Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Traffic Calming

Rally for a Livable Houston Street

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(Photo by Will Sherman of Transportation Alternatives) As promised, members of Manhattan Community Board 2 and Transportation Alternatives held a rally yesterday where many elected officials spoke of the need for improved bicycling and pedestrian facilities on the Interstate Highway in our midst, Houston Street. Eighty years ago, Houston Street was a narrow street not much wider than Prince or Bleecker Streets […]

Where in the City is this?

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Every so often I find little gems of street planning that I would love to see replicated elsewhere in the city. For instance, the other night I walked past this side street with bump outs at the crosswalk that give pedestrians more space and prevent automobiles from cutting corners too sharply. Can any name where […]

Chinatown Business Group Proposes Car-Free Streets

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Bayard Street, Chinatown. Photo: SkyShaper AM New York reports on a "radical" proposal to open two narrow Chinatown streets, Mott and Bayard, to pedestrians, shoppers and diners: Imagine car-free Chinatown streets full of alfresco dining and sidewalk tea shops instead of today’s mess of double-parked cars, delivery trucks and idling buses. That’s the radical proposal […]

Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Fights for Livable Streets

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DOT’s failure to provide a traffic signal or even a simple crosswalk at intersections along DeKalb Avenue disconnects the neighborhood from its bus stops and its park. Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Association is running an exemplary grassroots campaign on local pedestrian safety issues. The neighborhood group has generated more than 500 letters to DOT requesting specific improvements in crosswalk layouts […]

Congestion Pricing on Hold, Traffic Returns to Stockholm

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Transponder on the dashboard of a car zipping through the traffic-free streets of Stockholm on January 3, 2006, the first day of that city’s congestion pricing experiment. (Photo: Papa Razzi1) Stockholm, Sweden’s seven-month congestion pricing experiment is on hold until a voter referendum in September. Alan Atkisson reports: Last year, the politics around the planned "congestion […]

Bloomberg on Oil Dependence: Punditry or Policy?

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The Daily News reports that Mayor Bloomberg made his first public statements about U.S. oil dependency on his radio show last week: This constant dependence on oil is something that leaves this country vulnerable every day. Two reasons. One, what happens if it gets cut off overseas? We’re never going to have enough capacity domestically. […]