Join Us! January 10 Fundraiser for City Council Member Ben Kallos

Please join us this coming Tuesday, January 10, 2017, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., for a fundraiser for Upper East Side City Council Member Ben Kallos.

Ben, who was first elected to the Council in 2013, has been a champion of improving safety for vulnerable street users, and played a critical role in bringing crosstown paired bike lanes to the Upper East Side. He can frequently be spotted riding his bicycle around his district.

All the details are below. We look forward to seeing you there! RSVP.

New York's New Leader in Smart Parking Policy is... Buffalo?

Last month, at a City Council Committee on Transportation hearing, StreetsPAC urged the Council and the Department of Transportation to completely reimagine New York City parking policies. You can read our full testimony here.

Yesterday comes word, via Streetsblog USA, that the city of Buffalo has moved to eliminate parking minimums citywide, setting the bar in New York State for innovative thinking on parking policy. As Angie Schmitt writes:

Since the 1940s, parking minimums have required developers to include a base number of spots, with the amount of parking depending on the type of building. These rules subsidize parking and driving to the detriment of walking and transit. Like many cities, Buffalo is scarred by parking lots and pocked with garages built to satisfy the mandates.

Some American cities are taking measures to roll back minimums in downtowns and other limited areas. Buffalo has gone much further, eliminating them citywide. The move is expected to improve the market for development in Buffalo, which hollowed out during the decades when the region sprawled and the city planned for cars, rather than people.

New York City has taken some minor steps in this direction, modifying parking minimums in some parts of the city through the Zoning for Quality and Affordability text amendment, but it's a far cry from Buffalo's citywide elimination of this onerous rule. If Buffalo can innovate on parking policy, surely we can, too. Your move, New York City. 

StreetsPoll Results: Second Avenue Protected Bike Lane and Dedicated Bus Lane 

In last week's StreetsPoll, we asked you which of the new complete-streets projects in Council Member Ben Kallos's Upper East Side district had you most fired up.