Aaron Naparstek
AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.
Recent Posts
Hit by a Car While Biking? Don’t Waste the NYPD’s Time
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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 […]
Fidler on the Sidewalk
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Streetsblog commenter and Brooklyn Councilmember Lew Fidler adds a tenth plank to his 9 CARAT STONE transportation plan: Sidewalk parking! In today’s Daily News: Brooklyn Diary Where in the world can an elected official park these days without earning the wrath of his fellow Brooklynites? A silver Infiniti belonging to Councilman Lew Fidler — a […]
Traffic Jam on a Petri Dish
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This one comes to Streetsblog via the Sightline Institute’s Daily Score, a blog covering environmental issues in the Pacific Northwest. Why do traffic jams materialize for no apparent reason? In an effort to answer that question, here’s a surprisingly simple experiment cooked up in Japan by the University of Nagoya’s "Mathematical Society of Traffic Flow:" […]
Mime Threat Overshadows Car-Free Prince Street Proposal
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If you read the comments on the previous post, then you know something interesting is in the works for Prince Street. Next Tuesday, Community Board 2’s Transportation Committee will consider a proposal to turn a six-block stretch of Prince Street, from Lafayette to West Broadway, into a car-free zone on Sundays from 11am to 6pm. […]
Is an NYPD Bike Crackdown Underway?
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Even before the NYPD identified a hooded cyclist as the this morning’s likely Times Square bomber, two reports of bike commuters being ticketed and harassed by the police have already hit the Streetsblog inbox. Perhaps it’s just that the weather’s getting nicer and more people happen to be out on bikes but at least one […]
Lessons from Bogotá, Part III (9:58)
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Peter Jackson ain’t got nothing on Clarence Eckerson. Here is the third and final installment of Streetfilms’ Bogotá trilogy based on the New York City Streets Renaissance team’s visit with Gil Peñalosa in Colombia last September. Clarence writes: You’ll find lots of tasty video morsels including: riding some of the great ciclorutas and cycle paths, […]
Introducing Streetsblog Los Angeles
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It’s official: We’re a franchise. The Open Planning Project is proud to announce the launch of Streetsblog Los Angeles, our first new edition beyond the borders of the five boroughs. LA.Streetsblog is edited and run by Damien Newton, formerly the New Jersey Coordinator for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and a recent LA transplant. With […]
Hakeem Jeffries Stands With Westchester on Congestion Pricing
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With a massive, mid-day traffic jam on the Brooklyn Bridge helping to set the scene, Richard Brodsky kicked off his City Hall press conference yesterday with an invitation to the scores of civic groups pushing for congestion pricing. Or maybe it was a threat. Opposition to congestion pricing in Albany, Brodsky said, is "deepening and […]
Streetfilms: Excuses
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Streetfilms’ Clarence Eckerson was walking around Manhattan one day last summer feeling what he describes as "a little sympathy for what it must be like to be a ticket writer in this town." He turned on his ever-present video camera and began shooting illegally parked cars and the variety of placards, badges and hand-scrawled notes […]
The Definition of Automobile Dependence
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Working for a failing automaker to make enough money to keep your beat-up, failing mini van rolling through your sprawled-out, failing city. From today’s New York Times story on escalating gasoline prices. For ordinary Americans like Phyllis Berry, a 31-year-old factory worker for General Motors in Cleveland, gasoline costs are starting to hurt. “I used […]
Citywide Ferry Service Could Cost $100M Annually
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City Council Speaker Christine Quinn called for the introduction of comprehensive, citywide ferry service at her State of the City Address a couple of weeks ago. That made John Kaehny wonder how the ferries would be paid for and how much they’d cost. This week’s Queens Chronicle seems to have part of the answer: “(This) […]
Today’s McMansions, Tomorrow’s Tenements
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This weekend’s must-read article is "The Next Slum?" by Christopher B. Leinberger in the Atlantic Monthly. He posits that the suburban American dream that was launched at the 1939 New York City World’s Fair appears to be running out of gas. Emerging in its place is the growing desire of many Americans to live in […]