Tag: NYC

NYC Bike Lanes are a Financial Boon

9th Avenue Cycle Track Parking

The NYC Department of Transportation just released a new report on how NYC’s new transportation practices – including separated bicycle tracks and dedicated bus lanes – are paying off not only with faster commutes, safer streets, but financially: Measuring the Street: New Metrics for 21st Century Streets (PDF). Locally-based businesses on 9th Ave from 23rd to 31st Streets increased their retail sales up to 49%, compared to 3% borough-wide. This is in addition to a 58% decrease in injuries to all street users. And on First and Second Avenues in Manhattan there are 47% fewer commercial vacancies (compared to 2% more borough-wide).

“These projects aren’t just about the quality of life and aesthetics,” Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said. “They really set the table for economic development.”

This is exactly what the complete streets view of the city should be: a holistic view in how we can make our shared streets work for all, not just cars.

Manhattan Memorious

Before a city becomes a thing of steel, concrete and glass it is a theater of visions in conflict.

As a city ages, the visions do not die but come up against the physical and ideological resistance of the place and its people. The city we see today is the direct result of radical visions, gradually changing the way the future is realized. This is an account of a Manhattan that could have been – might have been. A phantasmagorical Manhattan where the visionary meets the everyday – the absurd and the sublime. The island as we know it is but a pale reflection of a city designed by visionaries – a city of mad, incongruous utopias.

Page One: Inside the New York Times


Amazing access, large in scope, but doesn’t begin to answer the question which keeps popping up throughout the film: What is the future of the Times. It was as if by just showing the process, how honest and hardworking the professional journalists are that the question was to be answered. A great snapshot in time, with good cinematography but with a lack of focus.