Livable Streets

A few weeks ago I attended the first of the Community Leader meetings for the PlanNYC 2030 Sustainability initiative. I thought Streetsblog readers might be interested in some reflections on this from a neighborhood environmentalist perspective.

In 2005, PBS came out with a widely promoted documentary narrated by Alanis Morissette called "Global Warming: The Signs and the Science." For people interested in learning more about the topic of global warming and climate change, this DVD is widely available. Being produced and distributed by a well known and highly respected organization, serves to set public opinion on causes and remedies for climate change.

Emil Choski has given his Car-Free Bedford Avenue project a serious face lift. The 22-year-old freelance graphic designer and community organizer's new web site includes a three dimensional "flyby" visualization accompanied by some very un-Williamsburgy classical music. With apologies to the Meatpacking District and Ninth Avenue, Emil's project has to be my favorite grassroots livable streets initiative going right now. When is Dan Doctoroff going to wake up and give this kid a job at the Economic Development Corporation?! Choski writes:

A new Columbia University study published in the American Journal of Health Promotion, yet again, links livable streets to improved public health. The study reports:

The death of four-year-old James Jacaricce Rice at the intersection of Third Avenue and Baltic Street in Brooklyn yesterday didn't make a huge splash in the news. But it should have.

Two pedestrians were killed in New York City last December by private sanitation trucks, one on Park Avenue South in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn Heights. Both deaths followed the most common pattern of pedestrian death in New York -- the peds were crossing the street, in the crosswalk, with the light, and a turning vehicle ran over them.

How can we get drivers to respect the communities they are driving though? How can we make traffic slow down if we can't change the design of the street or the timing of the lights? How can a community reclaim its neighborhood streets?

At last October's Manhattan Transportation Policy Conference, convened by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, people from every neighborhood in Manhattan gathered to discuss a vision for the future of transportation in New York.

George Haikalis of the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility, with microphone. Environmentalist Theodore W. Kheel, seated next to him, at far right, would reduce the subway fare to nothing.