Karla Quintero

 Even the sprightliest city pedestrian sometimes has to hustle across the street to beat a short walk signal. In a new report, Transportation Alternatives examines what it's like for New York's elderly to face flashing lights, wide crossings and unyielding motorists. 

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel with comrades Karla Quintero of Transportation Alternatives and Streetsblog editor Aaron Naparstek to Bogotá, Colombia to document some of the amazing advances going on in the livable streets movement there. We spent an entire Sunday, from 5am 'til nearly 5pm, riding bicycles around during Ciclovía, a weekly event in which over 70 miles of city streets are closed to traffic and opened to walking, biking, running, skating, recreating, picnicking, and talking with family, neighbors and strangers. Ciclovía was simply one of the most moving experiences I have had in my entire life (no pun intended).

Against the backdrop of news that three more pedestrians were killed on Saturday, a hundred people rallied for pedestrian safety on the steps of City Hall on Sunday. Karla Quintero of Transportation Alternatives, above, started with a moment of silence for those killed by the automobile on the streets of New York and called for 2,000 fewer pedestrian injuries and deaths by 2009 (pdf). Speaking in English and Spanish, she listed five objectives for the improvement of pedestrian safety:

For the last two years or so Transportation Alternatives' Karla Quintero has been working on a New York City-based update of the famous "Appleyard Study" examining the social costs of traffic. Karla presented the study's preliminary findings last year at a forum I helped organize in Brooklyn and it was really interesting. This event is sure to be a good one. From Transalt: