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
Quinn Praises Empty Garage at East River Plaza Ribbon Cutting
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Council Speaker Christine Quinn cuts the ribbon for East River Plaza and its 1,428 parking spaces. Photos: Noah Kazis Officials held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the suburban-style East River Plaza shopping complex today. The fleet of cars that the city’s leading politicians and developers arrived in barely registered in the mall’s giant parking lot. […]
EDC’s Queens Plaza Project Adds Better Bike-Ped Routes, Subtracts Parking
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The Queens Plaza North bike lane will run in a center median. Image: NYCEDC Protected bike paths are coming to Queens Plaza as part of a major redesign of the area by the city’s Economic Development Corporation. Construction work to transform the dangerous, overwide streets and surface parking at "the gateway to Queens" has been […]
Atlanta Releases Nation’s Largest Survey of Transit Riders
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Atlanta’s transit riders tend to be lower-income residents, a new survey shows. Image: Atlanta Regional Commission. Who takes transit? That’s what the Atlanta Regional Commission is trying to figure out with what it calls the largest-ever survey of riders in the United States. The commission spoke to 50,000 transit riders, a full ten percent of […]
Senators Aim to Reintroduce Transportation Into Climate Bill Debate
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Sen. Jeff Merkley projects that his legislation would allow the United States to almost completely stop importing oil, primarily by reforming our transportation system. Image: Office of Sen. Merkley [PDF]. As the threat of a Republican filibuster continues to prevent the Senate from passing climate legislation, leading Democrats have tried to scale back their proposal […]
NYC’s Car-Free Majority Deserves a Share of Defunct Bus Stops
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Photo: cyclosity/Flickr When the MTA service cuts took effect last month, 570 bus stops around the city suddenly became a collective no-man’s land. Buses weren’t pulling up to the curb anymore, creating an irresistible vacuum for motorists. If you belong to a neighborhood message board or listserve, you may have come across a few dispatches […]
Council Mems Display Parking Ignorance at Flushing Commons Hearing
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The fight over Flushing Commons shifted to the City Council yesterday, as a key subcommittee turned its attention to the contentious megaproject and the battle royale over parking in booming downtown Flushing. Though the developers propose to redevelop an 1,100-space municipal parking lot and still increase the total amount of parking on-site, that isn’t enough […]
Can Cab-Sharing Reduce Traffic on NYC Streets?
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With Albany lawmakers unwilling to properly fund the MTA, transportation planners are looking to plug the gaps that have opened up in the transit network and expand New Yorkers’ travel options using existing resources. That’s certainly a big part of the thinking behind the Bloomberg Administration’s recent decision to expand private van service where bus […]
Advocates: State DOT Analysis Engineered to Preclude Sheridan Teardown
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The Sheridan Expressway runs only 1.25 miles between the Cross-Bronx and Bruckner Expressways. This option, one of two remaining alternatives, would remove it entirely. Image: NYSDOT At a public meeting last night, the state Department of Transportation released a traffic analysis of the proposal to tear down the Sheridan Expressway, the Moses-era "highway to nowhere" […]
Sheridan Expressway Stakeholders Committee Meeting
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One of the best opportunities for community members to speak in favor of the replacement of the Sheridan Expressway in the South Bronx with housing and open space is next week. NYSDOT will host its first “Stakeholders Committee” meeting in two years on July 13 at 6 pm at the Casita Maria Center for Arts […]
Charter Revision Report: Land Use Process Should Stay Untouched, For Now
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The Charter Revision Commission’s preliminary report is out, and the headline news is that while term limits and instant runoff voting got nods, the Bloomberg priority of non-partisan elections didn’t make the cut. The land use process, which was the subject of an entire commission forum last month, will likely remain unchanged for the time […]
Manhattan CB 5 Listens to Reason, Endorses Union Square Plan
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Pedestrian plazas and bike lanes should calm traffic and tame the dangerous northwest corner of Union Square. Image: NYCDOT After some vocal complaints spurred compromises to NYCDOT’s ambitious original proposal to redesign the streets near Union Square, Manhattan Community Board 5 held strong last night, voting 24-1-1 to move forward with the fundamental safety features […]
Garbage Truck Operator Kills Cyclist in Bushwick, Keeps Driving
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Varick Avenue at the corner of Meserole Street, where a cyclist was killed last night. Photo: Google Street View A garbage truck driver hit and killed a cyclist in Bushwick at around 8:50 p.m. last night. According to NYPD, the driver and the cyclist were both traveling on Varick Avenue, when the truck turned onto […]