AUTO-FREE NEW YORK!
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AUTO-FREE NEW YORK!
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Home |
Glossary |
Light Rail |
Regional Rail |
Penn Station |
Livable City Plan |
Books |
Links |
Donate |
|
WHAT IS AUTO-FREE NY? A movement aimed at exploring and achieving the upper limit of "devehicularization" of our nation's largest city. Get cars out of our parks. Curb the reckless motorists who dominate our streets. Increase pedestrian space and safety. Invest in new transit options and expansion and make bicycling better. A livable city is possible! • NEXT MEETING: April 22nd Auto-Free NY has been holding FREE monthly meetings, featuring a wide variety of guest speakers, since its founding in February, 1989. Usually held in lower Manhattan, they are open to the public, and no reservations are needed. • The Livable City Transport Plan is an affordable, comprehensive vision of our city, designed to be achievable in just one four-year mayoral term. Using innovations now common in more sophisticated and democratically run cities here and abroad, this plan would raise New Yorkers' quality of life through better functioning public transit, a noticeable reduction in car use and much more auto-free space in the core of NYC, the most densely populated city in the nation. As always, we look forward to your thoughtful review and comments. CURRENT EVENTS:
• The City's plaNYC 2030• Lower Manhattan • Light Rail in NYC • Regional Rail Working Group 
FEATURES:
• Glossary• AUTOMOBILE HORROR! • 42nd St. Trolleys - Recent History • What's so Great about Streetcars? • Light Rail in the Lincoln Tunnel! • New York Streetcar News Index • East River Bridges • Rockaway Beach Line (Qns) • Other Voices • New Orleans Streetcars post-Katrina • Life's a Beach for Paris Mayor • Berlin: Transport Politics • How to Join/Donate • Visit These Links • Recent Books • The Five-Minute Activist • Previous "Letters from George" • Remembering Steve Dobrow • Earth Day, April 2005 • Brooklyn's Fulton Mall (web pgs. under construction) Auto-Free NY operates under the aegus of the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility, Inc. (IRUM), a not-for-profit organization with 501(c)(3) status. Note: this website is best viewed with Text Size set to "Smaller" or "Medium." If Car Names Were Honest:
Audi Saudi PR Chevy Fistfight Chrysler Criminal Dodge Tumor Ford Poluta XS GMC Denial Honda Discord Hyundai Enslava Lexus Segregator Lincoln Alienator Mercury Dioxin Saab Flatus Saturn UrFaddas Scion Boxian Smeli-Pootr Subaru Deforester Toyota Runovia VW Smoggia |
Letter from George Please Note: The April meeting topic and location has been changed. We are returning to our regular meeting location for this meeting. The originally scheduled NYU program has been changed to June 24, 2008, 6-8pm. More info on this later! April 1, 2008
Special Earth Day Program: What Next for Congestion Pricing? Dear Friends of Auto-Free New York: Who torpedoed congestion pricing? Was it just one politician - Sheldon Silver - in Albany? Was it all stick -- and no carrot? Why didn't Mayor Bloomberg's plan gain support in the State Legislature after being approved in the City Council? What could be done to restart this initiative? Are there other options to reduce car use and improve public transportation in the Manhattan CBD and citywide? Please join us at our next Auto-Free New York meeting -- at 104 Washington Street -- for a lively discussion with Brian Ketcham, Carolyn Konheim, Charles Komanoff and others, some of the strongest advocates for using pricing to persuade motorists to do the right thing -- to use public transit to get to the region's core. Sincerely,
P.S. Please also attend the monthly Regional Rail Working Group meetings. This group showcases the efforts of individuals from a variety of transit advocacy groups to awaken our region's sleeping giant, its commuter rail system. The RRWG's next meeting is Wednesday, April 23, 2008. The subject of the April meeting will be gaining support for connecting the new Hudson River tunnel directly into tracks and platforms at Penn Station and continuing on to Grand Central.
George Haikalis, Chair P.P.S. The marvelous Vision 42 website lays out the case for restoring light rail to 42nd Street (and for a historical perspective, we lay out four roller-coaster years of late '90's newsclips about the trolley proposal). Finally, with more than 800 million cars bearing down on our planet, and multi-national corporations buying up governments in order to double that number, it's time to get active! The organization Carbusters hosts a World Car-Free Day every year. WISHING TRAFFIC AWAY IS NOT EFFECTIVE  |
ANOTHER MOTORIST BURNED TO DEATH IN QUEENS CRASH "It's Getting Hard Out Here for a Global Warming Denier" "In the Year 2525 . . ." : Congress Passes new CAFE standards for new cars Auto-Free NY Takes A Look at NY Times Metro Coverage  Upcoming Auto-Free NY Meetings for 2008: Tuesday, April 22nd, 6-8pm: What's Next for Congestion Pricing? Informal discussion with Brian Ketcham, Carolyn Konheim, Charles Komanoff and others Tuesday, May 27th, 6-8pm: Topic to be announced Tuesday, June 24th, 6-8pm: Earth Day, Greenwich Village: NYU's Plan for 2031 Will Haas, Director, Campus Planning; Gary Parker, Director, Gov't and Community Affairs, NYU [NOTE new location for this meeting only: 196 Mercer Street, 8th Fl., between Bleecker and Houston Sts.] DIRECTIONS: All meetings (except where noted] are at 104 Washington Street (just north of Rector Street) in lower Manhattan, in the NYPD Downtown Center's ground floor community room, generously provided by the Alliance for Downtown New York. By subway: take either the R or W train or the 1 train, to Rector Street, or the 4 or 5 train to Wall Street. Our meetings are always FREE and open to the public.  Another SUV smashed by its reckless driver: The bulk of these top-heavy, inadequately braked vehicles makes their driver feel invulnerable, and so they drive worse, and crash more. Big business, attuned to wasteful and overdesigned products in principle, embraced SUVs as prime subjects over the past ten years for one of the most intensive marketing and indoctrination campaigns in US car company history. But eventually American price supports for lower cost gasoline are going to end, while the realities of declining world oil production and increasing political, military and climate chaos will grow more stark. Once the true costs of our national gasoline orgy start being paid by US motorists themselves rather than everyone else, these gas guzzling giants will quickly end up more worthless junk - and we will get the quality public transportation -- and the sustainable economy -- we deserve.  ROME, Oct. 2004: A modern trolley waits quietly on the Via Arenula, at the terminus of the popular #8 Argentina line, about 3 blocks south of the Pantheon. Behind the trolley is the state-funded Teatro Argentina. Sophisticated cities the world over are acting now on dramatically better transit and genuine auto reduction, while NYC, the laughingstock of urban planners worldwide, continues hiding its car craze behind slick public relations, backwards bureacracies and "public" authorities well-insulated from the public, and the bald-faced buying off of critics. AFNY's web manager stands in foreground. Photo: Wayne Fields. Be a patriot - use mass transit!
Auto-Free New York . . . more than just bollards and paintstripes |
Auto-Free New York
George Haikalis, Chairman | One Washington Sq. Village, #5D, NYC 10012 |
Phone: (212) 475-3394 | geohaikalis@juno.com
© Copyright 2008, 2007. All rights reserved. Auto-Free New York. This page last updated April 12, 2008. | ||