Don’t Hate the Parking App Profiteers, Hate the Free Parking Game
Haystack, the latest app allowing drivers to sell access to a parking space, blazed across the Internet this month after Boston Mayor Martin Walsh threatened to ban it. Valleywag called it a "scourge." The Awl compared it to profiteering off access to clean water. The haters have it wrong though: The apps aren't screwing over the public -- local governments are.
July 30, 2014
Unlike Toll Reform, a Sales Tax Really Is a Regressive Way to Fund Transit
The MTA capital program is facing a $12 billion shortfall, according to Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, and unless that gap is closed, transit riders will end up paying even more to cover the agency's ballooning debt load. There's one clear way to address that problem while cleaning up the traffic mess that ensnares motorists, bus riders, pedestrians, and cyclists alike -- raising revenue by reforming NYC's broken toll system. But a leader of Governor Cuomo's MTA Reinvention Commission appears to favor a regressive option that won't fix the dysfunction on city streets.
July 29, 2014
Got a Parking Problem? David Greenfield’s Purported Solution Won’t Fix It
Six months ago, when Council Member David Greenfield got the chair of the land use committee, it looked like a bad sign for parking reform in New York City. Can the city eliminate costly parking minimums if the land use committee is led by an elected whose approach to every parking problem seems to be "add more"?
July 28, 2014
One Mindblowing Fact Missing From BuzzFeed’s Port Authority Listicle
Earlier this week, BuzzFeed gleaned some fun facts about the Hudson River bridges and tunnels from a Port Authority data dump on the number of eastbound automobiles, buses, and trucks. If you took the numbers at face value, you might be left with the impression that cars are the most important thing moving around New York. But when you measure people instead of vehicles, the numbers look quite different.
July 25, 2014
How a Non-Profit Housing Developer Brought Safer Streets to the South Bronx
When the Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation, known as WHEDco, was founded in 1992, the dark days of arson and abandonment in the South Bronx were still fresh in people's minds. The organization set out to build new housing in a devastated neighborhood -- and decided to take a broader view of community development by also looking at employment, nutrition, crime, and education. When WHEDco's latest development, Intervale Green, opened in Crotona East in 2009, its residents identified another major need: safer streets.
July 24, 2014
Seeking Safer Routes to Walk and Bike Across the Harlem River
Have you ever tried biking or walking across the Harlem River? Despite a plethora of bridges, walkers and bikers often face crossings and approaches that are confusing or downright hostile. A new campaign from Transportation Alternatives and local residents aims to focus DOT's attention on making it safer for New Yorkers to get between the two boroughs under their own power.
July 23, 2014