Sarah Goodyear
Recent Posts
Doubts About DOT Congestion Prescription in Jax Heights
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Community activists in Jackson Heights have been complaining about congestion at the corner at 73rd St. and 37th Ave. (right) for years. A major traffic study of the area is underway, but according to a DOT spokesman, the department didn’t want to wait to implement "short-term initiatives" that could ease the problem. Problem is, some […]
Making the Case for Compact Development
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From the people at Smart Growth America comes word of a new book, Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change, just out from the Urban Land Institute. In the book, researchers argue that more compact development (such as Atlantic Station, a mixed-use complex in Atlanta built on reclaimed industrial land, shown at […]
Seeing Myrtle Avenue With Fresh Eyes
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The folks over at the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership have unveiled the results of a collaboration with the Project for Public Spaces (PPS) undertaken over the last couple of years. Two public workshops were held to get community input on the plans, which address four different areas of Myrtle Avenue, one of the main commercial […]
Casino-Jamming in the Catskills
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Way back in February Gov. Eliot Spitzer declared his support for a plan to build a $600 million casino in the Catskills. Now opponents of the St. Regis Mohawk tribe project, which would be located at the Monticello Racetrack in Sullivan County, have launched a public-relations campaign highlighting the traffic congestion and sprawl they say […]
What a Difference a Bench Makes
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Good magazine reports on how, with remarkable simplicity, this menacing, marginal streetscape in downtown LA was turned into a welcoming public space (click here for the after photo): Rather than fence off the trash-strewn lot beside its building — a stomping ground for drug-users and prostitutes — one downtown Los Angeles community center added, instead, […]
Bike & Ped Improvements Slated for Manhattan Bridge Approach
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DOT plans to build a physically-separated two-way bike lane on this one block stretch of Canal Street at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge. The project also includes pedestrian safety fixes. The Manhattan approach to the Manhattan Bridge, where Chinatown and the Lower East Side come together in a jumble, has long presented one of […]
Pay Phones May Be a Bad Call for City
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An article in today’s New York Times looks at the city’s most prominent — and profitable — form of street furniture, the pay telephone: The phone kiosks generate $62 million in advertising revenue annually — and last year the city got $13.7 million of the take, triple what it pulled in from calls. Over all, […]
London Reaps Pricing Benefits
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From the newsletter of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign comes an inspiring summation of the effects of congestion pricing in London since the program’s inception in 2003, gleaned from Transport for London‘s annual report: Traffic levels in central London were about 20% lower in 2006 than in 2002, the year before pricing began. Bicycle use in […]
Kids Demand Respect in the Streets of Brooklyn
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A rendering of a mural proposed for Butler St. and Third Ave., one block from the Brooklyn intersection where a 4-year-old boy was killed by the driver of a Hummer in February. "A lot of drivers are driving recklessly and not seeing people as people," said 18-year-old Mike. He was one of a group of […]
Mayor Speaks at Times Square Pricing Rally
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Supporters of congestion pricing rallied yesterday in Times Square, urging state lawmakers to act by July 16 on Mayor Bloomberg’s initiative or risk losing $500 million in federal funds. "The time is now," said the mayor, according to the New York Post. "We cannot walk away from this opportunity." Shouting out to tourists in a […]
Times Says: We Must Pay More for Fossil Fuels
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The New York Times published an editorial today about "an unpleasant and inescapable truth: any serious effort to fight [global] warming will require everyone to pay more for energy." The piece then goes on to dismiss carbon taxes as politically unfeasible, and discusses the merits of cap-and-trade systems, emphasizing that in order to work, they […]
Ninth Street Earns Its Stripes
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The debate is over, and as of today the Ninth St. bike lanes are swiftly becoming a reality. Photo: Courtesy Zoe Ryder White