Sustainable Flatbush

Several weeks ago I was filmed for an episode of A Walk Around the Blog, a series that profiles Brooklyn bloggers as part of the news magazine program Brooklyn Review that airs on Brooklyn Independent Television. We checked out the neighborhood (by bike, of course!), spoke about some of Sustainable Flatbush’s past, present and future [...]

Here’s something I love to see: ordinary people cycling in the snow, photo courtesy of Copenhagen blog Cycleiciousness.
When discussing the possibility of New York City becoming a truly bike-friendly city, one of the most common reasons offered for why This Could Never Happen Here is “The Weather”. Well, check it out, folks:

.flickr-photo { border: [...]

… and just had to share:
Flatbush Gardener has a piece on Making Brooklyn Bloom, this Saturday at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden…
Streetsblog, Brooklyn Junction and Brooklyn Streets, Carroll Gardens on transit upgrades proposed in the recent State of the MTA address. Of particular interest is the idea of converting a “lightly used Bay Ridge freight [...]

I just signed a petition urging the folks at Google to include “Bike There” directions in their Maps:
The feature would take into account actual bicycle lanes from the locality being mapped, and it would automatically plan a route for a bicyclist, possibly even providing the cyclist options for either the most direct route, or the [...]

Sustainable Flatbush has just endorsed a new report on NYC energy policy and climate change response from Sierra Club NYC Group. The report praises PlaNYC while declaring that we need to go much further in order to address the increasing pace of climate change along with energy volatility:
Government sustainability initiatives may have greater success when [...]

Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogota, Colombia and a legendary figure in the Livable Streets movement, speaks here with transit activists Commuters United for Transportation Equity (COMMUTE). If you care about our city’s future and particularly the mobility of low-income New Yorkers, have a look.

A cargo bike like this costs a month’s salary for some.

CD vendor on two wheels.
I previously visited Recife and Olinda in 2005, and for some reason it feels like there are more people riding bikes now… my imagination? perhaps. But bikes make a lot of sense during Carnaval, when streets get closed to traffic, buses [...]

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

P1010102, originally uploaded by Sustainable Flatbush.
Cargo bikes are very big here, carrying everything from huge bottles of water to sounds for the party!

Okay, so I’ve been a rather bad blogger for a week or two, but I have a really good excuse: I’m in Recife, Brazil for Carnaval!

Needless to say it’s crazy here (in a good way), but I have a few photos to post that are relevant to the sustainability discusssion… here they come!

2007 was the first fully operation year for Sustainable Flatbush, and I must say we accomplished a lot. Starting with our Kickoff Meeting on March 16th at Vox Pop Cafe/Bookstore, the goal was to find people in the neighborhood who wanted to work on sustainability issues locally. To my amazement, 25 people braved a blizzard [...]