Reading between the lines of recent @nyc-dot.bsky.social community board presentations reveals a more confident agency under Mayor Mamdani than under Adams, with DOT actively pushing back against overblown and downright false narratives that bike lanes worsen traffic or block first responders.
Jersey City’s pedestrian-only Newark Avenue was thriving tonight because no cars + good weather = good economic and social outcomes.
It’s high time we create a comfortable Brooklyn Bridge gateway in DUMBO with seating and increased sidewalk space.
The humble traffic cone (pylon) does it again.
#TacticalUrbanism
One upside of working east coast hours while visiting the west coast is taking morning calls on sunrise walks. 🤩
“In London cyclists now outnumber cars in the City by 2 to 1. Paris, where they now outnumber motorists across the whole city, is catching up with Europe’s traditional bike capitals, Amsterdam & Copenhagen…In Copenhagen, bikes account for almost half of commuter trips to work/school.” @economist.com
Trend in average number of cars per household. City of Paris shown in light blue; Paris metropolis overall in middle blue; Paris metropolis outside of Paris in dark blue.
Trend in gas sales in Paris and the near suburbs, in thousands of tons.
Gas stations in Paris metropolis. Light blue dots show stations that were open in 2024. Dark blue dots show stations that closed between 2019 and 2024.
Paris metropolis: Striking reductions in car use due to proactive efforts to encourage bike, walking, transit:
—Less car ownership: From 0.5 cars/HH in Paris to 0.36, 1999–2022. Outside of Paris: 0.88➡️0.8
—35% less gas sold 2005–24
—15% fewer gas stations between 2019–24
www.apur.org/sites/defaul...
One man’s Rivian top-off is everyone else’s trip hazard 🫠
Good example mixing some light touch and more permanent elements along the Sanchez Slow Street. I saw more people walking/running in the street along this corridor than several others thus far.
It depends on which slow street you are on. Like NYC, there is range of corridors in various states, Shotwell (pictured) has light touches but seems to be functioning well given how low traffic was prior to Covid. The corridors are generally longer here, with a focus neighborhood scale mobility.
Interesting to see how cities have / have not evolved their COVID-era slow/open street programs. Here is a snapshot of the toolkit along San Francisco’s Shotwell Street.
A chart titled "traffic fatalities per 100,000 population". The chart compares the United States of America versus the Netherlands. It shows that in 1970, traffic fatality rates in the USA and the Netherlands were equal. Both declined over time, but the traffic fatality rate in the Netherlands declined far faster. By 2008, the traffic fatality rate in the USA was more than 3 times as high as in the Netherlands.
“The American 'transportation engineer' is a really a civil engineer who has received a little exposure to the transportation sector.”
nextcity.org/urbanist-new...
Now and then: the pedestrianization of the Strand elevates public life around King’s College. 🤩
Kensington High Street | King’s Cross | Seven Dials | Bedford Square
Caught the wonderful Wes Anderson exhibit at the London Design Museum today!
“The scaremongers were wrong. Over its first 14 months, the congestion pricing system has exceeded even the high hopes of many supporters.”
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/o...
„All these things are illegal, now they are celebrated“, @mikelydon.bsky.social
at #urbanfuture26 conference in Ljubljana
A school street in Ljubljana, as seen from the front of @liorsteinberg.bsky.social’s cargo bike!
Thanks for digging into the little known history of this. I’d certainly like this issue to get more attention. In the northeast I find this to be a bit less of an issue due to narrower streets. But it still comes up when retrofitting intersections, creating plazas etc.
Enjoyed seeing this lightweight market infrastructure in Ljubljana with @ethankent.bsky.social today!
Very cute fit for purpose scooter parking outside a school in London’s Belgravia neighborhood.
30 seconds along London’s Victoria Embankment during morning rush hour show off two decades of improved transport policy.
Cyclist count: 29
Vehicle count: 9
The 2,490 mixed-use Union Station replaces a former 301-unit housing site. As one who transits through Union Station with frequency, this will be an incredibly restorative project for the neighborhood, and the broader city. 👏👏👏
www.newhavenindependent.org/2026/03/19/5...
“From the tamaleras of Corona to the portrait artists of Times Square, street vendors fold our city’s unrivaled diversity into our streets and sidewalks,” Ms. Kaufman-Gutierrez said in a statement.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/20/n...
Biking home from lower Manhattan this evening and found this guy stuck, blocking the entire intersection of Center Street and the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. These have no place in our cities; human scale streets require human-scale vehicles.
A long overdue announcement to expand slow zones around all NYC schools. The next step is ensure all school streets are designed to self-enforce these slower speeds.
www.nyc.gov/mayors-offic...
US gasoline demand has been flat for nearly 2 decades. That’s because of higher vehicle efficiency and EV penetration. These are Americans saving money. Why the hell are the Trump WH - and his GOP enablers spending $1B per day to fund a bad and dying habit?
🤦🏻♂️
“A city’s creativity doesn’t depend on cars. That’s the 20th century. We’re in the 21st.”— Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.
No matter what happens in the Paris election in 4 days, the world’s cities owe @annehidalgo.bsky.social a huge debt of gratitude.
The boldest, most inspiring mayor I’ve seen.
Saratoga Springs has one of the best main streets (Broadway) in New York, but for the four lane street section that turns into two lanes just south and north of the city center 🫣
