Planetizen, the urban planning news network, just posted a great (and flattering!) profile of TOPP and Streetsblog:
By now you have probably heard the buzz about New York City's
Department of Transportation Commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan— a
"guerilla bureaucrat" who is consistently credited with redefining the
"T" in DOT. Yet, Gotham's real quest for livable streets is happening
from the bottom up, not the top down—more like Jane Jacobs v.2.0 than
Robert Moses.
At the center of the city's livable streets movement is a little
known non-profit comprised of Gen X and Y tech geeks, educators,
artists, and journalist-urban activists who leverage open web
technology to network catalytic change in the 21st century city. They
call themselves The Open Planning Project (TOPP), and their signature
communication tool—the one gaining acclaim and potentially coming to a
city near you—is Streetsblog.[...]
Streetsblog is the force de majeure in the American Livable
Streets movement— capturing 125,000 unique site visits per month, and
growing... Today, the drop of a blog post sends action alerts and livable streets information to all corners of the country.
Read the whole article.
Mike Pumphrey
at Map World Forum
Feb 13, 2:30pm Hyderabad, India
"GeoServer and Open Spatial Data Infrastructure"
David Winslow
at NC GIS 2009
Feb 20, Afternoon Raleigh, NC
Part of the 'FOSS4G Free for All'
If you're looking for a way to make February in New York a little brighter, you should also check out the February FLOSS Sprint at EyeBeam. Or stay warm at home and read Directions Magazine's article on GeoWebCache, featuring Arne Kepp.
Another Streetfilms screening fast approaches! Livable Streets Network, Manhattan Community Boards 2 & 4, and the NYU Office of Government and Community Affairs are sponsoring an event with us at NYU's Casa Italiana. DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan will be introducing the films and Mark and Clarence will speak on a panel afterwards.
Details:
Tuesday, February 3rd, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
NYU, Casa Italiana
24 West 12th Street, Manhattan
The Streetfilms Screening group has additional info.
Also, the Bike Shorts film festival is featuring two Streetfilms this Sunday (1/28) at the Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO.
Take a look!
From Streetsblog:
After interviewing many highly qualified candidates during last month's
RailVolution conference, we've hired Bryan Goebel as the site's editor
and Matthew Roth as full-time reporter. Bryan
is a veteran journalist, radio reporter and active San Francisco
Bicycle Coalition member. Matthew recently moved to the Bay Area from
New York City where he worked for Transportation Alternatives as
director of the New York City Streets Renaissance Campaign and
spearheaded efforts to curb government employee parking abuse.
In addition to support and overhead provided by TOPP, San Francisco
Streetsblog will be funded by a generous donation from Jonathan Weiner,
a bike-commuting, Muni-riding software entrepreneur and a grant from the Wallace Global Fund.
We're hearing from a lot of people in the Bay Area who are pleased to have us in town. No other media source bothers to cover stories like this.
Thanks to everyone who has been working on it.
