Alex Marshall
Recent Posts
Positively 3rd Street
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Strolling up 3rd Street in Park Slope from 7th Avenue toward Prospect Park, it’s easy to see this is one of the most magnificent streets in what is, let’s face it, one of the prettiest neighborhoods in the city. The homes, built in the late 19th century and often clad in white stone, are set […]
Streetcars in Seattle, Or Why America Should Mind Its Transit Gaps
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Photo: Don Maxwell/Flickr The rider went down — Boom! — just as she turned to see if the streetcar was getting close to her. Turning to look was her undoing, because her wheel got caught in the big gap between rail and street, toppling her hard. The big blue streetcar was only ten feet or […]
Barcelona, 100 Years Ago: A Model for Streets Today?
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This film, as featured on YouTube via Infrastructurist, shows the streets of Barcelona a century ago, taken from the front window of a tram going down the street. It’s an amazing film. The central avenues of this Catalan city are so vital, so alive, a mix of every activity. Then the film compares the old […]
Americans, David Brooks, and “The Dutch Option”
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Denver’s FasTracks transit expansion will add more than 100 miles of rail and BRT service. Ben Fried got it exactly right about the errors that riddled Tuesday’s David Brooks column. Brooks was so far off the mark, though, that it’s worth another look at the ways he misled readers. The core of his argument that […]
A Broken Hip and the Merits of Scooters
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"Ouch" was my first thought, as I lay on the ice in my building’s parking lot, my scooter and black shoulder bag some feet away from me. What I would later learn was a broken hip screamed for my attention in a strange but compelling new language. My second thought was, "It’s not like you […]
On a Scooter, Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’
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My guitar saved my spine. I was scootering along on my new Cruz Ultra Xootr scooter, mentally writing this column about how incredible this new (to me) mode of transportation was, how it was even better than a bicycle in many ways, how it showed how graduated transportation is or should be, how it showed […]
On Potato Omelets and Winter Cycling
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A Spanish tortilla, unlike the Mexican version, is essentially a potato omelet. You fry some diced-up onions and potatoes in oil, and then pour in some beaten egg. Flip it over, and voila, you have a tasty, round golden thing to cut into slices and eat. Back when I was living in Spain some 25 […]
Let’s Chop Up Superblocks
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Forest City’s Atlantic Yards project would create two massive superblocks in Prospect Hts., Brooklyn Portland, Oregon, which has ascended the ranks of cities judged most walkable, bikable, and urbane, benefits mightily from its small 200-foot square blocks, which provide businesses more street frontage and people more streets on which to bike, cycle and walk. These […]
To Lubricate Street Life, Lower the Unlimited Fare
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Yesterday around 10 a.m. I got on the number 3 subway line at Bergen Street in Brooklyn, where I easily found a seat. As usual, I noticed that there was space on the baby-blue benches all the way up to 96th Street, where I switched trains to go to Columbia University at 116th Street. Only […]
From Mad Messenger to More Peaceful Cyclist
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Alex Marshall some time in the not-too-distant future… A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a bicycle courier. It was in the fall of 1979, during the semester I took off from college to start a rock band in Washington DC with friends. When not playing guitar in a roach-infested […]
Rocky Road
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Cycling intimately acquaints you with every bump, slice, crease, divot, ledge, ripple and of course pothole in a street, because not noticing means you might get thrown off your steed into bone-breaking and life ending car traffic. While riding along Lafayette Street in Manhattan, or Bergen Street in Brooklyn, or essentially anywhere in New York […]
Hats and Top Coats: Unsung Casualties of Car Culture
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What we wear or don’t wear — fashion, that is — tells a lot about how we live, including how we get around. Take the hat, for example. The wonderful broad-brimmed, high-peaked bowlers, boaters, derbies and fedoras worn by men, and the even more extensive variety worn by women, some with precarious architectural acrobatics. What […]