Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Car Culture

Slow Going for New Bus Lanes

By Sarah Goodyear | | 11 Comments
The Village Voice took a trip down lower Broadway earlier this week to see how smoothly the new bus lanes were flowing. The answer? Despite reports of stepped-up enforcement, change is not coming quickly to the traffic culture of Lower Manhattan — as you can see from the picture at right, which shows a bus […]

No Exit, Upper West Side Style

By Sarah Goodyear | | 13 Comments
Over on the New York Times’s City Room blog, Sewell Chan reports on opposition to the July 8 closing of the West 72nd St. exit ramp from the West Side Highway, a move that has been fought in court for years by neighborhood activists. The off-ramp is being demolished at the request of the Extell […]

General Motors Goes Hollywood

By Jason Varone | | 9 Comments
New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis points out that the good guys in Transformers are mostly fashioned after GM trucks and SUVs. In her review, Dargis calls the film "part car commercial and part military recruitment ad." She also notes that while the Transformers originated as a toy in Japan, curiously none of these […]

One’s Inner SUV Driver

By Alex Marshall | | 25 Comments
  This is the third essay from Alex Marshall, who has written extensively on transportation issues as a journalist and author. He is a senior fellow at the Regional Plan Association, where he edits the bi-weekly Spotlight on the Region newsletter. "All SUV drivers are assholes," I’ve frequently found myself thinking as I face the […]

Take Back the Streets, for the Kids

By Sarah Goodyear | | 1 Comment
An article in Sunday’s New York Times discussed the decline of stickball and other games on city streets: The fun stopped, or moved inside, depending upon whom you ask, thanks to (pick two or three): television; two-income families; air-conditioning; digital technology; organized sports, crime; smaller families and roomier apartments; too much homework and other responsibilities; […]

No Love for One-Way Proposal in Jackson Heights

By Sarah Goodyear | | 7 Comments
Congestion in Jackson Heights: The DOT needs some new ideas The Queens Times-Ledger reports on the "cool reception" given last week by Queens Community Board 3 and City Council Member Hiram Monserrate to the DOT’s proposal for a one-way pair of streets on 35th and 37th avenues. What’s most disappointing about the debate so far […]
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