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
Eyes on the Street: Demand Management
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You get more of what you subsidize and less of what you tax. –Ancient Economic Adage
BREAKING – NYPD Withdraws Parade Rules Change
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OnNYTurf is reporting that the NYPD has withdrawn its proposed revisions to parade permit rules and that the public hearing on the matter scheduled for August 23 has been cancelled.
The Weekly Carnage
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Here is the third installment of our Weekly Carnage column, covering the tragic fatalities that inevitably result from a car-dependent society. This week there was a lot of family trauma. A 4-year-old girl loses her mother, father and sister. An 85-year-old man kills his presumed wife. An 18-year-old son kills his father. 4 Die on N.J. Turnpike […]
The Post ‘Drops the Ball’ on Yankee Stadium Story
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The Post had a story yesterday reporting on the last ditch effort to stop the Yankee’s bad plan to build a new stadium with fewer seats for us Yankee fans but dump more traffic and emissions on the already suffering low-income neighborhoods of the south Bronx. Here’s how the Post characterizes opponents of the plan: Stadium opponents, led by […]
Guess-the-Suburb Winner Is: Matt
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Remember Wednesday’s guess-the-anonymous-suburb contest? I’m very impressed: You all knew the right region — the northeast United States. (Was it the Ames sign? The trees? The first comment suggesting that this was a place "north of the city"?) Runner-up prizes consisting of official "Street Cred" go to Bill and Karla (your first attempt was closer!) for guessing […]
The Weekly Carnage
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After missing a week because of my visit to an undisclosed location, I am returning to present the second installment of the Weekly Carnage. Teenager Killed on N.J. Turnpike Was a Fashion Model (Star-Ledger) Heather Bratton Memorial Site Non-Cop Crown Victoria Inflicts Season Ending Injury on Mets’ Pitcher (Gothamist) Bike Messenger, 20, Dies in Collision With Truck (Daily News) 10-Year-Old Cyclist Killed […]
Can You Name the Town?
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Sorry I missed posting last week’s Weekly Carnage everyone. I was out of town, um, visiting the strip mall in the photo above. Every time I leave the city I end up in a place like this: A sea of unused parking spaces in front of a strip mall accessible only by the car with no housing anywhere […]
Eyes on the Street: Above the Cross Bronx ‘Expressway’
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Saturday, July 29, 2006, at the Jesup Avenue bridge over the Cross Bronx "Expressway." I called 311 to get the city to tow that abandoned car away, but the operator needed an address or an intersection to locate this vehicle. An address would be a stretch, and the computer didn’t accept "Jesup Avenue and the Cross Bronx ‘Expressway’" as a […]
The Weekly Carnage
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This is the debut of a new Streetsblog feature called "The Weekly Carnage." Every Friday morning we will tally up and present the previous week’s motor vehicle mayhem throughout the region — deaths, injuries and property destruction. It’s a grim accounting but we feel like someone’s got to do it. Staten Island Man Dies in Wrong-Way Crash on […]
Why Don’t You Take This Opportunity to Drive to Work?
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A recent study showed that it is cheaper to park a car in New York’s central business districts than it is in the other global financial capitals. Place Monthly parking cost London (West End) $898 City of London $896 Tokyo $702 Hong Kong $682 Midtown Manhattan $574 Downtown Manhattan $500 But apparently parking is a […]
Central and Prospect Park Updates
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Here are a couple of updates from the parks from Streetsblog tipsters. The first is a heads up for all you riders using Central Park: This morning on Central Park’s West Drive, there was a road block of one lane with 10 cops presiding. When asked, one of the officers said that they were looking out for […]
Williamsburg Bike Parking Woes
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A Streetsblog tipster writes in with a nice slice-of-life dispatch: I was on North 7th street in Williamsburg this morning and I passed a young woman locking up her bike in front of a residential building. There were a handful of old-timers in front of their building complaining about the bikes — "pretty soon there’ll […]