Brad Aaron
Brad Aaron began writing for Streetsblog in 2007, after years as a reporter, editor, and publisher in the alternative weekly business. Brad adopted New York's dysfunctional traffic justice system as his primary beat for Streetsblog. He lives in Manhattan.
Recent Posts
Can the World Handle the World’s Cheapest Car?
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Today the Streetsblog Network takes us to India, where some fear the recent launch of the highly-anticipated $2,000 Tata Nano — a.k.a. the "world’s cheapest car" — will wreak havoc on the environment and already crowded public spaces. Hard Drive has the story: Photo via Hard Drive India’s middle class is on the rise, as […]
It’s No Accident
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What if news articles of shootings, stabbings and other deaths used the same language normally employed to describe traffic collisions? Today on the Streetsblog Network, David Alpert of Greater Greater Washington points to media coverage of a crash in Culpeper County, VA, as an example of our tendency to view traffic violence as an immutable […]
Cartoon Tuesday: Tales From the Dark Side (of the Road)
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The UK Department for Transport’s no-holds-barred THINK! road safety campaign isn’t just for adults. This creepy toon, one in a series designed to influence how kids interact with auto traffic (here’s another), encourages bright colored clothing in favor of "trendy" darker tones when walking at night. These spots bring to mind a number of questions. […]
Campaign Enlists Comedians to Curb Reckless Teen Driving
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The Ad Council has some new material in its campaign aimed at teenage drivers. In these spots, a comedic actor (Fred Willard in the ad above) in the backseat of a car with three teens cajoles or threatens the driver into slowing down or minding the road. The gist of the campaign, corresponding with the […]
Obama: America “Cannot Walk Away” From the Automobile
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In his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Barack Obama last night emphasized his administration’s commitment to keeping the domestic auto industry afloat, while offering only a passing mention to the nation’s mass transit systems. Said Obama: As for our auto industry, everyone recognizes that years of bad decision-making and a global […]
Streetfilms: Enrique Peñalosa in Boston
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When Boston livable streets advocates invited Enrique Peñalosa to town recently, Streetfilms’ Robin Urban Smith made the trip north to hear what the Colombian urbanist had to say to residents of "The Walking City." Watch here as Peñalosa speaks to a packed house at the Boston Public Library, and see what Bostonians think of their […]
Mercedes: Reckless Driving Is Smarter
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Here’s a particularly egregious bit of "open road" propaganda from Mercedes. In this ad, currently airing in US markets, a new Benz GLK whips through the narrow streets of what appears to be a small European village, the inhabitants of which are reduced to slo-mo scenery. As the narrator talks up the GLK’s "smarter" performance […]
UK Campaign Drives Home the Cost of Reckless Driving
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Warning: Graphic video On the heels of TA’s report on the human toll of driving too fast, we bring you this highly disturbing ad from the UK Department for Transport’s THINK! campaign, showing the difference a few miles-per-hour can make when it comes to avoiding a collision. Ideally material like this (Australia has a similar […]
Did Team Obama Gut Transit Funds From the Stimulus Package?
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Reporting on last week’s stimulus letdown — when a proposal by US Rep. James Oberstar’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for $17 billion in mass transit spending was slashed by the Appropriations Committee, while $30 billion in proposed allocations for roads and bridges remained the same — Grist got word that the then-incoming Obama administration may […]
Streetfilms: Sharing Street Space in Paris
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Here is another Streetfilm by Elizabeth Press from her trip to Paris last summer. This time she focuses on shared street space in the City of Light, where the understood "street code" dictates that users are responsible for those with lighter vehicles — i.e., cyclists look out for pedestrians, car drivers look out for cyclists, […]
Wiki Wednesday: Farmer’s Markets
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South Bronx Greenmarket. Photo: Susan Donovan Streetsblogger rex commented earlier today that we may be headed for what he termed a "Grapes of Wrath kind of economy" — one in which businesses prosper by paring down inventories to bare essentials while doing what they can to make themselves more accessible to the car-free masses. Another […]
Wiki Wednesday: Community Mapping
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Bike trails in San Jose, CA, on OpenStreetMap As a kid I used to periodically raid my grandparents’ stash of National Geographics. Not for photos of women in scant native dress, but for the way cool maps, with which I would wallpaper my room. Ironically, the maps did eventually give way to Paulina Porizkova posters, […]