StreetsBlog Authors: Jason Varone

Recent posts by Jason Varone:

• April 30, 2008

  Cartoon Tuesday (Wednesday Edition): This American Lifestyle

  Related:"Crisis" Mode AAA Urges Panicked Drivers to Take TransitAmericans Turn to Prayer at the Pump Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton: Where Is the Leadership?
  3 Comments
• April 24, 2008

  Eyes on the Street: Gansevoort Plaza Open for Business (Updated)

  The view of Gansevoort Plaza looking west. Less than a month ago, the Meatpacking District's Gansevoort Plaza was a chaotic free-for-all for vehicles. Today it sports a large pedestrian space lined with planters and bollards. The Open Planning Project's Lily Bernheimer snapped these photos showing the new seating and street furniture in action, two weeks after [...]
  36 Comments
• April 15, 2008

  Jessica Lappin: Congestion Pricing Advocate

  This recent constituent e-mail shows that Council Member Jessica Lappin's lukewarm support for congestion pricing seems to have turned into full-fledged support now that the proposal has no chance of being implemented (taking a page out of Assemblywoman Joan Millman's book). In Lappin's defense, she did vote for pricing when it came before the council. [...]
  20 Comments
• April 8, 2008

  Cartoon Tuesday: Pricing Post-Mortem Edition

  Also particularly germane today is this CARtoon by Andy Singer, the first of what we plan to make a regular series on Streetsblog. Singer is a Minnesota-based cartoonist known in the livable streets universe for skewering car culture in strips like this one.
  14 Comments
• April 8, 2008

  Plan B: Reallocating Street Space To Buses, Bikes & Peds

  In a piece from the March issue of Outside Magazine that seems especially relevant today, Tim Sohn writes about public space reform in New York City. His article is accompanied by an illustration of what the future of our city could look like: complete streets with dedicated bus and bike lanes, traffic calming gardens, and [...]
  7 Comments
• March 7, 2008

  Share Your Experience as a New York Bicycle Commuter

  Attention New Yorkers who bike to work: Mathew Ides, a masters student at Hunter College Department of Urban Affairs & Planning, is surveying bike commuters in the city to see how they view the built environment. You can take the survey here. Ides has also set up a website, Hubs and Spokes, to provide [...]
  0 Comments
• March 3, 2008

  2008: Year of the Bicycle?

  Ahead of this week's National Bike Summit in Washington, DC, syndicated columnist Neal Peirce wonders if 2008 will be "bicycling's best year since the start of the auto age." He writes about developments promoting the bicycle as a legitimate form of transportation around the world, many of which have been featured right here on Streetsblog: First [...]
  8 Comments
• February 20, 2008

  We Are Breathing Oil in Our Big Cities

  In three different studies presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Boston last weekend, researchers "provided mounting evidence that air pollution can both increase the risk of cardiovascular disease in the long-term and induce heart attacks within hours of traffic exposure." While the studies have yet to be released [...]
  4 Comments
• February 14, 2008

  Drivers Ed. Campaign to Accompany Portland Bike Boxes

  In an attempt to improve safety at intersections in Portland, Oregon, the Department of Transportation will install the city's first bike boxes at 14 locations this spring. The city will also launch a marketing campaign, "Get Behind It. The Bike Box: Portland's New Green Space," intended to educate motorists. As Bikeportland.org reports, large signs will [...]
  3 Comments
• February 4, 2008

  Streetfilm: Barnes Dance!

  Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson filmed the only place that we know of in Manhattan where pedestrians can go out and do the Barnes Dance, also known as the Pedestrian Scramble, at the intersection of 17th Street & Broadway. There you’ll find red lights in all directions for about 17 seconds, allowing pedestrians an exclusive phase in which to cross [...]
  23 Comments

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