Jason Varone
Jason Varone battles the streets everyday during a 9 mile commute on his bicycle from downtown Brooklyn to the Upper East Side. In addition to his efforts on Streetsblog, he is an artist making work related to the environment and technology. Examples of his work can be found at www.varonearts.org.
Recent Posts
Small Business Leaders Voice Support For PlaNYC
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Critics of congestion pricing often claim that small businesses will bear an unfair burden if the Mayor is successful in implementing his plan. But yesterday, a diverse group of small business leaders from throughout the five boroughs gathered on the steps of City Hall yesterday to voice their support for the Mayor’s PlaNYC initiative. From […]
More Bike Lanes for Los Angeles? One Cyclist Says, “No Thanks.”
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In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Will Campbell writes that bike lanes in Los Angeles are useless and dangerous. Campbell is an avid recreational and commuter cyclist who set a goal of riding 2,007 miles in L.A. this year. L.A., which averages 329 sunny, bike-friendly days a year, should be one of the […]
Weird Science: Do Helmets Attract Cars to Cyclists?
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Following Alex Marshall’s essay on bicycle helmets this morning, Scientific American recently reported on a paradox emerging in relation to helmets and traffic accidents. It seems that drivers are a lot more scared of hitting you if you leave your protective gear at home: Spring is in full swing now, and a number of the […]
LA.Streetsblog: The Joy of Poor Circulation
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Every week, KCRW radio’s Marc Porter Zasada sets out to fathom Los Angeles on his show The Urban Man. This week he talks about neighborhoods, how fragile they are and how easily they can be lost to bad traffic engineering: On Monday you walked around the block for coffee and croissants, down where narrow streets […]
NY1’s “Inside City Hall” on Congestion Pricing
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Inside City Hall, a daily political show on NY1, filed this report last night on congestion pricing, traffic enforcement, and PlaNYC. Their report highlights the flawed Quinnipiac poll and the mayor responded, "City government is supposed to lead, state government is supposed to lead, federal government is supposed to lead, not do polls and and […]
London’s Trafalgar Square Goes Green… Literally.
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A once traffic-heavy part of Trafalgar Square, now open only to pedestrians, just received a green, grassy face lift from London’s city government. Could New York City’s Times Square be next? (If not, we’d settle for three months-worth of car-free Central Park this summer.) The BBC reports: More than 2,000 sq m of turf has […]
Groups Dispute Quinnipiac Poll Findings on Congestion Pricing
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The Campaign for New York’s Future and The Partnership For New York City both disputed findings from a Quinnipiac University poll of New Yorkers on congestion pricing. Kathryn S. Wylde, President and CEO of The Partnership for New York City released this statement: Contrary to those who want to put their head in the sand […]
Queens Blogger Runs His Own Commuter Contest
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By way of comment on Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing proposal and, perhaps, in response to Transportation Alternatives’ recent bike vs. subway vs. taxi commuter contest, the author of Queens Crap, a blog focused on local development issues, conducted his own rush hour comparison test. Here are his results: 8:00: left house, walked to bus 8:03: […]
After Pricing Proposal: Mayor’s Approval at Record High
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One month after unveiling the specifics of PlaNYC in his Earth Day speech, amidst a public debate about his congestion pricing plan, the Mayor’s approval rating is near his record high. Crain’s New York reports: A nearly record percentage of New York City voters continue to approve of the job Mayor Michael Bloomberg is doing, […]
In DUMBO a Parking Lot Will Become a Piazza
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The Department of Transportation has unveiled plans to turn the gritty Pearl Street Triangle in DUMBO into a public plaza. The plaza will be similar to the one DOT creaed on Willoughby Street in Downtown Brooklyn last year. The Triangle currently serves as a parking lot. Some interesting notes about the project: The plaza […]
What Does a “Bike Friendly” City Look Like?
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Alan Durning has a lengthy essay discussing the infrastructure and culture that makes a city "bike friendly" in the environmental news blog, Gristmill: Good bicycling infrastructure is something few on this continent have seen. It doesn’t mean a "bike route" sign and a white stripe along the arterial. It doesn’t mean a meandering trail shared […]
The Fastest Way to Get to New Jersey
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Bike courier Brendan McMullen displays the summons he received for riding through the Holland Tunnel NY Minute‘s courier company’s courier of the month knew exactly what to do when a client’s error resulted in a last minute dash to Jersey City: Courier 135, Brendan, picked up what he thought was a rush delivery to Hudson […]