Streetsblog New York City

The Open Planning Project (the producers of Streetsblog and Livable Streets Groups) is looking to enlist the help of neighborhood activists, community organizers, and grassroots leaders to help us build the next generation of online organizing tools.

Are you trying to organize for change in your neighborhood, town, or city? Are you trying to take advantage of the internet to do so?

If so, we'd love to pick your brain to find out what tools and techniques you're employing and how they're working for you. Our aim is to create an online toolset that makes community organizing and grassroots activism easier and more effective.

Simply filling out this form will be enormously helpful to us. We'd also like to have more in-depth conversations, either in person or by phone or email. If you're interested, let us know. We're eager to learn all we can about your goals, strategies, and challenges.

Or, go for it in the comments section.  Here's what we'd like to know:

• What goals are you/your group trying to accomplish?
• What tech tools are you currently using to further those goals? (to organize, recruit, mobilize, lobby, publicize, etc.)
  
• Of those, which have been the most useful? The least?
• What functionality do you NOT have that you would most like to have?
  

Thanks!

A Streetsblog reader named Jessica sends along yet another story of the NYPD's failure to treat bike commuters as full-fledged citizens of the City of New York: 

This evening around 8pm I was biking home down 2nd Avenue in the bike lane. I had a front light, back light, a bell, and was wearing a helmet. At St. Marks Place I came to a red light and stopped. When the light went green, I went straight, only to be struck by a minivan making a left hand turn, throwing me and my bicycle to the ground, and the minivan continuing to roll over my front wheel, then stop directly upon it -- successfully crushing my fork and mutilating my front wheel.

They stopped, and after checking myself out to realize I was physically fine, I asked about being compensated for the damage. In their eyes there was no damage. Knowing its important to report such an accident so that its on official record and could possibly be used to better the infrastructure to prevent such accidents, I called the police. At that moment the minivan driver became completely uncooperative and felt as though i was wasting her time.

The cops came, said they could issue no tickets because they did not see it with their own eyes, and informed me they could only take a report. They then said, to receive a copy of the report, I have to go to the precinct and pay $10. The cops make it seem like I was wasting their time as well, and almost implying to the driver that she had nothing to worry about.

Jessica

I live on Sixth St, btwn 3rd and 4th Ave, Gowanus. I came home around midnight on Friday night.... when I went for a morning stroll on Saturday, I came across not one but two burned out cars on Sixth St, one on my block, the other between 4th and 5th Ave. Both cars looked like they were fairly new. Anti-preppy terrorismo or what?

Another Park Slope incident reported on Brownstoner (also via Curbed) looks like a charred Subaru may have been collateral damage when nearby garbage bags were set aflame. And it's possible the vehicle fires could be part of a perceived uptick in overall neighborhood vandalism and property crime, as reported on Gowanus Lounge, rather than an anti-auto (or anti-yuppie) statement.

Photo: Brownstoner

From Streetsblog commenter Steve:

Project "Look" may include new programmatic law enforcement efforts targeting bicyclists. Each morning this week we were confronted by a Parks & Rec. Department law enforcement personnel operating checkpoints at different locations on the Central Park Loop.

Today's checkpoint was different than the previous two. There were two serial checkpoints, with the officers at the first one (located midway up a downhill stretch) gathering information on the bicyclists passing them and radioing it down to a more formal checkpoint at the foot of the hill.

We were actually waved through a red light by the officers up the hill, I think because they saw that we were going to stop in time for the red light and thus yield no useful information for the officer at the foot of the hill.

The officer at the foot of the hill didn't seem to be giving out tickets, only warnings. However, we saw him grabbing and detaining bicyclists who attempted to evade him by riding in the traffic lane outside the cones, and giving them extra-long warnings. One of these counseling sessions was actually pretty intense, with the bicyclist attempting to wrench his arm free.

Photo by ifreedman500/Flickr. Click through to see the shot with notes added. 

Police officers from Brooklyn's 94th precinct are, at this moment, clipping bike locks and seizing bicycles parked along Bedford Ave. according to Community Board 1 Transportation Chair Teresa Toro. The precinct gave Community Board members no advanced notice of the police action. Phone calls to the precinct have gone unanswered. Toro, who also works for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, reports that Council Member David Yassky's staff is looking into the situation and says:

CB1 recently wrote to the 90th and 94th Precincts asking them to establish an abandoned bike tagging and removal program. Such a program would ensure that bikes being removed are indeed abandoned; and there would be notice given to the bike owner to remove his/her bike by a given date.

Biking is on the upswing in our community, and I'm proud of that. I find it unacceptable that the precinct is taking such a negative initiative and I intend to follow up. In the meantime, I am calling the 94th Precinct (interesting, there is NO ANSWER on the phone so far despite three tries and counting). I am also letting our local elected officials know about this action.

I find this particularly outrageous, given Mayor Bloomberg's and NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan's recent efforts to promote more and better biking and walking alternatives for New Yorkers. Perhaps the 94th Precinct didn't get the memo yet.

If you also oppose this action by the precinct, please write and/or call the precinct to let them know, and PLEASE copy our elected officials and CB1.

Captain Paul Vorbeck, Commanding Officer [pictured]
94th Precinct
100 Meserole Avenue
Phone 718 383 3879
Fax 718 383 8095

Assemblyman Joe Lentol
619 Lorimer Street
Brooklyn NY 11211
Phone 718 383 7474
lentolj@assembly.state.ny.us

Councilman David Yassky
114 Court Street
Brooklyn NY 11201
Phone 718 875 5200
Fax 718 643 6620
yassky@council.nyc.ny.us

The 94th Precinct was in the news a few days ago for taping notices to bikes parked in Williamsburg warning cyclists to "obey the traffic rules and regulations." The area around the Bedford Avenue subway station has been the scene of frequent bike seizures.

All of the bicycles parked on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg had these flyers stapled to them recently. The reverse side of the flyer has translations in Spanish & Polish.

Thanks to Streetsblog tipster Laura for this one. She notes, "The 94th covers Greenpoint and most of Northside Williamsburg. Nothing in this statement about cracking down on aggressive drivers who threaten bikers, of course." And thanks to Streetblog tipster John for scanning the flyer.

According to a new U.S. Census Bureau analysis of data from the American Community Survey, most Americans drive to work -- alone, and public transportation commuters are concentrated in a handful of large cities. From the Bureau's press release:

Despite rising fuel costs, commuters continued to drive their cars in 2005. The survey, gathered over the course of the year, found that driving to work was the favored means of commute of nearly nine out of 10 workers (87.7 percent), with most people (77 percent) driving alone.

In contrast, 4.7 percent of commuters used public transportation to travel to work in 2005, an increase of about 0.1 percent over 2000 levels. About half of the nation's public transportation commuters can be found in 10 of the nation's 50 cities with the most workers age 16 or over.

"With each succeeding year, we'll be able to see how people respond to changing circumstances, such as rising gas prices," said Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon.

The survey found that Portland, Oregon has the highest rate of bicycle commuting at 3.5 percent. New York is number 28 on the list with a 0.5 percent bike commuting rate but ranks number one in total number of cyclists with nearly twice as many bike commuters as Portland.

Among large cities, Boston has the highest rate of workers who walk to work at 12.5 percent. New York, which is often thought of as the country's best walking city, was 4th on the list at 9.4 percent behind Washington D.C. and San Francisco.

You can download the entire report here (Excel).

1. Gridlock Sam Tells the Story of NYC's First Bike Lanes (14 comments)
Last summer my family and I rode the Montreal buffered bike lanes. My wife and 2 teenaged daughters declared the buffered lanes to be very comfortable, safe, and a real pleasure to ride in. They never bike here in NYC however because they find the traffic too terrifying.
Comment by da - November 13, 2006 @ 11:54 pm

2. Mayor Livingstone: $50 to Drive an SUV into Central London (18 comments)
I saw a wide-ranging presentation by Prof. Peter Newman last week. He is a scholar of sustainability and transportation and has been involved for years in municipal politics in Australia -- I believe most recently as sustainability commissioner for Sydney. It was painfully striking how far behind the rest of the developed world we are in the discourse and practice regarding liveable, environmentally sustainable cities.
Comment by Orcutt - November 15, 2006 @ 1:13 pm

3. T is for Transit-Oriented Development? (59 comments)
It often seems that many architects don't understand that the fundamental unit of urban landscapes is the human body. Streetsblog is predicated on this understanding, after all. We experience space in relation to our persons. And if it seems like non-architects are unwilling to experiment with urban forms, I'd agree that is true, but with good reason - the human form is more or less static....
Comment by Greg - November 15, 2006 @ 10:35 am

4. Ad Nauseam: Ford Mustang Shelby GT 500 (14 comments)
In America big brother or the social police do not tell us what to drive or what to buy. No one tells us to waste gas or to conserve it, to waste money or save it, to watch tv or read a book. We choose on our own. You are free to drive what you want as I am. You can drive a Prius or a Mercedes or a Pinto, or a bicycle, it is your choice. Where do you get off implying you are right and someone else is wrong?
Comment by Rick - November 17, 2006 @ 1:31 am