Livable Streets

In his weekly radio address yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg discussed some steps his administration is taking toward a sustainable future, including the creation of an Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, and a Sustainability Advisory Board, which held its first meeting last week.

If New York or other large cities are looking for a solution to congestion and its negative impact on the economy, Hong Kong offers an excellent strategy and success story. I was there a few weeks back working on waterfront issues (that rival New York City for unrealized opportunities), and was struck by changes that have taken place since my previous visit five years earlier. In 2001, there were few streets or districts that were comfortable to walk in or engage with despite being known as a bustling shopping city. In the intervening time the city has undergone a major transformation led by non other than the city's Transport Department.

Transportation Alternatives has released a study of parking permit abuse among New York City employees (as observed in nine neighborhoods). Their press release notes the study's key findings:

Yesterday I showed some photos of the "Share the Road" Bike Route signs that were recently installed on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn and that sparked an interesting discussion on different possible ways to design and build on-street bike paths. This summer I was in Berkeley, California for a friend's wedding. NYCSR filmmaker Clarence Eckerson was also in Berkeley recently and we both snapped a bunch of photos of that city's extensive "Bicycle Boulevard" network. For some more ideas of what might be possible in New York City, take a look:

Of the ten largest cities in the United States, New York has far and away the greatest population density: 26,402.9 people per square mile, more than double the second densest big city, Chicago. The chart at right shows how the largest metropolitan areas stack up in terms of core population, overall population and core population density.  This fact alone should force New York City authorities to think differently than the rest of the country on all sorts of matters of public policy. New York is a quantitatively different animal than the other big American metropolitan regions in terms of percentage of people that live in the core, density and size of the core and size of the metropolitan area.

Classic Scene near Queensboro Bridge on Second Avenue (note red light!) Every morning I walk past scenes like this near the Queensboro Bridge (QBB) on Second Avenue. Traffic blocks up on Second Avenue north of the two major crosstown exit routes at 60th and 57th Streets all the way to 70th Street and beyond. The … Continued

It's not everyday that people are out on the street doing art installations dedicated to parking and land use policy, so here are some more scenes from Park(ing) Day San Francisco, snapped by Clarence Eckerson:

Park(ing) Day San FranciscoA Clarence Eckerson StreetfilmRunning time: 6:51 - 22.05 MB, QuickTime

Streetsblog: So, what happened in yesterday's election?