Transportation Policy
Basics
How Green Is Our Mayor
Bookending his much-vaunted Earth Day speech with congratulatory video clips from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mayor Mike Bloomberg called for New Yorkers to take the initiative in the international fight against global warming, positioning himself as a leader on the issue.
April 23, 2007
StreetFilm: Talking Transportation with Bob Kiley
The debate over congestion pricing has been heating up in advance of Mayor Bloomberg's big Earth Day speech tomorrow. What better time to get some talking points on the matter from Bob Kiley, who served as the Commissioner of Transport for London from 2001 to 2006? (Kiley was also chairman and CEO of New York's MTA from 1983 to 1990.)
April 21, 2007
Bus Bulbs Are Blooming
According to a more-than-a-little-snarky post on Curbed, the first of Lower Broadway's hotly anticipated bus bulbs has been constructed on Broadway south of Spring Street.
April 18, 2007
City’s Parking Expansion Sustains Nothing but Motoring
From the Tri-State Transportation Campaign's latest newsletter, three examples of how City Hall contradicts its stated Long-Term Planning and Sustainability goals with policies that foster more automobile dependence:
April 12, 2007
We Must Imagine a Future Without Cars
From Alternet, the following is an excerpted version of James Howard Kunstler's recent speech to the Commonwealth Club of California, well worth reading in its entirety. An audio stream of the speech is also available:
April 11, 2007
City Pitches in for Yankee Stadium Parking
What could be worse than replacing neighborhood parks with private parking decks, built with the specific intent of increasing car trips by the tens of thousands through a community already suffering from so much disease-causing pollution that its nickname is "Asthma Alley"?
April 9, 2007
Resolved: More Traffic Congestion & Automobile Dependence
Brooklyn City Councilmember Lew Fidler and a small group of his outer borough colleagues have put forward Resolution 774 "calling upon the Mayor of New York City to oppose the institution of any form of congestion pricing." The resolution is based on a March 2006 report commissioned by the Queens Chamber of Commerce that was, to put it mildly, filled with misinformation and gaping holes about the City of London's congestion charging experience.
April 6, 2007
StreetFilm: Room to Breathe
Inspired by a poster produced by Portland's Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) in the mid-1990s, this weekend Transportation Alternatives gathered a gaggle of cyclists on 42nd Street in Manhattan to stage New York's own dramatic illustration of how much street space would be saved if everyone riding an automobile were traveling on a bicycle or bus.
April 2, 2007
Congestion Relief: It’s About Your Health
Yesterday's New York Times editorial on transportation policy makes a strong case for linking concerns about traffic congestion to concerns about health. It's worth looking at the full text of All Choked Up, the report from Environmental Defense that the paper references when arguing that in order to achieve his goal of a sustainable city,
April 2, 2007
Breaking News: Frieden Tapped as DOT Commish
Please note: This was an April Fool's Day post...
Dr. Thomas Frieden accepting his new job as DOT commissioner this morning in Central Park.
April 1, 2007