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
European Automakers Are Feeling the Heat
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While the never-ending barrage of automobile advertising is as shameless as ever here in the States, European automakers are beginning to recognize that their product is perceived as harmful and destructive, not unlike cigarettes or trans-fats. The Wall Street Journal reports: Amid growing alarm over climate change and a trend in Europe toward faster, heavier […]
Bloomberg Admin Misses “Golden Opportunity” on Intro. 199
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In the latest issue of Mobilizing the Region, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign questions how the Bloomberg Administration’s purported commitment to long-term planning and sustainability squares with the Department of Transportation’s opposition to Intro. 199, City Council legislation aimed at collecting better data on how New York City’s streets are managed and used: Testifying before the […]
New York Could be a Global Leader in Alternative Energy
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The Syracuse Post-Standard reports: The shrub willow, which can be burned to make steam and electricity or fermented to make ethanol, or both, is just one of the renewable, homegrown sources of energy under development in Upstate New York. Fertilized by government incentives and by the need to kick the oil and gas habit, alternative […]
Green Revolution Sweeping Through U.S. Cities
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Neil Peirce of the American Prospect sums up sustainable practices in several American cities, A "green revolution" is burgeoning in America’s cities and towns. If the new, green, urban alchemy has an epicenter, it’s Chicago. A big share of the credit goes to Mayor Richard J. Daley and his allies. There’s a green roof on […]
Atlantic Yards Planner: “Space on Streets is Useless Space”
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In this week’s New York Observer, Matthew Schuerman talks at length with Laurie Olin, the landscape architect who may or may not have been teamed up with starchitect Frank Gehry on Forest City Enterprise’s Atlantic Yards project "to compensate for Mr. Gehry’s reputed lack of urban-planning skills." Schuerman writes: Mr. Olin’s role in the project […]
Mayor Livingstone Extends Congestion Charge Westward
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The BBC reports: London’s congestion charge zone roughly doubled in size with a westward expansion coming into force. The £8-a-day road toll scheme now takes in most of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea in west London. Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said: "The zone was, until now, one of the most congested areas in the […]
The New Jane Jacobs vs. the New Robert Moses?
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New York Magazine talks to Majora Carter: Janelle Nanos: Part of Moses’s legacy is the idea that to get anything done in the city, it needs to be done by fiat. Do you see that happening again now? Majora Carter: Absolutely. Partially, it’s a coliseum mentality, that it has to be big or it doesn’t […]
Job Opening: Mayor Daley’s Bicycling Ambassadors
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Here is a job posting found on Craigs List, Chicago: Mayor Daley’s Bicycling Ambassadors are the City of Chicago’s bicycle outreach and education specialists. Ambassadors attend events across the City of Chicago, encouraging people to use their bicycles safely and more often. The Bicycle Ambassador season is from mid-May to mid-September. This position is […]
Taxing Vehicles Based on Their Environmental Impact
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The New Zealand Herald reports: Germany’s government plans to tax cars based on emissions instead of engine size to help tackle climate change, Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee said. Tiefensee told a news conference early Sunday that German and other European carmakers had to do more to protect the environment, after the head of the UN […]
Road Warrior: Los Angeles Edition
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What is it like to bike in a much more hostile environment than New York City? Conan Nolan reports for NBC TV, Los Angeles: CONAN NOLAN: It’s just the start of the afternoon rush hour, and the fight begins. MICHAEL CLARK, BICYCLE COMMUTER: There is no sense of sharing. I have to battle for my […]
Traffic, Pedestrian Fatalities Rise in New Jersey
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Newsday reports: Pedestrian fatalities rose about 8 percent in New Jersey last year, according to statistics released Thursday. The number of pedestrian fatalities as a percentage of total traffic fatalities rose slightly, from 21 percent to 22 percent. The statistics were provided by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. In 2005, 156 of 747 New Jerseyans who […]
Living Near Shops and Transit Makes New Yorkers Less Fat
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A new Columbia University study published in the American Journal of Health Promotion, yet again, links livable streets to improved public health. The study reports: "There are relatively strong associations between built environment and Body Mass Index, even in population-dense New York City," said Andrew Rundle, Dr.P.H., lead study author and assistant professor of epidemiology […]