Aaron Donovan
Before he began blogging about land use and transportation, Aaron Donovan wrote The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund's annual fundraising appeal for three years and earned a master's degree in urban planning from Columbia. Since then, he has worked for nonprofit organizations devoted to New York City economic development. He lives and works in the Financial District, and sees New York's pre-automobile built form as an asset that makes New York unique in the United States, and as a strategic advantage that should be capitalized upon.
Recent Posts
How Do We ‘Fuel’ the Future?
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WHAT: A discussion with Columbia geophysicist Klaus S. Lackner. WHERE: Picnic Cafe, 2665 Broadway between 101st and 102nd Streets WHEN: Sept. 11, 5:30 to 7 p.m. COST: $10 includes one drink NOTE: First come, first served
Manhattan on the Move: A Transportation Agenda for a Growing City
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WHERE: Columbia University, Alfred Lerner Hall (115th Street and Broadway) SCHEDULE: 8 – 9 a.m.: Registration 9 – 9:05 a.m.: Welcome 9:05 – 9:25 a.m.: Remarks by Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer 9:30 – 10:30 a.m.: Keynote Speaker: Enrique Penalosa, former mayor of Bogota, Colombia 10:30 – 10:45 a.m.: Break 10:45 a.m. – 12 […]
A Discussion with Chris Carlsson, author of Critical Mass: Bicycling’s Defiant Celebration
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WHEN: Friday, Sept. 1, 7 p.m. WHERE: Bluestockings Books, Cafe and Activism Center, 172 Allen St. at Stanton St. COST: $5 to $10 suggested donation Beneath the visible madness and barbarism of life at the dawn of the 21st century, an invisible social transformation is underway. As capitalism continues its inexorable push to corral every […]
Parking Tickets and Requests for Special Treatment
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Last week a priest parked in a fire lane just for a few minutes because, well, everyone else was doing it. After he was ticketed, he took his story to the media and to two city councilmen, in hopes that the brouhaha would pressure a judge to nullify the ticket. When it comes to New […]
Rally for Safe Cycling Space on W. Houston St.
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Date: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 Time: 4 p.m. Location: W. Houston St., south side between Greene and Mercer Sts. Objective: To draw attention to the hazardous conditions for cyclists along Houston St., which DOT and City Planning designate a “proposed bicycle route,†and to pressure DOT to include a safe bicycling route in the currently-underway […]
Rally for Houston Street Buffered Bike Lanes
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If you’ve seen those eerie white "ghost bikes" on Houston Street, you may know that three cyclists have been killed on "the Boulevard of Death" during the past two years: Derek Lake, Brandie Bailey and Andrew Morgan. In the wake of this loss of life, members of Community Board 2’s Traffic & Transportation Committee are holding a rally on Wednesday […]
Brooklyn Bridge’s SUV Ban Hidden in Plain Sight
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It isn’t just in California where SUV’s are secretly banned from certain roadways. Right here in New York City, many SUVs are banned from the Brooklyn Bridge, but nobody seems to know it. Following on a Slate article about a similar phenomenon in California that came to our attention on Tuesday, Streetsblog correspondent Jason Varone snapped […]
The Weekly Carnage
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This week, New York State authorities launched a probe into the gap between Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North trains and platforms. After that, the National Transportation Safety Board launched its own probe, which like the state’s follows the tragic death of a Minnesota teenager who fell through such a gap boarding an L.I.R.R. train on Aug. 5. These probes […]
Streetfilm: The Transformation of Willoughby Street
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This spring, the DOT transformed the corner of Willoughby and Adams Streets in downtown Brooklyn from a dull gray, little-used automobile pass-through (above) into a pedestrian space complete with chairs, benches, plants, tables and sun umbrellas. But would the people come? Filmmaker Clarence Eckerson took his video camera to the corner to find out. The result is a 1-minute, 26-second Streetfilm on […]
The True Cost of Gasoline, and What to Do About Energy
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The news media has been writing a lot about energy and oil addiction lately. One particularly noteworthy package of reporting highlights the hidden problems of oil addiction. Another searches for ways it could be alleviated but misses the most critical one. The first is The Chicago Tribune’s enormously important four-part series by Pulitzer-winning reporter Paul Salopek […]
California SUV Ban Hidden in Plain Sight
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Two years ago, Slate had a piece noting that California weight restrictions against vehicles over 6,000 lbs prohibited SUVs from many streets, but nobody realized it because people thought the signs were for delivery trucks. (A Hummer H2 weighs 8,600 lbs.) It seems most of the ordinances were written with trucks in mind, not SUV’s, and so the secret SUV-ban […]