Noah Kazis
Noah joined Streetsblog as a New York City reporter at the start of 2010. When he was a kid, he collected subway paraphernalia in a Vignelli-map shoebox.
Before coming to Streetsblog, he blogged at TheCityFix DC and worked as a field organizer for the Obama campaign in Toledo, Ohio. Noah graduated from Yale University, where he wrote his senior thesis on the class politics of transportation reform in New York City. He lives in Morningside Heights.
Recent Posts
Real-Time Bike-Share Maps Show America’s Got Some Catching Up to Do
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A fantastic new visualization of 16 bike-share systems around the world lets you see how people are using public bikes from London to Melbourne. You can watch animated graphics, for example, of bikes getting picked up in one part of town and dropped off in another during rush hour. The site, created by Oliver O’Brien, […]
U.S. DOT Unveils Full List of TIGER II Winners
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The complete list of TIGER II grants has been released by U.S. DOT today, after members of Congress revealed many winners last week. In keeping with the department’s livability goals, the list is filled with transit projects (especially streetcar lines), efforts to bolster the country’s non-trucking freight network, and fix-it-first projects aimed at deteriorating roads […]
Report: Want to Ease Commuter Pain? Highways and Sprawl Won’t Help
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Imagine two drivers leaving downtown to head home. Each of them sits in traffic for the first ten miles of the commute but at that point, their paths diverge. The first one has reached home. The second has another twenty miles to drive, though luckily for her, the roads are clear and congestion doesn’t slow […]
What Does American Exceptionalism Mean For Livable Streets?
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Rush hour in Copenhagen. Photo: Complete Streets Coalition Is the United States exceptional? It’s a question that’s bedeviled activists and historians alike since the country was born 234 years ago this Sunday. It’s also a question that’s been bugging Barbara McCann, the executive director of the Complete Streets Coalition. She’s been at Velo-City, a bike […]
Telling the Story of Chicago, One Train Stop at a Time
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The Train Stop Guide website would allow you to rate and describe every train stop in Chicago. Image: Carfree Chicago. It’s amazing how much a strong transit system can reshape the city around it. And not just through the physical changes that transit brings, but the mental ones too. A transit system can reshape the […]
HUD Chief Preaches Livable Communities at Conference on Cities
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HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. Photo:Wikimedia. At least among cabinet secretaries, US DOT chief Ray LaHood has become something of a livable streets rock star. His forceful and public support for cyclists and pedestrians and his dedication to safe driving have earned him the praise of many. By comparison, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan […]
Chicago Takes Tentative First Step Toward Bike-Sharing
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A pilot station for Chicago’s proposed bike-sharing program, on display a couple of weeks ago. Photo: vizcha via Flickr Public bike-sharing is coming to yet another American city. The concept, first proven in Lyon, France and made famous by Paris’s Vélib, offers members easy access to public bikes at stations across a city. With bike […]
Seeing the Street as a New Cyclist
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The de Maisonneuve bike path in downtown Montreal, which new cyclist Michael Shenker now avoids in favor of a different, calmer route. Photo: Carnotzet via Flickr. It’s no secret that the road looks different over handlebars than it does over the dashboard. When cycling most city streets, you see your surroundings differently: at a different […]
Local Governments Lining Up Behind Dodd’s Livability Legislation
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With financial reform nearly complete, the Senate Banking Committee turned its attention today to one of Senator Chris Dodd’s (D-CT) next priorities, the Livable Communities Act. Local government came out strong for the initiative to promote sustainable and integrated regional planning, with representatives of the nation’s cities, towns, counties, and regional planning organizations testifying in favor. Among committee members, […]
How Portland Sold Its Banks on Walkable Development
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Gresham, Oregon used to look like your typical suburb. Lots of lawns and lots of parking. When Portland’s MAX light-rail line expanded to Gresham, developers saw an opportunity to bring something different: walkable development. But a downturn in the local real estate market interceded. One developer trying to build a four-story condo project decided that […]
State DOTs’ Prescription for American Cities: More Highways
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AASHTO’s new report recommends that America’s urban transportation policy repeat the mistakes of the past. Photo of the Cross-Bronx Expressway: Tool Ake via Flickr The umbrella group for America’s state DOTs, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, has started a major new push for, you guessed it, more highways. The new campaign […]
Boston Endorses Parking Reform as Key Green Policy
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An illustration of how Boston will make its transportation system greener. Image: City of Boston "Folks, you ain’t seen nothing yet," Mayor Bloomberg told an Earth Day crowd yesterday. "The best and greenest days are yet to come." The PlaNYC update coming in 2011, he implied, would have a slew of new initiatives to make […]