For , I wrote about 15-minute cities, how a society built on driving can never truly be free, what it means for fighting climate change that obscure concepts can be exploited by bad-faith actors, and what elected officials can do about it.
Doug Gordon
@BrooklynSpoke
Writer, TV producer, communications professional, creator of other things. Co-host podcast. (he/him)
@BrooklynSpoke@mastodon.social
Doug Gordon’s Tweets
Very excited to receive a handwritten letter by . All the way from Brooklyn, NY to Sydney 🇦🇺!
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Very glad that will be coming to the transportation/public safety committee to present its plans for 9th Street. Be there on Wednesday, May 17 at 6:30 pm at Principles GI Coffee House. linktr.ee/BKCB6Calendar
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“We need more protected bike lanes, we need them everywhere and we need them faster…I’ll do everything I can.”
TY for speaking powerfully at tonight’s vigil for your constituent Adam Uster + all pedestrians and cyclists in your district.
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“What we’re up against is the head-in-the-sand coalition of people who say, ‘Let’s not deal with our problems, let’s pretend climate change doesn’t exist, let’s stand still like a bus in the middle of traffic in Midtown Manhattan, ” Lieber said Friday.
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“I remember at one point docking a bike on Carmine Street in the West Village when I noticed a couple struggling to take a bike out. It was the actor Hugh Jackman. I can still hear Hugh saying, ‘Thanks, mate’ in his Australian accent.” -
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I'm honored to have my voice included with legends like and in a lookback convo on
The fact that bikeshare seems un-remarkable today is *ASTOUNDING* in the context of 2013.
What an achievement.
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Also posted 10 years ago today: my takedown of that silly Daily News piece.
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This Daily News hit piece on Citi Bike was published 10 years ago today. The big criticism was that it would be hard for most people to ride faster than 7 mph. (The same paper thought Citi Bike riders would be "hell on wheels.")
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I was honored to be included in this look back at ten years of and what bike sharing has meant for New York. Featuring and more.
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Looking to make change in your community? Join author for a two-day course on the most effective arguments, techniques and tools for reshaping places in support of walking, biking, and transit. In-person on the campus of Harvard University.
execed.gsd.harvard.edu/walkable-city
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"If this is the future of the American electric vehicle, then we have lost the plot."
Road & Track, welcome to The War on Cars.
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Text from my wife in the Capitol Hill Trader Joe’s who is being introduced to
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Money isn’t teachers’ principal motivation (or nurses, or many other professions, for that matter), but they should be well compensated because the service they provide is incredibly valuable to society. “You’re not in it for the money” should be followed by “but you deserve it.”
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The mayor has said God wanted him to be mayor. If it's a calling, why doesn't he work for a teacher's starting salary?
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Teaching is a calling. You don't do it for the money, you do it because you believe in the kids that come into your classrooms.
The largest school system in the country is only as strong as the teachers behind it.
Happy #TeacherAppreciationWeek to all our amazing NYC teachers!
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Call it what it is: the Climate Change and Congestion Caucus.
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Just 3% of CM Kagan’s constituents drive alone to the proposed congestion pricing zone. 28% take mass transit.
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Congestion Pricing will hurt countless New Yorkers, small businesses, residents of so-called outer-boroughs & will create huge lines of parked cars right outside of Manhattan. The best way to attract more ppl to subway is to make it safer, cleaner & provide a reliable service.1/2
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Just 4.9% of CM Ariola’s constituents drive alone to the congestion pricing zone. 22% take mass transit.
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(1/3) I'm standing alongside my colleagues outside of City Hall to oppose the plans to implement congestion pricing in NYC.
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"At least 145 of these lots are used by the New York City Police Department to park their vehicles, leading some organizers to ask: is parking more important than housing?"
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Also this, from the person who wrote the best book on the subject. We all make imperfect or truly bad choices now and then. The act of being human should not be a death sentence, nor should it cause someone else's death.
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And also -- I will yell forever and ever -- people who make bad decisions do not deserve to die. twitter.com/BrooklynSpoke/…
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Given record fatalities in the first quarter of this year, we must prioritize pedestrians, speed up street redesigns, and slow down to bring NYC safer streets. I’m thankful to families who continue to turn their pain into action as we rally to ask need Albany to pass #sammyslaw!
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I think the kids who were killed in crosswalks with the light, holding a parent's hand. I also remember Ethan Villavicencio, age 7, now and then. Killed while eating ice cream with his father and sister by a reckless driver who crashed into a restaurant.
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The thing about "the cyclist shoulda..." or "the pedestrian shoulda..." is that you just don't know. People have been killed by drivers while waiting for a red, standing on a sidewalk, or even sitting inside a restaurant. There's no "here's what I woulda done" that will save you.
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I'm also wondering how she thinks a helmet would have saved Adam's life. You have to be really invested in knee-jerk cyclist hate to think it would have made a difference.
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Some people are so eager to blame victims for their own deaths that they suspend all critical thinking, if they ever had any to begin with.
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It's okay to admit you don't know what you're talking about. The bike lane extends through the intersection and all drivers have a legal responsibility to exercise "due care" when turning and yield to people with the right of way. The driver who killed Adam didn't even signal.
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Replying to @DoobLontonder
He technically wasn't crossing the bike lane then, he was at the junction and I believe that being in the more vulnerable position, the cyclist ought: a) to have slowed down to see if the truck was planning to go right; b) been wearing a helmet.
This is a horrific accident and… Show more
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Always worth listening to
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Charles Brown, CEO of Equitable Cities, has painstakingly identified the array of transportation laws used to limit the mobility and freedom of Black people in America. He calls this repressive policy regime, "Arrested Mobility." Episode 104 is here! thewaroncars.org/2023/05/09/104
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Jordan Neely’s death reveals problems that are a lot deeper and more serious. 1 in 10 children in public school—over 104,000—are unhoused or housing insecure. There’s a $30k gap between median income and median cost of living.
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“The city’s rush to rebuild the cantilever is bizarre and unnecessary when there is strong public and elected appetite for re-thinking urban highways generally, and the BQE in particular.”
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We're at City Hall with calling for NYS to pass Sammy's Law, a common sense bill that allows NYC to set its own speed limits.
Lower the speed limit➡️save lives.
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Construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, required the forcible displacement of tens of thousands of people across the two boroughs. Planned by Robert Moses, the highway cut a nearly 15-mile gash through some of the most densely populated neighborhoods on the planet.
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this is me being charitable, okay: it should be said that real-time factchecking is just not a thing that anyone can pull off and I'm sorry but expectations really need to be trimmed in this regard
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This is getting extremely gross and CNN is coming away with a lot of egg on their face here.
At the same time, I feel like Kaitlan Collins is doing as good as she can in this situation.
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They say Twitter isn't real life, but as noted, everyone On Here has been saying for weeks that this CNN town was going to go down exactly as it's going down right now.
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This is probably the most embarrassing night for American cable news except for all of the nights to come.
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This falls squarely on CNN. Everyone here saw exactly what was going to happen. Instead they put a sexual abuse victim in harm’s way for views. This was a choice to platform lies about the election & Jan 6th w/ no plan but to have their moderator interrupted without consequence.
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The NYPD Is Greeting Vigils for Jordan Neely With Brute Force
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BURIED LEDE:
"The casino would be mostly below street level, along with about 1,700 parking spaces for residents and guests."
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1 Lincoln Tunnel bus lane moves 10x as many people as 3 car lanes
6 lanes → 2 at Holland Tunnel = a fraction the trips as each PATH tube
are engineering a historic transportation+climate disaster, spending $10BNs widening highways + building 0 transit
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Today’s decision by @USDOT to allow New York’s congestion pricing plan to move forward is unfair and ill-advised.
I support congestion pricing conceptually, but it must be fair to all sides. Placing an unjustified financial burden on hardworking New Jersey commuters is wrong.
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Jordan Neely’s uncle slammed Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday, said he isn’t welcome at his nephew’s funeral and that he doesn’t know “any mayor who parties and bullshits” as much as Adams
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