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
Share Your Green Urban Story
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SustainLane, known for its ranking of greenest US cities, is looking for short essays on sustainable urban living. Here are a few ideas from the contest guidelines: Tell us the story about the commuter rail that doesn’t exist (voted down yet again). Would it run near your neighborhood, if it did? Tell us about […]
Wiki Wednesday: Complete Streets
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With all the brouhaha over Broadway Boulevard lately, we thought it would be a good time to revisit the concept of Complete Streets. In a recent StreetsWiki entry, Andy Hamilton gets back to the basics. A Complete Street is a roadway designed to safely accommodate all users — pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, transit riders, and those […]
Sarah Palin, Transit Advocate?
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John McCain may not be big on public transportation, but as mayor of a small town in Alaska, his running mate Sarah Palin secured millions in federal earmarks for rail and bus projects. The Washington Post reports that during Palin’s two terms as mayor of Wasilla, when it had a population of 6,700, the town […]
Rail Advocate: Biden Ascension Wouldn’t Necessarily Help Amtrak
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The Washington Post today has a piece summing up Joe Biden’s ties to Amtrak. There’s not a lot of new material in the story (Biden takes the train between Delaware and DC, he has a pro-rail record in the Senate, his son serves on the Amtrak board, etc.), but what caught our attention was a […]
How Do We Make Clean Transportation Part of the National Discussion?
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Like Joe Biden, Barack Obama also mentioned Amtrak in his acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention, but only in reference to his running mate’s preferred mode of transportation. There were many, many things to be excited about yesterday, but any livable streets advocate anticipating a call to rebuild and expand our nation’s transit infrastructure, […]
From Denver: Dems Discuss Funding Woes; Biden Says “Amtrak”
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Last night saw what might one day qualify as an historic moment in transportation circles, as vice presidential candidate Joe Biden used the "A"-word during his speech to the Democratic National Convention in Denver. From a transcript of Biden’s address, via CNN: You know, John McCain is my friend. And I know you hear that […]
Wiki Wednesday: Quartier Vauban, Freiburg, Germany
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This week’s StreetsWiki feature takes us to the Quartier Vauban in Freiburg, Germany. With an area of 84 acres, the Quartier Vauban is a neighborhood of 5,000 people, designed and built as a sustainable community between 1993 and 2006. Contributor Meg Saggese writes that the Vauban "represents the state of the art in environmental protection […]
Good News for Metro? Most Americans Want More Transit Investment
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A new Pew Research Center study on political preferences includes polling data that show almost three-fourths of Americans favor more spending on public transportation: Column one indicates responses for all those surveyed. Columns two, three and four show responses among those who identify as Republicans, Democrats and Independents, respectively. The poll was taken last February. […]
Obama Builds Rail Cred With Biden Pick
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Barack Obama’s standing as an advocate for investment in US commuter rail looks to have gotten a boost with his selection of Joe Biden as his running mate. Whereas John McCain is the Senate’s sworn enemy of Amtrak, his colleague from Delaware is known as a "Champion of the Rails." Notes Daily Kos diarist MissLaura […]
Michigan TV Station: Bikes Are Strange. Buy a Chrysler!
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Check out this "news of the weird" item from WJRT-TV in Flint, Michigan, on last week’s DC bike-share debut: Not all that surprising, we suppose, on a news site where the day’s top-ranked story is "End of the line for GM’s 3800 V-6." And the station’s view of cycling gets less strange after the jump.
Streetfilms: Going Car-Free in Milwaukee
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New York has its Summer Streets Series, Los Angeles has Car Free Wilshire on Earth Day, but for the Livable Streets movement it will need to catch on in places that aren’t some of the largest streets in America. On a recent visit to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Streetfilms contributor Nick Whitaker captured two car-free events happening […]
Leaving Cars Behind, Seniors Find Streets Inhospitable
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A recent poll conducted by AARP finds that Americans over the age of 50 are cutting down on car trips due to rising gas prices, but are finding public infrastructure, or lack thereof, to be an obstacle. Almost one of every three people (29%) polled say they are now walking as a way to avoid […]