New York City.

The Department of Transportation's Bicycle Group is hiring. Know anyone good for the job?

A special New York City Streets Renaissance Campaign event.

Copenhagen, Denmark is not a natural bicycling city. In the early 1960's it was very much of a car town. In 1962 the city created its first pedestrian street, the Stroget, and every year since then Copenhagen has allocated more and more of its public space to bicycles, pedestrians and people who just want to sit and take a load off. The result is a remarkably pleasant city. Danish urban designer Jan Gehl says that the single biggest key to the change has been the development of the city's extensive bicycle network and that the Copenhagen of great public spaces that we see today would not be possible without bicycles.

Eyes on the street in Copenhagen, Denmark -- literally. Evidence that a city is more than just a skyline:

Move over Streetsblog Weekly Carnage. The kids over at Gothamist are now covering New York City motor vehicle mayhem with a nearly-real-time Google Maps mash-up. Overturned auto on the Brooklyn Bridge ramp to the FDR, 2:19 am! Pedestrian struck on 13th and University, 8:38 am! Severed finger on 235th Street in Queens, 11:48 am!?!?