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Jessica Lappin: Congestion Pricing Advocate
This recent constituent e-mail shows that Council Member Jessica Lappin's lukewarm support for congestion pricing seems to have turned into full-fledged support now that the proposal has no chance of being implemented (taking a page out of Assemblywoman Joan Millman's book). In Lappin's defense, she did vote for pricing when it came before the council. But it might have been helpful had she found her voice a few months -- or even weeks -- before the plan went to Albany.
April 15, 2008
Citizens Hammer NYPD Commissioner Kelly on Street Safety
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly at Baruch College last week
March 25, 2008
Moses to LaGuardia: Bikes Have No Place on the Street
Dave Lutz of the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition has been digging through the Municipal Archives and look what he found: a 1938 memo from Robert Moses to Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia about the need to create a network of dedicated bike paths in city parks. Moses's reasoning looks odd to modern eyes, in part because he argues for bike paths as a purely recreational amenity. His rationale for bike infrastructure fails to see cycling as transportation (sound familiar?), choosing instead to segregate bike facilities from the street network.
March 19, 2008
Assemblyman Hevesi Clarifies Transit “Money Grab” Comment
Following our post yesterday about a newspaper article in which Andrew Hevesi was quoted as calling congestion pricing "a money grab to pay for mass transit," Streetsblog got a call from the Queens assemblyman's office.
February 26, 2008
We Are Breathing Oil in Our Big Cities
In three different studies presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Boston last weekend, researchers "provided mounting evidence that air pollution can both increase the risk of cardiovascular disease in the long-term and induce heart attacks within hours of traffic exposure." While the studies have yet to be released in full, the Guardian reveals some details from the presentations made at AAAS:
February 20, 2008
Pint-Sized Parks Make Safer Streets and Cleaner Rivers
The Greenstreet at 110th and Amsterdam helps keep sewage out of city rivers and features a beefed-up, traffic-calming "blockbuster."
February 14, 2008
“My Other Car Is a Bright Green City”
As attention turns to the next federal transportation bill, and livable streets fans scan the platforms of presidential candidates for glimpses of what to expect from Washington over the next four years, Alex Steffen, editor and CEO of the blog WorldChanging, has posted an essay-in-progress called "My Other Car is a Bright Green City." Steffen says that reining in fuel standards and auto emissions, for instance, is not nearly as important to present and future generations as developing communities that behave more like cities, which are, by environmental measures, much cleaner than commute-intensive suburbs and exurbs. Here are some excerpts.
February 13, 2008
A “Vision Zero” for New York?
On Tuesday the Bloomberg administration announced record low traffic deaths from 2000 to 2007, and claimed, if not in so many words, that city streets are safer than ever. But the numbers, included on a chart that accompanied this media release, also indicated that 23 cyclists died in 2007. That would make last year -- according to the data released Tuesday, at least -- the deadliest for riders in the eight year period shown.
February 1, 2008
City Numbers Show Highest Cyclist Death Toll in Eight Years
Traffic fatalities in 2007 were at their lowest level since the city began keeping records almost 100 years ago, according to data released today by the Bloomberg administration. However, while the number of pedestrian fatalities last year dropped sharply percentage-wise from 2006, down to roughly one death every two-and-a-half days, cyclist fatalities were up, and pedestrian and cyclist deaths combined accounted for 58.6 percent of the 271 total traffic deaths, the highest such percentage in the past eight years.
January 29, 2008
Ghost Bikes Memorial Ride Marks Another Year of Loss
Grief, solidarity and resolve brought out two hundred New York cyclists yesterday for the third annual Ghost Bikes Memorial Ride, to commemorate cyclists killed by motor vehicle drivers last year.
January 7, 2008