"Our business community will also benefit from Sunday metering because it encourages parking turnover, allowing more customers to visit these establishments," said Josh Rowan, the transportation director, in a city press release.
I understood at a very early age how much place matters and how impactful government services can be on one's life. The Mayor's Office of Equity and Racial Justice was really focused on working with agencies to think about how they're addressing inequity, whether it's through budget as a lever or personnel as a lever, procurement, policymaking. But land use is a lever as well.
Congestion pricing has been a once-in-a-lifetime success story, leading to cleaner air, better transit and faster and safer traffic throughout the city. We knew that to do this right, we had to bring real air quality improvements directly to parts of New York City that have been neglected for far too long.
"Brooklyn has always been a place where movement is part of daily life. But today, Brooklynites, like all New Yorkers, are moving less, feeling more isolated and dealing with elevated rates of chronic diseases."
In the 1950s, the Air Force designed cockpits for the average pilot by measuring thousands of pilots and calculating the average for ten key physical dimensions-height, arm length, torso size, etc. They assumed most pilots would be close to average in most dimensions. When researchers actually checked, they found that out of 4,063 pilots, exactly zero were average on all ten dimensions.
My family had Slide Show Night when I was growing up. Not every Saturday, but a whole bunch of Saturdays. Either my sister or I would be in charge of setting up the projector, the screen, and loading the carousel. During the show, there'd be a few landscapes or skylines taken during vacations, but almost all the shots were up close. Like most dads, mine wasn't a professional photographer, but he did a good job of capturing memory triggers: faces, gestures, and decorations.
Though they're individually tiny, parking spots quietly play a dominant role in shaping urban landscapes. Most US cities dedicate at least 25% of their developable land to them. Some, even more. That land usage doesn't only determine the way a city looks. It also means covering large swathes of urban areas in heat-absorbing asphalt, which contributes to making summers hotter and heightens the risk of flooding since it prevents drainage during storms and heavy rainfall.
Tower Hamlets Council said in September 2023 it wanted to take down the LTNs and was challenged by Save our Safer Streets (Soss). The court said a failure to reconsult was among the reasons for its decision. Soss said that "thousands of local residents will be extremely pleased and relieved". Tower Hamlets Council, led by mayor Lutfur Rahman, said it was "disappointed" while London's mayor called it "good news for Londoners".
Cities around the world share a common goal: to become healthier and greener, supported by civic infrastructure that restores ecosystems and strengthens public life. The question is how to reach this. Global climate targets, local building codes, and municipal standards increasingly guide designers and planners toward better choices. Still, many cities struggle to translate these frameworks into everyday, street-level comfort and long-term ecological protection.
When routes are well organized, there are clear directional signs, and speed limits become reasonable. The early installation of warning signs allows transport companies to plan deliveries more accurately and avoid delays. For businesses, time is money. When a truck carrying goods does not spend hours detouring due to an unclear traffic scheme or stuck in traffic where it could have been avoided thanks to competent traffic management, fuel costs, driver wages, and vehicle maintenance costs are reduced.
A lot of what we can do at DOT is ... is focusing on designing our streets, designing our infrastructure, to make it easier for delivery workers to make safe choices, to operate safely, to reduce conflicts between them and other users, whether that's basically wider bike lanes that can accommodate a wider range of users,