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
“A Perverse Allocation of Public Space on the Upper West Side”
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As we lead up to next Tuesday’s big Upper West Side Streets Renaissance workshop with Jan Gehl (have you submitted your RSVP yet?) here is another StreetFilm delving in to the kinds of issues we hope to be talking about. In this segment, Upper West Siders Mark Gorton and Lisa Sladkus briefly examine just how […]
Fact Check: Congestion Pricing is Not a “Regressive Tax”
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One of the most oft-repeated slams against congestion pricing we heard at this week’s Congestion Mitigation Committee hearings is that congestion pricing would be a "regressive tax," an unfair burden to poorer New Yorkers. Is congestion pricing regressive? The data suggests otherwise. As the chart above shows, even in Brooklyn Council member Lew Fidler’s heavily […]
Bloomberg Declares Support for a National Carbon Tax
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New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will declare his support today for a national carbon tax, according to a report posted this morning on the New York Times City Room blog by metro reporter Sewell Chan: Mayor Bloomberg plans to announce today his support for a national carbon tax. In what his aides are calling […]
RSVP Today to Re-Imagine Manhattan’s Upper West Side
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Help shape the neighborhood streets of the Upper West Side. Work with your neighbors to create beautiful, green streets with safer bike lanes, great walking spaces, less traffic and cleaner air. The Upper West Side Streets Renaissance Campaign is holding a series of events aimed at empowering residents to re-imagine neighborhood streets and make their […]
Jan Gehl: Half of Manhattan Trips Could be Done by Bike
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If you haven’t heard it already, WNYC’s Arun Venugopal has an outstanding piece on New York City’s rapidly changing transportation policies regarding bicycling. We hear from T.A.’s Noah Budnick, Copenhagen’s Jan Gehl, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, NYPD Chief Ray Kelly, Judy Ross of Times Up, and a moron in a huge SUV. Click here or […]
Kunstler: Parking Plans Are Based on “Faulty Assumptions”
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If you’re the type of person who has been following the Yankee Stadium parking garage story, or the Hudson Yards zoning story or the story about the city block in Prospect Heights that’s being leveled and turned into a gigantic surface parking lot, you may enjoy James Howard Kunstler’s column this week. The author of […]
1,200 Pack Town Hall for “How New Yorkers Ride Bikes”
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Streetfilms’ Clarence Eckerson was at Town Hall on Saturday night for the New Yorker Festival’s "How New Yorkers Ride Bikes," hosted by former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. Clarence wasn’t allowed to film the event so he published a nice write-up on StreetFilms. Some excerpts: Mr. Byrne, dressed in black and sporting his cool taxi-yellow […]
Meat Market Plaza is Open for Business
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The interim redesign of Ninth Avenue and 14th Street is done. Tables, chairs, planters and some of those giant granite blocks from DOT’s Bridges Division have been set out as multipurpose bollard-bench-tables atop a gravelly, earth-tone pavement surface. What was very recently one of the longest and most hectic pedestrian crossings in Manhattan, and no […]
NYC Gets Its First-Ever Physically-Separated Bike Path
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The Department of Transportation revealed plans for New York City’s first-ever physically-separated bike lane, or "cycle track," at a Manhattan Community Board 4 meeting last night. The new bike path will run southbound on Ninth Avenue from W. 23rd to W. 16th Street in Manhattan. Unlike the typical Class II on-street bike lane in which […]
German Town Chooses Human Interaction Over Traffic Signals
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Driving (carefully) with Dutch "shared space" guru and traffic engineer Hans Monderman. While battles rage here in New York City over signs and markings and the segregation of the public right-of-way for different types of users, yet another Northern European town is ditching its traffic control devices altogether. Spiegel reports that as of September 12, […]
Pedestrian Safety Tips & Anti-Pricing Talking Points From AAA
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Car & Travel magazine is published by the Automobile Club of New York, also known as AAA. In addition to being the friendly guys who schlep out at a moment’s notice to tow your broken-down car, the Automobile Club has, over the course of decades, done everything in its power to ensure that nothing like […]
More on Rep. Patrick McHenry
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Grist’s Dave Roberts provides some more background on Rep. Patrick McHenry, the North Carolina Republican Congressman who ridiculed bicycling as a "19th century solution" during debate over the "Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2007." The House bill, which passed on Aug. 4, included a $20/month tax break for bike commuters: That was […]