Noah Kazis
Noah joined Streetsblog as a New York City reporter at the start of 2010. When he was a kid, he collected subway paraphernalia in a Vignelli-map shoebox.
Before coming to Streetsblog, he blogged at TheCityFix DC and worked as a field organizer for the Obama campaign in Toledo, Ohio. Noah graduated from Yale University, where he wrote his senior thesis on the class politics of transportation reform in New York City. He lives in Morningside Heights.
Recent Posts
Study: Painted Bike Lanes Don’t Endanger Pedestrians or Anyone Else
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New York City’s tabloid media simply can’t stop seeing the city’s bike boom as a mortal threat to pedestrians. Even research showing a decline in the number of bike-ped crashes was somehow spun to say the opposite, that more cyclists were hitting pedestrians than ever. Now, new peer-reviewed research confirms once again that bike lanes […]
Times Architecture Critic Calls For Eliminating NYC Parking Minimums
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The fight to eliminate parking minimums in New York City just went mainstream. As part of a wide-ranging exploration of parking lots and public space set to run in Sunday’s paper, New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman signed on to the growing list of people urging New York City’s Department of City Planning to […]
Seattle Bridge Toll Eases Traffic. Will It Boost Transit, Too?
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Located on a pair of peninsulas, the city of Seattle isn’t so easy to reach from its eastern suburbs. Only two bridges cross Lake Washington. Newly-installed tolls across one of the two, the SR-520 bridge, have the potential to seriously reshape travel patterns in the region. Already, traffic on the SR-520 bridge appears to have […]
DCP Advances Promising Manhattan Parking Reforms, Fixes Flawed Study
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When plans to reform parking policies in the Manhattan core leaked out of the Department of City Planning last fall, the documents presented a riddle. The proposed changes were solid reforms to successful policies, closing loopholes in the existing parking caps and rationalizing the current system. The draft study which accompanied the reforms, however, seemed […]
Among Democrats, Cuomo Lags Far Behind on Transit Policy
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When it comes to transit, Andrew Cuomo seems to see only the costs and never the benefits. Responding to near-unanimous support for transit on the Tappan Zee Bridge from the Hudson Valley’s elected officials, including the county executives on both sides of the river, Cuomo spokesperson Matt Wing had this to say last week: If […]
Electeds and Advocates: Tappan Zee Needs Transit From the Start
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Support for transit on the new Tappan Zee bridge — built up over a decade of consensus building and 280 public meetings — runs deep and broad in the Hudson Valley. Though Governor Andrew Cuomo is already rushing forward with plans to build the bridge without any transit option, 11 local elected officials from both parties […]
Deadline Approaching for Towns to Get a Helping Hand With TOD
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An important heads up from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign: Towns looking to shape their future around NYC region’s extensive transit network have until the end of the week to apply for a grant from Tri-State and the One Region Funders’ Group to help turn those aspirations into a concrete vision. This marks the second round […]
Transit Union Leader Urges Labor to Back Transit on the New Tappan Zee
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Despite widespread opposition, Governor Andrew Cuomo is plowing forward with plans to build a new Tappan Zee Bridge without transit. Even so, there’s still no plan for how to pay for the bridge. Cuomo has proposed that union pension funds put up some of the money, but there’s been no explanation of how those pension […]
Chuck Schumer on Niagara Falls Highway: “Tear Down This Road”
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Most members of Congress are excited to cut the ribbon for a new stretch of freeway, but it’s a smaller set indeed that will stand up for the removal of a highway, no matter how neighborhood-blighting. As of yesterday, count New York Senator Chuck Schumer among their number. “Right now, the Robert Moses Parkway stands […]
Straphangers: Cuomo Funding Cuts Top 2011 Worst-in-Transit List
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Looking back on 2011, there was a lot more bad news for New York City transit riders than good news. The Straphangers Campaign released its annual list of the ten best and worst events for subway and bus riders, and topping the “worst of” list are three separate ways that Governor Andrew Cuomo has attacked […]
Next for Select Bus Service: Webster Ave in the Bronx, Utica Ave in Brooklyn
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A new crop of bus routes is moving into the pipeline for implementation as Select Bus Service. The MTA and NYC DOT are in the initial stages of bringing SBS to the Bronx’s Webster Avenue, where the most unreliable bus in the borough runs, and to Brooklyn’s Utica Avenue, the second-busiest bus route in the […]
Cuomo’s DOT Gets Cracking on a Tappan Zee Without Transit
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Despite intense opposition from nearly every local elected official and a total lack of public input on the new design, Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state Department of Transportation are moving forward with plans to build a new Tappan Zee Bridge without transit. On Friday, the state submitted an amendment to the TIP, the list […]