Brian Paul

Brian Paul is an urban planner and freelance public policy journalist. He is currently finishing his masters degree in urban planning at Hunter College and is a Research and Policy Fellow at the Hunter College Center for Community Development and Planning.

Copenhagen comes to New York?

Original Reporting | By Brian Paul | Environment, NYC, Transportation

Despite New York City’s extensive mass transportation network, its streetscape was, for decades, distinctly car-centric. In April 2007, however, a new commissioner of the Department of Transportation upended the traditional order of the road with her vision of redesign roadways to serve pedestrians, bicyclists, and buses as well. Recent efforts to extend the network outside of Manhattan have spurred opposition and local Council Members, and interviews with some of those opponents suggests that some have a striking unwillingness to recognize either the actual demographics of their districts, or to imagine the possibility that current preferences about transit options could be malleable. More