By Jess Schiewe 6/06/12 4:15pm

Brooklyn State of Mind

Fingers crossed: off-street parking requirements might be reduced in Downtown Brooklyn. (Photo: Department of City Planning)

Goodbye Parking Garages: Proposal Aims To Reduce Off-Street Parking Requirements in Downtown Brooklyn

There’s a reason why public transportation exists: so that people don’t have to use cars. Downtown Brooklyn residents have long accepted this reality of urban living and it appears that the Department of City Planning has too.

At Monday’s  City Planning Commission meeting, DCP unveiled their latest proposal: a plan to reform Downtown Brooklyn’s off-street parking requirements. The oh-so-creatively titled Downtown Brooklyn Off-Street Parking plan would reduce the current zoning requirements for parking in new developments from availability for 40 percent of residential units to 20 percent. Read More

By Matt Chaban 1/31/12 10:02am

Planes Trains & Automobiles

At least someone is enjoying their commute. (Getty)

Stalled Subways: Straphangers Say Commutes Have Worsened Since 2009 Cuts

Sure, you can get cell service in the subways now, and bus rapid transit runs up and down the avenues, but do they seem a little dirtier, a little slower? Well, 61 percent of mass transit riders agree, according to a new poll from Transportation Alternatives, which found that a supermajority of straphangers believe their commutes have gotten worse since 2009.

That is when a combination of funding raids led to transit cuts the following year, and Transportation Alternatives is hoping to galvanize riders to fight for funding, which could easily be imperiled yet again. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/31/11 8:06pm

on the waterfront

13 Photos

Recreation is also key, including a new marian at the tip of the reservoir.

Revolutionizing the East River Waterfront

Things sure are moving fast on the East Side waterfront. Then again, who can blame the U.N. and its neighbors for being over-eager, as they have waited well over a decade for a land deal to build a new tower and riverfront esplanade. Two weeks ago, Fumihiko Maki got back to work on his designs for a new U.N. tower, and now a coalition of civic groups have announced the winners of an competition to create a new waterfront park stretching from 39th to 60th streets.

Given that the waterfront has languished for so long, the designers proposed some terribly lively schemes.

Held by Transportation Alternatives and d3, an art and design organization, Closing the Gap sought proposals “that fundamentally transform how people move through Manhattan,” as the competition brief put it. While that might be an ambitious way of thinking about the greenway, it is true this will close the 22-mile loop surrounding Manhattan island. Coincidentally,  dozens of firms from 22 different countries responded to the competition. Read More

By Anna Sanders 10/17/11 6:17pm

Crash talk

(Photo: Transportation Alternatives)

Midtown Is the Most Dangerous Place to Be a Pedestrian

Office workers may want to look both ways before crossing the street on the way home tonight.

Transportation Alternatives released their first “crash map” today, which reveals that, at over 8,500 crashes involving pedestrians from 1995-2009, Midtown is not the place to go for a stroll. The map, based on the civic group’s new CrashStat.org interactive index, charts motorist crashes involving pedestrians by community. Read More

By Michael Roberto 7/01/10 6:36pm

How Do You Live, Paul Steely White?

Paul Steely White, cycling enthusiast and executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a non-profit that promotes safe, green ways of getting around the city, picked a pretty good place to live. For the past seven months, the 39 year old, his wife Zoë and daughter Anna have occupied the first floor of a brownstone rental in Read More

By Matt Frassica, Staff 1/26/10 10:50pm

The Man Who Closed Times Square to Traffic

Standing along a busy downtown Manhattan street, Mark Gorton lamented all the traffic.

“It’s not that cars are inevitable; it’s that we’ve tried really hard to jam these cars in here,” said the founder of The Open Planning Project (TOPP), a nonprofit dedicated to transportation reform. On a wall of the nonprofit’s Read More

By Oliver Haydock 8:13pm

Parking Spaces: Break Room for the 21st Century?

If you’ve ever wanted to take an afternoon siesta on a patch of green grass right by Columbus Circle, today is your day, New Yorkers! Thank the fourth annual Park(ing) Day, a one-day global event where city parking spaces are transformed into oases.

The event, first held in San Francisco in 2005, was celebrated by Read More