Urban Planning
File Under: No Wonder New York City is Falling Behind London
While New York City inexplicably continues to open up Central Park to motor vehicles from Thanksgiving to New Year's as a "holiday traffic mitigation," London transformed its most popular shopping area this weekend into a car-free pedestrian zone for holiday shoppers and visitors. Stretches of Oxford and Regents Streets were made into car-free zones this Saturday, December 2 from 10:30 am to 5:00 pm. Mayor Ken Livingstone wants to transform Oxford Street into a permanent pedestrian zone with light rail running down the middle. This weekend's event was set up as a test. This London reports:
December 5, 2006
London Calling. Are New York’s Leaders Really Listening?
London officials closed the northern side of Trafalgar Square to traffic creating a vibrant new public space.
November 2, 2006
The Cost of Sprawl on Low-Income Families
Via the Manhattan Institute's new blog, Streetsblog learns of a pdf-formatted report entitled A Heavy Load: The Combined Housing and Transportation Burdens of Working Famillies, which looks at the housing and transportation expenses paid by lower income families in a number of cities. The report, published by the Center for Housing Policy, a K Street think tank, finds that lower-income families in central cities spend significantly less on the overhead of life than suburban and exurban ones.
October 17, 2006
Bloomberg Sustainability Announcement
As we reported this morning, Mayor Bloomberg is in California with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to make a major policy announcement on a major, long-term, environmental sustainability initiative. The key components of the Mayor's plan include:
September 21, 2006
Streetsblog Interview: Ryan Russo
Ryan Russo is the New York City Department of Transportation's Director for Street Management and Safety, a newly-created job that he started in July. Previously, Russo worked as DOT's Downtown Brooklyn Transportation Coordinator where he was instrumental in designing and developing a number of improvements for pedestrians, cyclists and more livable streets (PDF file) over the last three years. Streetsblog caught up with Russo on Tuesday, a few hours after the City's big bike safety announcement:
September 14, 2006
Sneak Preview of Bloomberg’s 21st Century Urban Vision
As reported in today's Observer a team working under Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff has, for the last year or so, been secretly developing a sweeping, new urban planning vision for New York City. In its scope and ambition, the Observer compares the plan to the 1811 layout of Manhattan's street grid system and the 1929 Regional Plan that gave us many of today's highways and parks.
August 16, 2006