Auto-Free New York!

	AUTO-FREE NEW YORK!
	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: December 16th 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) CONTACT US! Auto-Free NY operates under the aegis 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* December 1, 2008 Streetcars -- the Ultimate Traffic Calmers Dear Friends of Auto-Free New York: Robert Moses, who basically held sway over NYC urban planning for more than 30 years, knew what he was doing when he oversaw and helped speed the dismantling of NYC's gigantic streetcar network -- the world's largest at the time. He saw streetcars as being in the way of his plan to advance the motor vehicularization of the city's streets. Within a generation, he exceeded beyond his wildest dreams, with every square foot of the public street space packed with cars and trucks. Replacing streetcars with buses, which obediently pulled to the curb to let cars pass, made it clear which mode was favored. Now cities throughout the world are bringing streetcars back -- except in NYC. In recent years, Auto-Free New York has focused on reintroducing modern light rail lines in pedestrian-only streets on a few of Manhattan's most crowded thoroughfares. But the concept of an extensive grid of light rail lines in all five boroughs remains to be explored. We have asked Jonathan Boyer, a well-respected expert in light rail from the transportation planning firm STV to share his thoughts on this initiative. Note that this meeting, to be held at the offices of Transportation Alternatives at 127 West 26th Street, will also combine the December meeting of the Vision 42 group. Sincerely, George Haikalis, Chair 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. Our December meeting, on Wednesday Dec 17, 2008, will be at our normal location on Washington Street. 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 dramatic years of late '90's newsclips about the previous 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 Summer 2008: AFNY Chair George Haikalis, above, enjoys a few moments of carfree Park Avenue at Grand Central. The viaduct is normally overrun with gas-guzzlers careening around the hairpin turns, but for three Saturdays in August, Mayor Bloomberg gave us a little sample of what NYC might be like without cars. Promptly at 1pm, car chaos was restored. For the future, an auto-free Madison Avenue -- not just for a few hours on three early Saturday mornings but all the time -- would really be great, maybe throwing in a light rail line as well. Oh well, all journeys begin with a first step. This car-hugger illustration appeared in the New York Times, which has a longstanding grudge against doing serious transit journalism.	The NY Times Vaporizes the Metro Section ANOTHER MOTORIST BURNED TO DEATH IN QUEENS CRASH Planet-Hating Congressman Dingell Forced Out of House Post Upcoming Auto-Free NY Meetings* for 2008: Tuesday, December 16, 6-8pm Concept Plan for Boroughwide Light Rail/Streetcar Grid: Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten Island Jonathan Boyer, Project manager, STV. [NOTE: the December meeting will be held at the TA office, at 127 West 26th Street, 10th Fl.] Tuesday, January 20, 6-8pm Topic to Be announced * 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. 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, "baby steps" of progress, "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 Dec 11, 2008.