Urban Planning
An English Plan in New York
The once traffic-filled street between Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery is now a thriving plaza.
March 28, 2007
StreetFilms: Interview with Parking Guru Donald Shoup
"I don't see why people have to pay market rents to live in a neighborhood but the cars should live rent-free. In New York you have expensive housing for people and free parking for cars. You've got your priorities exactly the wrong way around."
March 20, 2007
Doctoroff Sets Stage for Something Bold, Creative & Expensive
Yesterday, Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff and MTA President Lee Sander delivered a pair of one-two speeches at the annual meeting of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council. Sadly, the report I wrote up yesterday afternoon was eaten by my blog software. It was really good too. Much more entertaining than this one. What are you gonna do?
March 16, 2007
PlaNYC 2030 Project “Tearing Things Up” at City Hall
A tipster tells us of a particularly vigorous screaming match in City Hall last week between Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff and a career civil servant who must remain nameless.
March 13, 2007
Report from Atlanta: Don’t Walk This Way
I can't get behind Prevention Magazine's ranking of New York as 39th among the nation's most walkable cities. But after spending three days in Atlanta for a conference recently, I have no problem understanding why it rates 86th.
March 9, 2007
PlanNYC 2030: What makes a Community Sustainable?
A few weeks ago I attended the first of the Community Leader meetings for the PlanNYC 2030 Sustainability initiative. I thought Streetsblog readers might be interested in some reflections on this from a neighborhood environmentalist perspective.
February 20, 2007
The Power of Moses: Please Wield Responsibly
An op-ed piece by Eleanor Randolph in today's New York Times finds yet another lesson in the current re-examination of Robert Moses's legacy. Randolph looks at the enormously powerful entities, usually known as authorities, that Moses left behind: "public-private hybrid[s] that can collect fees, take on debt and build things with little government interference."
February 14, 2007
Sustainable Transportation for NYC: How to Make it Happen
Today on Gotham Gazette, Bruce Schaller outlines how transportation policy could fit in to Mayor Bloomberg's sustainability initiative for 2030. The piece merits a full read, but Schaller frames his argument in terms of three big ideas:
February 13, 2007
Streetfilms: “A City Is a Means to a Way of Life”
At last October's Manhattan Transportation Policy Conference, convened by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, people from every neighborhood in Manhattan gathered to discuss a vision for the future of transportation in New York.
February 9, 2007
Congestion Tops Citizens’ PlaNYC 2030 Concerns
The second phase of Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030 outreach campaign, which has been soliciting feedback from the public through meetings with community leaders and on PlaNYC's website, has been completed, and the word is in: People in New York want to do something about traffic congestion.
February 9, 2007