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Book Review: Twenty-Three Years to Save the Planet
When George Monbiot, the popular columnist for the UK's Guardian newspaper, gets interested in something, he digs and digs until he's found what he's satisfied is the truth. Monbiot is interested in global warming, and presents in Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning (U.S. Edition: South End Press, May 2007) a heavily footnoted 215-page brisk and compelling case for why we should all be very worried. This is probably the clearest and broadest book yet published about global warming, with doses of skepticism, inquisitiveness, sobriety and optimism. Every Streetsblog reader should read it. More important, every Streetsblog reader should get it into the hands of five Streetsblog non-readers and ask each of them to do the same.
June 25, 2007
A Bronx Cheer for Congestion Pricing
At a press conference today, a group of Bronx and northern Manhattan elected officials have signed on in support of Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing effort. They are:
June 15, 2007
City Transit Commuters: A Modest Assessment
Given some of the unfathomable declarations floated in the name of opposition to congestion pricing ("We have to do something about the pedestrians"), it's hard not to wonder what goes on in the minds of those who so passionately reject any perceived infringement upon their "right" to clog the streets and poison the air for "free."
June 14, 2007
New TV Ad Focuses on PlaNYC’s Health Benefits
The Campaign for New York's Future has released a new poll, a glossy mailer that'll go out to 380,000 families, and a television advertisement focusing on the health benefits of Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030. The Daily Politics has a nice write-up:
June 12, 2007
California Sues Municipalities for Bad Urban Planning
USA Today reports on a new development in the fight against climate change:
June 11, 2007
I Love This Town But…
Has anyone spotted the new Environmental Defense billboards that are supposedly hanging over the Holland Tunnel and Brooklyn-Queens Expressway? If so, send us a photo -- bonus points for including lots of traffic in the shot. ED has a new web site, AllChokedUp.org. Here is one of the ads they are running:
June 7, 2007
Chicago Alley Initiative Shows How to Make Streets Greener
Chicago's Department of Transportation started the Green Alleys Program to use the city's many alleyways to conserve natural resources and improve the environment. Although New York City doesn't have too many alleys, the beautifully-designed, 47-page Green Alleys Program booklet (PDF) offers several techniques that could still be useful in making New York City streets perform better environmentally.
June 7, 2007
Car-Free Sundays Return to the Bronx
In the early 1990's three and a half miles of the Grand Concourse, a major arterial roadway
in the Bronx, was closed to cars every Sunday from July through November (kind of like Bogota Colombia's Ciclovia).
The closures provided residents with much-needed open space to bike, walk, play and develop a sense of community with neighbors.
Despite its popularity, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani killed the
program in 1996.
June 7, 2007
CB4 Votes Tonight on a Revised Hell’s Kitchen
In order to foster ideas on how to reclaim 9th Avenue from Lincoln Tunnel traffic, the Clinton/Hell's Kitchen Pedestrian Safety Coalition (CHEKPEDS) sponsored a six month community input process designed by Project for Public Spaces. The process began with a design workshop in January, and has evolved into an impressive final report (PDF). Some highlights from the report:
June 6, 2007