Streetsblog Publisher Puts up $250K to Push PlaNYC

TourdeBronxIMG_9731.JPGMark Gorton, founder and executive director of the Open Planning Project, the publisher of Streetsblog, has agreed to match up to $250,000 in donations to a Transportation Alternatives campaign promoting Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC 2030. Today’s Crain’s Insider reports:

It is the largest known individual effort to help support the plan. The organization began its fund-raising initiative last week and has already raised $150,000, including Gorton’s match. The money will be used to boost support for congestion pricing in key neighborhoods with online and grassroots organizing and advertising in local papers. Gorton founded the Lime Group, which operates businesses in finance and software,notably Lime Wire, the world’s most popular file-sharing service.

Meanwhile, when he’s not busy re-engineering New York City’s streets, Gorton does battle with the recording industry.

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

PlaNYC Mastermind Rohit Aggarwala Leaving NYC

|
Rohit Aggarwala (better known as Rit), the lead author of PlaNYC 2030 and director of the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, is leaving the post he created from scratch, the Bloomberg administration announced today. Aggarwala will be stepping down in June to join his soon-to-be wife in California. Aggarwala was tapped in 2006 […]

Staten Island PlaNYC Panel Tonight

|
Join Transportation Alternatives and the Citizens Committee for NYC at Everything Goes Book Café in St. George on Staten Island for a screening of Contested Streets, a one-hour documentary about New York’s traffic crisis and how congestion pricing can solve it. They’ll be following up with information about transit improvements coming to Staten Island as […]

Transportation Tidbits in This Year’s PlaNYC Check-In

|
To mark Earth Day on Monday, the de Blasio administration released its first PlaNYC progress report [PDF], the latest annual check-in on the citywide sustainability plan released in 2007. The report includes a few facts about the city’s progress on its transportation goals: DOT’s PARK Smart program, which sets the price of on-street parking in response […]

Eyes on the Street: T.A. Rings in Bike Month

|
L-R: DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, Transportation Alternatives Director Paul Steely White and Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe at this morning’s Bike Month NYC event on 9th Avenue. Benepe with White and Streetsblog Publisher Mark Gorton. Photos: Will Sherman/Transportation Alternatives 

Testify! Public Hearings on Congestion Pricing Tonight

|
I’ve been accused of "droning on" about congestion pricing here on Streetsblog, and not just by hostile commenters. Even Mark Gorton, our publisher, has mentioned that he’s sick of reading about it. Still, we continue to spill all of this ink over congestion pricing because it is far and away the most important game in […]

O’Donnell Supports PlaNYC, but Congestion Pricing?

|
Below is State Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell’s response to a letter from Streetsblog contributor Glenn McAnanama urging O’Donnell to support congestion pricing. O’Donnell claims that no specific legislation has been introduced regarding PlaNYC so he cannot take a position. O’Donnell represents the 69th Assembly District which includes Manhattan Valley, Morningside Heights, and the Upper West […]