Noah Kazis

The narrow streets of Lower Manhattan date back centuries and pose a set of challenges nearly unique in New York City. With the city's first "pop-up café," DOT is testing out a solution to one of those challenges: the lack of public space caused by cramped sidewalks.

In appointing David Bragdon, the president of the Portland-area Metro Council, to run the Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, Mayor Bloomberg turned to an established elected figure with a track record of progressive planning. What will he bring to New York City?

Goldsmith Loves Congestion Pricing, BRT, But Did He Roll Back E. Side Bike Lanes? (Transpo Nation) Term Limits Only Big Ticket Charter Revision on Ballot (NYT, WSJ) As Family Mourns Bus Stop Crash Victim, Summons Given for Illegal U-Turn (News, Post) Fashionistas Bring Double-Parking, Engine-Idling Glamour to City Hall (Daily Politics) Daily News Editorials: Let the TWU … Continued

Portland-area Metro Council president David Bragdon will be the next head of New York City's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. The founding director of the office, Rohit Aggarwala, announced his departure in April after a three-year tenure in which he led the development of the city's sustainability framework, PlaNYC 2030. Bragdon, an elected official with experience leading one of the country's most progressively planned regions, will take over the role as the city prepares for the 2011 update of PlaNYC. 

More New Yorkers are riding bikes than ever, but a new report from the Department of City Planning further complicates the effort to precisely determine how much cycling has taken off. The report, which looks only at cycling in Manhattan bike lanes from 2001 to 2008, shows a significantly slower rate of growth than estimates based on other measurements.

Transit funding these days is, needless to say, scarce. Across the country, transit agencies are slashing services to cope with the gaping fiscal holes left by the recession. More than ever, every dollar counts.

Fordham Plaza, one of the city's busiest transit and retail hubs, but also one of its most dangerous, is slated for a major redesign [PDF] by NYCDOT and the Economic Development Corporation. Highlights of the badly-needed overhaul include a massive increase in public space, a slew of safety improvements for pedestrians, and a block-long bus- and bike-only street.

The House of Representatives passed its 2011 appropriations bill for Transportation and Housing and Urban Development yesterday, significantly increasing the amount going to both highways and transit while decreasing spending overall. A fight over $200 million in funds for the Obama Administration's new livability initiatives, however, showed that substantive changes in federal transportation policy will remain difficult to achieve until Congress tackles the long-term transportation reauthorization bill. 

The last decade has often been heralded as a "back to the cities" moment, a time when Americans have been excited to return to the walkable lifestyle many abandoned two generations before. A new report from New Jersey's Rutgers and Rowan Universities throws a little cold water on that optimism, though, pointing out that even the most densely populated state in the Union sprawls further out into the countryside every year.

The Flushing Commons development sailed to a 44-2 vote of approval in the City Council yesterday after the city arranged a set of concessions to local merchants who had opposed the project. Chief among them: $3 million to keep the project's oversized parking lot even cheaper.