Grieve-Smith on Transportation

it get's worse when you live in Rosendale or New Paltz and have to work in Kingston, UCAT or Trailways are your only way to get into kingston, then you have to hope you can catch the next UCAT bus to get to the mall

UCAT's a joke anyway, their scheduals never coincide, I usually had to catch the bus into kingstons, then the one from Kingston Plaza to Hudson Valley Mall hours ahead of time just to make sure I got to work on time at the Walmarts there, and had to make sure I got out no later than 4 so I can catch the last bus back to New Paltz.

unless your in NYC, public transportation anywhere's in the rest of the state sucks

Actually, answering your question has helped me a lot, Sofia! I've clarified the post a bit. I've also changed my agenda to R5B for the proposed R4 areas, and R7-2 for Sunnyhills and the Phipps.

Not at all, Sofia! It's good to know which terms need to be explained. If you didn't understand them there's probably ten more people who didn't.

Each zone type (R4, R5B, R7-1, etc.) has a particular formula for when someone builds a new residential structure. The city counts up the number of units (apartments) to be built on the lot. The developers are required to build one parking space for a certain percentage of units. For example, in R4 zones, the percentage is 100%, which means they're required to provide one parking space for every unit. In R4 infill zones, they only have to provide one space for 66% of units. This is summarized in the zoning tables (PDF).

There is also a waiver in some zones, which means that if the total number of parking spaces required is below a certain threshold, the builder doesn't have to build any.

Let's take the example of someone who's building a two-family house. In an R4 or R4-1 zone the parking minimum is 100%, so they are required to build two parking spaces. But if it's an R4B zone, one of those spaces is waived, so they only have to build one space. In an R5B zone, they are required to build one and a third spaces, but one of those is waived and the one-third is less than 50%, so they don't have to build any.

I hope that helps!

OK, gonna sound really dumb here, but... in basic language if possible, what are parking "minimums" and parking "waivers"?

Or refer me to a site that explains in simple terms. Thanks so much.

This sounds like a good idea for encouraging bicycle use, but I have to say that the bike lane in the photo is TERRIBLE.

There's no way that somebody could avoid all that debris and the big longitudinal seam without ending up in the oncoming lane.

"corbusion wasteland"..........great description. i love that painting, always have. bravo on website. classy!

No, sorry! It opened when I was living there, but I never had any interest in going there. In fact, I haven't had any interest in going to a Disney theme park since my grandparents took me to Epcot when I was eleven.

What, no mention of Euro-Disney? French theatre director Ariane Mnouchkine called it "a cultural Chernobyl" ...

The distinction between rich Paris and its poor suburbs dates much further back than 1965. It goes back to the Haussmann master plan, which demolished much of Paris and built upper-class housing instead, forcing the evicted poor to settle in the suburbs.

The city's fear of its suburbs began shortly later. As early as 1896, Métro construction stoked fears that it would give easy access to Paris from the slum suburbs, so the system was built to be incompatible with the suburban rail network - for example, Métro trains run on the right whereas mainline rail runs on the left. By the postwar period, the city/suburb split had grown to the point that France deliberately chose not to annex suburban territory into Paris as Britain had done for London; the government feared that the suburban working class would vote for a communist mayor.

Looks like great fun. My wife and I have been planning on getting our son into the kid seat of one of those surreys since we visited G.I. last summer; you've inspired me to get on the ball about getting there and doing it soon.

There is also the Corporate reading of "Motor", where demotorization can be read as "outgrowing the idea that What Is Good for General Motors is Good for the US"

Good points all. Nathan, I agree that often people don't think of the original meaning (in your example, "auto" + "mobile" = "self-propelled"), and Bruce, "demotoristification" is a yucky word. Peter is right that "motorization" has historically meant the opposite of what Kageyama intends with "demotorization."

However, "motorization" hasn't fossilized the way that "automobile" has, and if we can't come up with something that sounds as nice as "demotorization" I won't push the issue. Finally, as I said in my post, weird things happen when you negate metonyms, and "demotorization" is an example of this.

Maybe someone will eventually come up with a better word. In the meantime, we can talk about the goals rather than the process: "desprawling" (I just googled it and was not surprised to see that I'm not the first), "decongesting," "clearing the air," "safer streets," and so on.

And if people want to use "demotorize," who am I to try to stop them? I just hope everyone will keep in mind that Some Motors are Good.

i've seen the word 'motorization' around in some older English books/reports -- 'the motorization of american cities', etc.

to me, 'motor' is synonymous with automobiles, so 'demotorization' seems fine.

Motorists are car drivers ... not bus riders or rail passengers. And between demotoristification and demotorisation, I think demotorisation wins.

I don't think any invented word will meet the linguistic standards you've set! Even 'automobile' includes bicycles if the term is deconstructed, no? I like to throw around 'post-car', some people like 'carfree', but neither describes exactly the concept that 'demotorization' tries to.

Thank you so much, Dan, for providing that context! For the rest of our readers, Dan is an old friend of mine since college. He worked on community natural resource development and environmental education in Mali in the Peace Corps from 1995 through 1998. I visited him for a few weeks there, and was blown away by the patient, creative ways that Malians deal with what we would think of as crushing poverty and conflicting ethnic interests. It's great to get Dan's insight into this situation.

It is sad that walls are going up in the world today - in Palestine, in Tijuana - and sad when bridges are lost. Senegal and Mali were even briefly federated upon independence after 1960. This bridge, lost for economic reasons, gives the lie to the myth of tribalism in Africa. Even Obama just bought the WTO party line that it is warfare that has kept Africa back. Mali has no history of tribal warfare (rather a system of joking cousins to let off steam). Clinton wanted to visit this bastion at the time that they had an anthopologist president, but there were not enough hotel rooms in the capital city for Bill's entourage. The problems in Mali, as in Africa as anywhere, are economic. Left long enough, bridges are lost, festering can lead ugly places. Ala ka dememke.

Thanks, JS!

If I remember correctly, car access was eliminated during mid-80's. When I moved to the area in the early 80's, busses did not stop there.

Thanks for all the comments! Steve, as a small business owner myself, I think this is one area where we need to prioritize the transit system over profits. People will still need to buy things, for major purposes they'll continue to go upstairs. For minor purchases, they'll probably do it when they get off the bus or subway. This would create enough traffic to justify opening (or re-opening) a newsstand on the mezzanine, and possibly other businesses. Owners of businesses upstairs could be given priority for these concessions.

Joby, I didn't get to talk with the MTA, but I did mention it to DOT Queens Commissioner McCarthy; I described her reaction in the next blog post.

John, you agree that it was a mistake to promote the auto and not pedestrian safety, right? I think this is a better plan than the Interboro.