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
Separated Bike Path Isn’t Gay Enough for CB4
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Manhattan Community Board 4’s transportation committee unanimously approved DOT’s plan to install a physically-separated bike path on Eighth Avenue in Lower Manhattan. The committee enthusiastically recommended the plan to the full board on Wednesday. The board then voted to ignore their own committee and block the plan. Apparently, some members feel that complete streets and […]
Cartoon Tuesday: The Elegant Simplicity of the Free Market
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Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling. Click through to view the comic in its entirety.
Summer Streets
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I’m planning on stopping by Williamsburg Walks this weekend. Next weekend I’ll be rolling over the Brooklyn Bridge with the whole family (on my new bakfiets, the Cadillac Escalade of bicycles) to participate in the big Summer Streets event in Manhattan. Clarence over at Streetfilms put together this 30-second promo video that will be airing […]
The U.S. Wants to “Borrow” From Transit to Pay for Highways
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U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said yesterday that due to declining gas tax revenues, the Highway Trust Fund would need to borrow money from its mass transit account to pay for road projects. Today’s big news story was buried at the bottom of page A17 in the New York Times: Gasoline tax revenue is falling […]
“Traffic” Author Tom Vanderbilt on Leonard Lopate Today at Noon
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Author Tom Vanderbilt will be on Leonard Lopate at noon today, WNYC, 93.9 FM. Streetsbloggers will want to tune in. Vanderbilt takes all of the geeky and arcane transportation studies that we love to bandy about here on Streetsblog — induced demand, shared space, modal bias, you name it — he puts them together in […]
Make Queens Boulevard a Complete Street
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Last February, 22-year-old Asif Rahman was hit and killed by a truck while riding his bicycle on Queens Boulevard. Though the infamous "Boulevard of Death" is a lot safer than it used to be, it still produces far too many injuries and fatalities. Asif’s family, Council member Jim Gennaro, and Transportation Alternatives held a press […]
$36,000,000,000 for Corn. $0 for Transit.
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The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would provide emergency funding to local transit systems facing simultaneous increases in ridership and fuel costs. The legislation is now stalled in the Senate and the Bush Administration has expressed concern that "transit operators risk becoming permanently reliant upon this type of assistance." Meanwhile, when it […]
The Pentagon Burns 395,000 Barrels of Oil Per Day
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It’s always a bit of a mind-boggler when some statistics emerge showing how much oil the U.S. military consumes. From yesterday’s Politico: So, you think you’ve got the gas prices blues. Just consider Al Shaffer, the man in charge of drafting an energy strategy for the gas-guzzling Pentagon. With wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and […]
Wanted: A Progressive DOT Director for Washington D.C.
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Washington D.C.’s Transportation Director Emeka Moneme is resigning, opening up a window of opportunity for that city’s active livable streets movement. Greater Greater Washington’s David Alpert is pointing Mayor Adrian Fenty to New York City’s recent experience in choosing a new DOT Commissioner: Mayor Bloomberg chose Sadik-Khan, and now we have separated bike lanes, brand-new […]
Livable Streets Projects Getting Hung Up in Budget Bureaucracy?
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From today’s Crain’s Insider: The city is weighing a new set of street design guidelines that would make installation of pedestrian-friendly elements, like curb extensions, easier. The Department of Transportation has developed a number of new street and traffic plans in Madison Square Park and other places around the city. But each one requires special […]
Robert Novak Cited in Possible Hit-and-Run
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Politico is reporting that conservative columnist Robert Novak, a.k.a. "The Prince of Darkness," hit a 66-year-old pedestrian with his black Corvette this morning in Washington D.C. and then drove away. Some of the facts don’t quite seem to add up just yet — specifically the part about the Novak not knowing he hit someone and […]
Print This
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Thanks to Anil Makhijani, the Open Planning Project’s crack web developer, it’s now a whole lot easier to print a Streetsblog story. Click the little printer icon below. You’ll get a web page formatted 8.5 x 11 with all of the links annotated at the bottom as footnotes. Check it out.