Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Car-Free Parks

Ken Coughlin, Leading Car-Free Park Activist, Suffers Heart Attack

By Aaron Naparstek | May 13, 2008 | 19 Comments

Ken Coughlin, occasional Streetsblog contributor, long-time coordinator of Transportation Alternatives’ Car-Free Central Park campaign and all-around mensch suffered a heart attack on Saturday. T.A. board member Jeff Prant and executive director Paul Steely White visited Ken at St. Lukes Roosevelt on the Upper West Side on Sunday. They say he’s in relatively good spirits and […]

Car-Free Parks: Now More Than Ever

By Ken Coughlin | Apr 21, 2008 | 5 Comments

It was on last year’s Earth Day that Mayor Bloomberg unveiled his far-reaching plans to make New York City more sustainable, with congestion pricing as one of the centerpieces. For some reason, making Central and Prospect Parks car-free did not make the list of 127 announced initiatives. With congestion pricing off the table for now […]

What if DOT Simply Forgot to Open the Parks to Traffic?

By Ken Coughlin | Jan 11, 2008 | 19 Comments

This holiday season, users of Central and Prospect Parks got an unexpected and welcome gift after years of finding coal (and exhaust) in their stockings. Interestingly, the sources of that exhaust didn’t seem to complain (or perhaps even notice) that things had changed. For years, cars have been barred from most of the Parks’ Loop […]

January 3rd: The Wrongdoer is Brought to Justice

By Charles Komanoff | Dec 21, 2007 | 12 Comments

"The wrongdoer is brought to justice because his act has disturbed and gravely endangered the community as a whole, and not because damage has been done to individuals who are entitled to reparation. It is the body politic itself that stands in need of being repaired, and it is the general public order that has […]

Celebrating a Car-Free Afternoon In Prospect Park

By Aaron Naparstek | Aug 28, 2007 | 12 Comments

Yesterday was the first day of a car-free evening rush hour on Prospect Park’s East Drive. Car-Free Park advocates and Transportation Alternatives members manned the barricades at the Park Circle entrance, reminiscing over more than a dozen years of activism and organizing. That’s StreetFilms’ Clarence Eckerson holding the "Thank you DOT" sign above. Below, T.A.’s […]

Speak Up for an Accessible Car-Free High Bridge

By Brad Aaron | Aug 21, 2007 | 3 Comments

In other parks news, as reported on Streetsblog in June, the car-free High Bridge is poised to undergo a long-awaited restoration. Built as part of the Croton Aqueduct, the bridge connects Washington Heights in Manhattan with the Bronx neighborhood of High Bridge, near Yankee Stadium. In April, during his PlaNYC unveiling, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the city would be […]

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