Aaron Naparstek
AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.
Recent Posts
Gale Brewer to Introduce Congestion Pricing Legislation
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Upper West Side City Councilmember Gale Brewer is emerging as City Council’s top Livable Streets advocate. In April she worked with Transportation Alternatives to author Intro. 199, the Traffic Relief Bill. Today, Crain’s Insider reports that Brewer now plans to introduce congestion pricing legislation: "You have to do something about the traffic," she says. "I think it’s something […]
Bollard Porn
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Anyone who is upset about cars driving on the Hudson River Greenway or has doubts that New York City’s bus rapid transit experiment will work without physical barriers to prevent motorists from driving and parking in bus lanes will find profound satisfaction in this video from Manchester, England. Watch as scofflaw motorists try to sneak […]
A Parking Lot Grows in Brooklyn
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Norman "the Human Tape Rec’oder" Oder , the hardest working advocacy journalist in New York City, has really been digging in to the important but not-particularly-sexy issue of parking policy at Forest City Enterprise’s proposed "Atlantic Yards" development in Brooklyn. In July when the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) was issued it included a plan to […]
Traffic Relief Advocates: Meet Your Opponents
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Front row, left to right: Councilmember Melinda Katz, Councilmember Leroy Comrie, Councilmember Helen Sears, Councilmember David Weprin, Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free spokesman Walter McCaffrey, Ray Irrera from the Queens Chamber of Commerce is behind McCaffrey, Joe Conley of Queens Community Board 2 and John Corlett from AAA. (Photo: Aaron Naparstek) In response to the Partnership for New York City’s report, […]
Eric Ng Memorial Bike Ride This Saturday
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There will be a memorial bike ride for Eric Ng, the cyclist killed by a drunk driver on the Hudson River Greenway last week. Details below. Also, here is a note from the Visual Resistance blog. VR are the guys who make the "ghost bikes:" I’ve been making ghost bikes for strangers for a year and […]
Traffic Relief on Brian Lehrer Right Now
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WNYC 93.9 FM
Traffic Congestion: Sponsored by Your Local Media
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Going through my morning headline round-up I clicked on ABC Channel 7’s story, Should There be Tolls in Manhattan? While my eye was being drawn to the giant, red "Lukoil: We Love Cars" ad banner (What genius came up with, "Traffic: Sponsored by Lukoil?"), an animated little Gen Y hipster wearing a Toyota.com t-shirt jumped out […]
File Under: No Wonder New York City is Falling Behind London
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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 […]
Growth or Gridlock?
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This morning, the Partnership for New York City publicly released its long-awaited study, Growth or Gridlock: The Economic Case for Traffic Relief and Transit Improvements for a Greater New York. London’s congestion charging initiative was kick-started, in large part, by a similar report published by London First, that city’s version of the Partnership. From today’s report: Looking at […]
Congestion Charging in New York City: The Political Bloodbath
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Though many New Yorkers are learning about congestion charging for the first time this week, the transportation policy community has been working to sell this idea to a resistant public for more than three decades. What happens when Nobel Prize winning theory meets bare-fisted New York City politics? A heavily condensed version of this story ran in this week’s […]
A Brief History of New York City Congestion Charging
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Car-Free lunchtime on Madison Avenue, April 19, 1971. New York City policy-makers haven’t seriously considered traffic reduction since the Lindsay Administration. (Image courtesy of Jeff Zupan) This week’s New York Magazine publishes a brief timeline of the history of congestion charging in New York City, adapted from a much lengthier article that I reported and wrote a […]
It’s Traffic Congestion Week in New York City
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The Partnership for New York City releases its long-awaited congestion charging study today. Stay tuned.