Doug Gordon
Recent Posts
Neighborhood Empowerment Project: Humble Bike Rack Tells a Story of a Broken Process
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This is the first post generated by the Neighborhood Empowerment Project, an initiative of our parent company, Open Plans, to change the ineffective way our city government responds to neighborhood problems.
Letting People on Bicycles Use LPIs: A New Way Forward on Cycling Safety
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With this plot program, the safety benefits of LPIs will be extended to include people on bicycles as well as pedestrians.
The New Yorker Versus Vision Zero
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Cross-posted from Brooklyn Spoke. The default speed limit in New York City is set to drop to 25 miles per hour on November 7th, and because this is New York some people are not happy about it. Nick Paumgarten of the New Yorker, for example. A week after Halloween, a new speed limit of twenty-five miles per hour […]
Hundreds Gather to Launch the Park Slope Street Safety Partnership
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Last night, nearly 200 neighborhood residents gathered for over two hours in the Park Slope United Methodist Church for the launch of the Park Slope Street Safety Partnership, a consortium of civic groups, elected officials, and private citizens created to advance traffic calming efforts in the neighborhood. Framing the partnership’s goals in terms of Vision […]
Kind of Blue: Delia Ephron and the Art of Anti-Bike Illogic
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Cross-posted from Brooklyn Spoke. One of the old chestnuts of anti-bike-lane rhetoric is the argument that bike lanes are on the one hand empty and therefore not necessary, and on the other dangerous for pedestrians to cross because of all the cyclists whizzing by. To this absurd entry into the Encyclopedia of NIMBY Logic, writer […]
Schwartz, Soffian, and the So-Called “Bike War”
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Cross-posted from Brooklyn Spoke First, the obvious: Sam Schwartz is a great friend to cyclists and pedestrians. He was an early fan of bike sharing, has long been a cheerleader for Janette Sadik-Khan, and envisions a future in which New York’s rivers are crisscrossed with new bridges exclusively for people on two wheels or two feet. So when he […]
The Bike Share Criticism Challenge
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Cross-posted from Brooklyn Spoke If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen a few of my rather straightforward tweets in which I repeat some of the main criticisms of bike-share offered by NIMBYs as they fight tooth and nail to move Citi Bike stations from their blocks. These tweets are typically followed by pictures […]
Worried About Cars Killing People? Eric Ulrich Says “Get a Life”
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Re-posted from Brooklyn Spoke. On June 2, New York City Council Member Eric Ulrich, the same guy who had the bright idea to introduce a new licensing system for bicyclists, tweeted his own “random observ” about bike lanes: Interestingly, this tweet no longer shows up in his history. He may have felt the need to […]
“Don’t Be a Jerk” — The Wrong Message at the Wrong Time
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This week, the New York City Department of Transportation began promoting its online (and thankfully multilingual) “Bike Smart Pledge,” asking cyclists to yield to pedestrians, stop at red lights and stop signs, ride in the direction of traffic, stay off the sidewalk, and have the proper lighting when riding at night. This will soon be […]
The Spaghetti-on-the-Wall Strategy
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Cross-posted from Brooklyn Spoke I’m not one for conspiracy theories. 9/11 was not an inside job, Oswald acted alone, the Moon landing was real, and Elvis is still dead. When it comes to all of the bike lane hate that seems to be spewing forth from various corners of this city, and Brooklyn in particular, […]
At CB6 Meeting, PPW Foes Take Stand Against Waving and Smiling
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This dispatch from last night’s meeting of Brooklyn Community Board 6 comes to us from reader Doug Gordon. You can follow Doug at his blog, Brooklyn Spoke. Despite broad public support and studies demonstrating the benefits of the redesigned Prospect Park West, there remains one group who would rather ignore the facts: the so-called “Neighbors […]