Aaron Naparstek
AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.
Recent Posts
Newt Gingrich: I Vant to Suck Your Oil
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Before the financial meltdown severely undercut John McCain’s presidential ambitions, his campaign was giddy over the apparent success of its energy policy message: Drill, baby, drill! It is, after all, a simple sounding solution that appeals to politicians in love with the quick fix, oil companies desperate for access to new sources, and auto-dependent Americans, […]
Jim Kunstler on the Bail Out and What’s Next
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Jim Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, has been predicting today’s financial catastrophe for a few years now so it’s no surprise that his blog is loading slowly this morning. The people want to know: What’s going to happen next? What the mainstream is truly missing here en masse is that another tsunami is building […]
Culture War on Wheels
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Having dispensed with the question of whether an African-American or woman will ever make it to the White House, conservative Culture Warriors have moved on to defining and dividing Americans over their chosen mode of transportation. These two images have been floating around the right wing blogosphere under the shrieky, all-caps headline, "THIS IS ALL […]
Cartoon Tuesday: Back to School
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With rising gas prices crippling school bus fleets across the U.S., Clarion-Ledger editorial cartoonist Marshall Ramsay offers an intriguing new school transportation idea. Click through to see it.
Cartoon Tuesday: Conventional Wisdom
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As the Democratic convention convenes in Denver, Matt Davies of the Journal News drills down on the national energy policy debate. Click through for the punchline.
Energy Policy Straight Talk From Elizabeth Kolbert
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Back in his Straight Talkin’ days Senator John McCain acknowledged that offshore drilling wasn’t a viable solution for America’s energy troubles. In 2003, he broke with the Bush Administration and co-introduced legislation to reduce carbon emissions, by, in effect, imposing a price on them. McCain had a reputation for being a politician who told the […]
Cartoon Tuesday: The Elegant Simplicity of the Free Market
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Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling. Click through to view the comic in its entirety.
The U.S. Wants to “Borrow” From Transit to Pay for Highways
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U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said yesterday that due to declining gas tax revenues, the Highway Trust Fund would need to borrow money from its mass transit account to pay for road projects. Today’s big news story was buried at the bottom of page A17 in the New York Times: Gasoline tax revenue is falling […]
$36,000,000,000 for Corn. $0 for Transit.
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The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would provide emergency funding to local transit systems facing simultaneous increases in ridership and fuel costs. The legislation is now stalled in the Senate and the Bush Administration has expressed concern that "transit operators risk becoming permanently reliant upon this type of assistance." Meanwhile, when it […]
The Pentagon Burns 395,000 Barrels of Oil Per Day
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It’s always a bit of a mind-boggler when some statistics emerge showing how much oil the U.S. military consumes. From yesterday’s Politico: So, you think you’ve got the gas prices blues. Just consider Al Shaffer, the man in charge of drafting an energy strategy for the gas-guzzling Pentagon. With wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and […]
Livable Streets Projects Getting Hung Up in Budget Bureaucracy?
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From today’s Crain’s Insider: The city is weighing a new set of street design guidelines that would make installation of pedestrian-friendly elements, like curb extensions, easier. The Department of Transportation has developed a number of new street and traffic plans in Madison Square Park and other places around the city. But each one requires special […]