Sarah Goodyear

No one who comes before the NYC Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission is going to admit to liking congestion. If they're against the mayor's congestion-pricing plan, they are usually going to come up with some kind of alternative.

 

Robin Chase is the co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar and the founder and CEO of GoLoco, a ride-sharing service that uses social networks like Facebook to connect people who want to carpool. A Harvard University Loeb Fellow, Chase is an authority on the use of wireless and mesh network technology as it applies to transportation. She'll be giving a talk at Baruch College, 151 E. 25th St., Room 759, at 9:30am on October 19th. There she'll discuss some of the ways wireless technology can facilitate near-term reduction of CO2 emissions. What follows are some excerpts from a telephone conversation last week with Sarah Goodyear.

Community activists in Jackson Heights have been complaining about congestion at the corner at 73rd St. and 37th Ave. (right) for years. A major traffic study of the area is underway, but according to a DOT spokesman, the department didn't want to wait to implement "short-term initiatives" that could ease the problem. Problem is, some of the activists--including Will Sweeney of the Western Jackson Heights Alliance--aren't necessarily thrilled with the department's solution.

From the people at Smart Growth America comes word of a new book, Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change, just out from the Urban Land Institute. In the book, researchers argue that more compact development (such as Atlantic Station, a mixed-use complex in Atlanta built on reclaimed industrial land, shown at right) must play a key role if this country is to reduce emissions:

The folks over at the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership have unveiled the results of a collaboration with the Project for Public Spaces (PPS) undertaken over the last couple of years. Two public workshops were held to get community input on the plans, which address four different areas of Myrtle Avenue, one of the main commercial streets for Fort Greene and Clinton Hill.

Way back in February Gov. Eliot Spitzer declared his support for a plan to build a $600 million casino in the Catskills. Now opponents of the St. Regis Mohawk tribe project, which would be located at the Monticello Racetrack in Sullivan County, have launched a public-relations campaign highlighting the traffic congestion and sprawl they say would result.

Good magazine reports on how, with remarkable simplicity, this menacing, marginal streetscape in downtown LA was turned into a welcoming public space (click here for the after photo):

DOT plans to build a physically-separated two-way bike lane on this one block stretch of Canal Street at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge. The project also includes pedestrian safety fixes.

An article in today's New York Times looks at the city's most prominent -- and profitable -- form of street furniture, the pay telephone: