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
Prince Street Bike Lane Has Arrived
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After months of debate including criticism from cyclists who want a physically-separated bike lane built on dangerous Houston Street and local car owners who want to protect their right to cheap on-street parking, a freshly painted green bike lane was spotted on Prince Street late last night at the corner of Mott. As Ariel Sharon […]
Brian Ketcham Proposes a “Simpler, Cheaper Traffic Fix”
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Distribution of vehicles entering Manhattan CBD by direction and pricing status (Zupan & Perrotta, 2003). In an op/ed piece in Monday’s Daily News, Brooklyn-based transportation consultant Brian Ketcham proposed some changes to Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan. Ketcham, who has been pushing for some form of congestion pricing since his time working for the Lindsay […]
Weiner Imagines Paying for His Traffic Plan With a Gas Tax Raise
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Though reporters weren’t invited, Streetsblog managed to get a stringer into this morning’s On-and-Off-the-Record transportation policy talk with Congressman Anthony Weiner at Commerce Bank in Midtown. During the hour-long Q&A hosted by Edward Isaac-Dovere of City Hall News, Weiner hit on familiar themes: Something needs to be done about traffic but the mayor’s plan […]
You Can be a Streetsblog Contributor Too
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This photo comes to us from Bicyclesonly who is uploading photos (of, you guessed it, bicycles only) to Flickr and tagging them "streetsblog." By tagging your photos as such, they will automatically pop up on our newly revamped "Contribute to Streetsblog" page over there in the upper left corner of the screen. You can upload […]
DOT Rolls Out Fort Greene Bike Lanes & Traffic-Calming
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Via Brownstoner, the Department of Transportation is building out a nice street redesign project in Brooklyn right now as a part of its Ft. Greene Bike Lane & Traffic Calming Project (download a project description here). Formerly a 70-foot-wide one-way street, Carlton Avenue, above, has been converted to two-way operation with five-foot bike lanes on […]
Congestion Pricing Will Make You Happy
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An op/ed by Eduardo Porter in today’s New York Times makes a passing suggestion that by reducing the number of people who do solo car commutes, congestion pricing would make New Yorkers happier. I can say this for sure: If it also reduces the number of honking, revving, careening and exhaust-spewing sociopaths clogging New […]
Nasty Newsrack Photo Contest Finalists
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The Municipal Art Society will be announcing the winner of its Nasty Newsrack Photo Competition tomorrow. MAS launched the "OUTRAGE!!! Nasty Newsrack Photo Competition" to highlight the rampant legal violations of newsracks in New York City, and received more than 200 submissions. MAS is currently is exploring new newsrack policies and designs that have been […]
MTA Chief Links Congestion Pricing to Fare Hike… or Not
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MTA Chief Lee Sander told CBS reporter Marcia Kramer on Wednesday that the passage of Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing pilot project may help stave off a fare hike. "The straphanger in my judgment will have to play a role, but if Wall Street turns around and congestion pricing is passed then maybe we can give […]
Take the NYC Bike Parking Survey
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Wallace Murray and Jason Nu are two graduate students in Hunter College’s geography department. They have teamed up with New York City Department of City Planning’s Transportation Division to create a bike parking survey. They write: We are working with the NYC Department of City Planning Transportation Division to improve our understanding of the public’s […]
Pedestrians Fight Back in Athens, Greece
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Pedestrians in Athens, Greece, tired of being abused on traffic-choked, car-dominated city streets, have begun taking matters into their own hands. The New York Times has a really interesting story today on a group that calls itself the Streetpanthers: In the last year alone, the most innovative display of activism has sprung from the Streetpanthers, […]
DOT Rolls Out the New Lower Manhattan Crosstown Bike Route
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The street re-surfacing men and machinery were out in force in Soho last night. Houston Street Bike Safety Initiative Director Ian Dutton snapped this photo on Prince Street. Once the street is repaved, the Department of Transportation will stripe the hotly debated Prince and Bleecker Street bike lanes. Lower Manhattan’s newest east-west bike route is […]
Streetsblog Index
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The price of a gallon of gasoline hits $5 in some parts of California. The price of a barrel of oil is about $3 shy of an all-time, inflation-adjusted high of $101.70. The traffic plan Richard Brodsky calls "workable, bold" requires $18 billion and wouldn’t produce results for at least a decade. Feel free to […]