Streetsblog New York City

Lacking high-quality, free photos for use in your livable streets advocacy work? This fall you've got two exciting chances to change that (and win big prizes while you're at it).

The Alliance for Biking and Walking has launched their People-Powered Movement Photo Contest to build a photo library for biking and walking advocates. Submit up to 20 photos for a chance to win an all-expense paid bike trip to Tuscany and a year's supply of Clif Bars! Other prizes include two brand new commuter bikes and a chance to have your photos featured in the 2010 March/April issue of Momentum Magazine.

Meanwhile in New York, Livable Streets will be hosting Wikis Take Manhattan once again on Saturday, October 10. The event is a scavenger hunt and free content photography contest aimed at illustrating Wikipedia and StreetsWiki articles. Check out the Streetfilm and photos from last year to get a sense of what it's all about. See Wikipedia for full details and registration.

Join us for Wikis Take Manhattan and you might just snap a shot that wins you a trip to Tuscany.

Taken a look at your Livable Streets profile recently? We've added some handy features.

Profiles now include an activity feed of everything you do on Livable Streets. Need a quick link to that last page you edited or discussion message someone sent? Now it's easily on hand.

Read more...

Want more bike parking in Williamsburg and Greenpoint?

Join us for Bike Rack Hunt: a fun afternoon of planning for Brooklyn Community District 1's bulk order of bike racks. Come help launch the FixCity Bike Racks project we're building to facilitate this process!

Sunday, September 20
2 - 5 p.m.
Wiillamsburg/Greenpoint
Exact location and time TBA

FixCity Bike Racks is an online application communities can use to map desired rack locations. September 20 marks the first time the app will be tested by the public.

More details to come next week. In the meantime you can find more background here, and sign up to receive more information.

The FixCity Bike Rack Hunt is hosted by Conflux and brought to you by Transportation Alternatives' Brooklyn Committee, Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, the Livable Streets Initiative, and The Open Planning Project.

As Elana Schor wrote here a few weeks ago, transportation reform is health reform. The connection between active transportation and public health took center stage at PA Walks and Bikes this week, where Michele Barrett shared some startling statistics on the huge toll obesity takes in Pennsylvania:

In a period of time when health care is so heatedly debated, I can’t help but wonder what first steps we can take towards solving the crisis ourselves. What might be the least costly, most effective means to reduce the cost of health care? Can it really be as simple as taking a 30 minute walk every day? [Quoting a paper by Eric A. Finklestein et. all:] 'For the United States as a whole, obesity-attributable medical expenditures are estimated at $75 billion, with $17 billion financed by Medicare and $21 billion financed by Medicaid. State-level estimates range from $87 million (Wyoming) to $7.7 billion (California).' Pennsylvania holds second place for the highest obesity-attributable medical expenditures -- $4.138 Billion annually.

After returning from the Safe Routes to School National Conference in Portland, Oregon a few days ago, Michele shared another piece of research on the economic benefits of driving less. From a 2007 report released by CEOs for Cities, Joe Cortright presents data from Portland showing that:

The time and money saved by less driving produces more demand for other local goods and services, and so, in fact, stimulates the local economy... It’s time to replace the cliché of green policy as sacrifice and instead recognize that for progressive regions and their residents, being green pays handsome economic dividends.

Cortright released another report just last week about the premium home buyers place on walkability. You can read it here.

Hang Chau is a future medical student who researched block parties and public health as an undergrad in Philadelphia, and is now organizing more in San Diego. In a new StreetsWiki entry on block parties, she examines the way these public community events encourage people to invest in their neighborhoods by highlighting the positive (outdoor fun, personal connections) rather than the negative (litter, crime):

When neighbors know one another, they know who belongs on the street and are more likely to respond to suspicious activity. [One] examination of the effects of family ties shows that respondents who know more families in their neighborhoods are more likely to engage in neighborhood improvement activities; block parties facilitate the creation of those relationships.

Rounding out: Tom Harned, a New Haven-based transportation planner, shares some helpful insight into Level of Service measurement; Harlem & Hamilton Heights LS encourages you to give your feedback on NYC's new BRT plans; and PA Walks and Bikes shares news of a Safe Routes to Schools grants program. We also welcome a new UK-based Spanish language group Los peatones opian, a forum for Portland, Oregon street repair, and a discussion group to ensure that the new LAPD chief is livable streets-friendly.

Andrew Nash, former Executive Director of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, has just posted a paper about Web 2.0 for Transport Planning on StreetsWiki. He's asking the Livable Streets Community, as experts on the ground, to contribute to it before he presents the final draft at the Transportation Research Board's 2010 annual meeting.

Nash explains that web applications intended to improve the public input process for transportation projects often come up short:

The simplest example is using websites and e-mail to comment on planning studies. [But] often these systems are not very creative, simply mimicking the traditional paper-based planning process, which shows that there is room for innovation. An interesting idea is CitiWiki Pittsburgh’s project for creating a regional integrated transportation plan... It was meant to provide those who have a vested interest in creating a better transportation system with a tool and a venue for sharing their ideas for productively building such a system.

He goes on to propose a web app he calls Bus Meister, described in detail in a second wiki entry. The core feature of Bus Meister would be a game that:

...allows users to examine the impacts of public transport improvements on their own public transport routes. The game will both teach users about public transport operations and help them assess the value of their ideas... For example, the player could add traffic signal priority by dragging the “public transport priority signalization widget” onto the route map at the intersection.

Andrew invites you to make edits, corrections, and add additional examples or thoughts to the articles -- he'll take them all into account for the final draft. You can contact him directly, though we encourage you to keep the conversation public -- by contributing to the wiki or commenting on this post -- so everyone can benefit from your insights.

Also around the Community this week: Bike Hoboken is working with the city to secure state funding for a pedestrian/bicycle safety plan, PA Walks and Bikes is tracking how bicycle crash investigations are handled, and cyclists are needed this Sunday for a Biking Rules PSA photo shoot.

When starting a new Livable Streets campaign people will often ask us, "How do I connect with others in my neighborhood and build a working group?" Cantor Benjamin Kintisch is facing this familiar concern in Harlem and Hamilton Heights, and this time we're putting the question to you. If you've had success building a campaign in your area, we want to know how it all started. How did you get the word out off-line and which methods worked best? Respond to this post with your tips for Cantor.

Elsewhere around New York, Livable Streets members have been busy preparing for this weekend's Summer Streets. The Upper West Side Streets Renaissance will be leading a feeder ride starting at Inwood Hill Park and picking up more folks along the way in neighborhoods like Washington Heights and Harlem, while Brooklynites can catch a ride with their TA committee from Grand Army Plaza to Park Ave. and back.

And for those who missed Zozo's appearance at the Summer Streets press conference, there's a new StreetsWiki entry with more details on the mysterious purple creature. Don't miss the Livable Streets Education kid station for more Zozo fun along the route tomorrow.

This May, a bill surfaced in the U.S. Senate that would triple federal funding for Safe Routes to School programs. Livable Streets Community activists have been on the case this week, mobilizing support for the measure. In many communities, however, local policies also have to change to help kids get to school by walking or biking.

Leigh Ann Von Hagen -- a planner at Rutgers' NJ Safe Routes to School Resource Center -- writes about the uphill battle New Jersey advocates are fighting in school districts where students have actually been banned from biking:

Banning bicycling to school is way too common throughout our state. We are in the planning stages of conducting a statewide survey to find out how often bicycling is banned. We are also developing a model policy for walking and bicycling to school. It is true that teenage driving is significantly more dangerous than students bicycling when you look at crash statistics. Yet, no schools consider banning teenage drivers.

Schools often use liability concerns to get out of taking account of
walking and bicycling to school conditions. A good Safe Routes to School Travel Plan would help with liability issues.

Hagen brought the bike ban to the attention of activists in the Collingswood Streets group, who promptly got going on a campaign to convince the local school board to overturn the ban.

Also this week: Out west, the Los Angeles Bicycle Coalition is calling for suggestions on where to conduct LA's first-ever bike and pedestrian count. And in NYC, we're pleased to welcome Harlem & Hamilton Heights Livable Streets and to see the resurgence of Bike Hoboken and the Brooklyn Bridge Cycle Track Advocates.

The interplay of cycling, fashion, and gender has been a hot topic in the livable streets blogosphere this month, and in the Livable Streets Community too. We recently saw the launch of a bike culture-themed group blog called Amsterdamize, and on StreetsWiki we have a new article on Cycle Chic.

In the wiki entry, San Diego-based member Christa Clarke-Jones offers this explanation of the Cycle Chic movement:

Cycle chic or bicycle chic is the culture of cycling in fashionable clothes. Cycle Chic is associated with the utility cycling practiced in cities such as Amsterdam, Berne and Copenhagen, among others, where citizens practice a high level of bicycle usage. In many European cities, as well as cities in China and Japan, cycling is an everyday transport choice and many cyclists choose to wear their regular clothes, as opposed to outfits generally associated with cycle sport, such as bicycle shorts, gloves and shoes. Cycle chic is a growing trend in cities that are now investing in bicycle friendly infrastructure and facilities.

So, what would you add to this StreetsWiki installment? Got something to say about staying chic in more inclement conditions? What about the benefits of Dutch-style fully enclosed chain guards? Add your two cents to the Cycle Chic entry.

Rounding out the week: TransAltMiddletown, in Middletown, CT, is looking for people who can bring a green transportation perpective to a new citizen's commission on downtown parking; Walk Oakland Bike Oakland reports on the Bay Area's Car-Free Challenge; and Dan Knaus weighs in on crime data credibility at Cream Citizen.

This week we turn our attention to news of a multi-state effort to expand NJ Transit's Raritan Valley Line. Livable Streets member group RenewLV -- a campaign for smart growth in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley -- attended an exciting meeting of the broader Raritan Valley Rail Coalition. RenewLV reports;

RenewLV supports the study of regional rail for the Lehigh Valley, particularly focusing on the possible extension of the Raritan Valley line from High Bridge to Phillipsburg, N.J., and the impact of such a project for this region. Since a regional rail service in the Valley will presumably involve partnerships with adjacent states -- namely, New Jersey, and even New York -- identifying allies across state boundaries is incredibly important for the regional rail effort. Today's meeting was proof of a thriving sentiment for multi-organizational, multi-state collaboration. HART Commuter Information Services, a transportation management association that promotes ridesharing, and the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility were just some of the organizations that called for a need to work together on determining better transportation solutions for the NY-NJ-PA region.

Elsewhere: Maura McCormick continues her battle for non-automobile accessible grocery stores in Dayton, OH; Echo Park and Silverlake Livable Streets wants help distributing a poster for its next meeting; and things are looking up in Connecticut with the passage of an act improving bike-ped funding statewide and news of an intersection repair mural in New Haven.