Livable Streets

Yesterday afternoon the Dept. of Transportation launched a new and improved web site loaded with features designed to make information more available to the public. Now you can use the DOT's site not only to watch traffic cams and sign up for e-news updates, but also to request different types of permits, report potholes, file complaints about newsracks, report damaged bicycle racks (and our favorite, request bicycle racks).

Transportation Alternatives has teamed up with cycling advocates from Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle to issue the Urban Transportation Report Card (PDF), which rates these cities' progress on greening their transportation systems. The report notes that transportation accounts for 20-60% of carbon emissions in major U.S. cities, so it is very encouraging that in each city the most significant growth occurred in bicycling, with Chicago registering an 80% increase in cyclists from 1990-2000.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz

In the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, a group of teenagers is transforming a drab, cinder block wall into a three-story mural to memorialize three children killed on dangerous Third Avenue and to remind motorists to drive safely. The mural is being organized by Transportation Alternatives and Groundswell Community Mural Project and painted under the guidance of acclaimed social activist artists Christopher Cardinale and Nicole Schulman.

Sarah Gallagher of the Upper Green Side introduces us to life on the neighborhood streets on the Manhattan side of the Queensboro bridge. Talking with store owners and others in the area, Streetfilms' Nick Whitaker learns that expensive rent isn't the only cost of doing business on the Upper East Side.