Streetsblog NY
Streetsblog California
If Congress Cared About Climate, Its Transport Bill Would Look Much Different
With a few exceptions, the five-year transportation bill heading to President Obama's desk continues what has been the core function of federal transportation policy for more than 60 years -- sending a ton of money to the states to spend on highways.
December 4, 2015
The Stubborn Persistence of Car Dependence
With driving on the upswing again as gas prices remain surprisingly low, Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic is taking a long hard look at what it will take to substantially change America's travel habits. He notes that except for a handful of cities with good transit, driving continues to account for most of the nation's growth in travel:
October 19, 2015
Pope Francis and the Flexibility of Our Streets
Add Pope Francis's tour of New York to the long list of carmageddon scares that successfully frightened off would-be motorists. I grabbed these two shots of traffic from Google Maps, and despite all the alarming car detour icons, you can see that traffic was lighter during peak Francis than it normally is on a New York City weekday.
September 29, 2015
Seniors Are Not to Blame for NYC’s Failure to Make Streets Safer
In response to motorists fatally striking seniors in the Brooklyn South command, NYPD admonished seniors to be more careful when going outside. A recent fatality in the 70th Precinct is a prime example of how focusing on the behavior of victims is a wrongheaded and ineffective approach to street safety.
September 22, 2015
Why Is There So Much Traffic in NYC? It’s the Free Roads, Stupid
Since the de Blasio administration attempted to cap for-hire cars this summer, the debate over Manhattan traffic has gotten louder, but not more productive. Uber claimed it definitely wasn't the problem. Some council members wondered if bike lanes were slowing down cars. Amid all the noise, something important got lost.
September 18, 2015
Times Square Coalition: Keep the Plazas, Regulate Naked People
The Times Square Alliance and a coalition of electeds has a plan to address complaints about Times Square without destroying the hugely successful pedestrian plazas.
September 17, 2015
NY Mayor Has Yet to Say Traffic Is More Dangerous Than Painted Breasts
Mayor de Blasio had a chance today to quell the uproar over his suggestion that the city may rip out the Times Square pedestrian plazas. Instead he equivocated and didn't take the idea off the table:
August 24, 2015
In NY, Uber’s Numbers Still Show It’s Making Traffic Worse
Uber blasted out an Excel spreadsheet to reporters this morning, accompanied by a story and editorial in the Daily News, with data providing a snapshot of how many Uber vehicles are on Manhattan streets south of 59th Street, New York's central business district. While Uber claims the data shows its vehicles aren't responsible for congestion in the city core, transportation analyst Charles Komanoff has crunched Uber's own numbers and estimates that the service has actually reduced traffic speeds in the central business district by about 9 percent.
July 22, 2015
A NY Plan to Cut Truck Traffic By Changing How Trash Haulers Do Business
In the past five years, at least six New Yorkers have been killed, and many others injured, by truck drivers working for private trash haulers. Labor and environmental advocates have a plan they say will reduce these deaths by cutting down on inefficiencies in private trucking routes. They are meeting resistance from the waste hauling industry, which says safety can be improved without changing the current system of contracting.
June 9, 2015
The Case for Baking Bike Infrastructure Into Vision Zero Projects
London is surging ahead with big plans for protected bikeways that span the city. By comparison, New York's bike plans, while moving forward incrementally, feel piecemeal. Has safe cycling infrastructure become an afterthought in the city's Vision Zero program?
May 22, 2015