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
Pseudo-Environmental Hummers
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A lone Hummer driver with a conscience? At first glance, it seems so. But this is actually becoming something of a trend: Everyone who is pitching an alternative fuel these days is using a Hummer to make his or her point. And the reason is obvious. Everyone knows that Hummers are the most gas guzzing private vehicles on […]
Eyes on the Street: Weekend Edition
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I recently took this boat, a water taxi, from Red Hook to South Street Seaport. Landing at the Seaport after having just been in Red Hook about five minutes earlier gives one an odd supernatural sense of having been teleported.
A Traffic-Free Future for Harlem
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This is an artist’s rendering of what West 125th Street would look like after Columbia University’s expansion is completed more than a decade from now. (It is included in an overview of the plans that appears in the print edition of Columbia magazine, which, um, hasn’t updated its web presence in a while.) Regardless of whether you’re […]
Fewer Seats But More Cars at Yankee Stadium
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Anybody else catch the Discovery Channel’s 2-hour special on global warming on Sunday night? It recapped the many problems we can expect to see from global warming: potential death for millions of people, millions more forced to move as coastal cities are permanently flooded, extinction for many species of plants and animals, more frequent severe weather […]
Bike-Crash Study Fuels Discord Among Agencies
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From Crain’s Insider: An unreleased study of bicycling fatalities has led to friction among the three city agencies compiling it. The police, transportation and health departments analyzed the deaths of 200 cyclists over 10 years and found that only one of them was in a bike lane. An insider says DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall didn’t […]
Film Scout Parking Permits Rescinded
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The other night in the Financial District, the buildings of Trinity Place were lit-up all noir-like, and light illuminated the steam temporarily wafting skyward from an orange stack. The lighting set up a visual image of a comic book, larger-than-life metropolis that will appear in Spiderman III. I enjoyed watching a take or two of traffic on the streets as […]
Motoring News Roundup, July 12, 2006
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The 70th anniversary of the opening of the Triborough Bridge was celebrated this morning with a vintage car parade. As NY1 notes: There was controversy surrounding the opening of the Triborough 70 years ago. Some feared that it would lead to more cars and traffic congestion in the city as well as the suburbs. Well, […]
Critical Mass, West Coast Style
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Will of OnNYTurf was in San Francisco on June 30 for a wedding, and stopped by their Critical Mass ride. He found it to be a mellow event compared with our version: No chanting, no bike lifts, and, get this, no arrests! It was well attended, with about 800 riders, and of course, it was great exercize. [T]he San […]
Weinshall Watch: Ribbon-Cutting on Staten Island
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From the AP Daybook: Today at 2 pm, Transportation Commissioner iris Weinshall joins Staten Island officials at a ribbon-cutting for a new Park-and-Ride facility; Lindenwood Road and Lindenwood Place, Staten Island.