Skeptics (like me) should take note of the scale of the Safe Routes to School improvements and the fact that DOT is putting them in the ground now --- I've seen new "speed limiters" sprouting. It shows a great deal of urgency that DOT is not waiting to install them until all of the planning is done, or until the CBs sign-off on them. I hope DOT takes some credit for them!

If Iris's right-hand man David Wolloch were allowed to get up there and deliver the speech that he wrote himself, I'm sure he would. With Iris, this stuff isn't from the heart, you know? She's just reading the text. She could just as well be reading about water tunnel improvements as DEP Commish.

And no mention of Car free Central park...

Elderly people complaining about bikes on sidewalk? Cyclists being harassed? Both groups quickly made happier.

(And then, of course, repeat that over and over throughout the City.) I mean, bikes are ROAD devices, aren't they? Why shouldn't they, like cars, be given the privilege of on-street space to stop, park, and lock up? They're many, many times more space-efficient than cars! (Among 10,000 other reasons that cyclists deserve more privilege than motorists!)

Did Weinshall mention it?

Another part of me notes that every transportation improvement Weinshal cited has been advocated for, planned for and debated at length, and been stuck in the DOT morass for ages. Many are a fraction of what they should be: to get so little from the Truck Route study is appalling, and won't provide relief; NYC style "BRT" may not be noticeable; Times Square ped improvements have been in the works for over a decade; the successful commercial congestion parking pricing is expanding at a slow pace. All this said, it's a start and better than the near total stagnation.

To be fair, it's pretty normal to not criticize oneself (or one's agency) in public.

As an employee in Times Square for six years, I can heartily say that any more sidewalk or median space in Times Square is to be incredibly welcomed.

http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/10/08/times_square_is.php

Visualize this:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10082006/photos/news003.jpg

(Post's story is here:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10082006/news/regionalnews/times_sq__a_changin_with_new_traffic_plan_regionalnews_angela_montefinise.htm
)

Right now, IIRC, traffic coming from Broadway is forced to continue on Seventh, and traffic from Seventh has the option taking Broadway or Seventh. Both avenues converge precisely at 45th Street. I'm having trouble visualizing how they're going to add space for peds at that intersection.

The commissioner said DOT would:

* Soon announce 5 bus rapid transit corridors, with accelerated construction (starting in fall 2007) on two of them. She also said NYC's BRT system could become the world's most extensive.

* Implement the bikeway initiative, much discussed elsewhere in this blog.

* Implement policies from its truck route study including nighttime restrictions in neighborhoods and work with local NYPD precincts on wayward truck problems - no time frame.

* Expand muni-meter curbside parking pricing south in Midtown from 33rd to 23rd Street.

* Lower Manhattan study to look in detail at optimal use of curb space. Would this contain potential to recommend or reinforce reining in of privileged parking or ousting of curbside parking in some areas for bus and bike lanes, or wider sidewalks?

* Starting capital work stemming from Safe Routes to Schools studies - anticipates installation of 750 neckdowns and 70 medians in first round of work among other features.

* A program to "boldly reimagine" city streetscapes and pursue "aggressive pedestrianization" building from the Willoughby Street reclamation in Brooklyn and similar projects planned for Astor Place, 1st Avenue along Stuyvesant Town and at a site downtown whose name I failed to catch, to proliferate "neighborhood plazas" around the five boroughs.

* In major pedestrian areas like Herald and Times Square, build out permanent sidewalk infrastructure to the lines marked by paint and temporary bollards, and change Times Sq. traffic pattern to reclaim even more walking space as Aaron indicates above.

* The DOT is setting up a new office of strategic planning to develop long range ideas in these regards, to be run by Steve Weber, who has handled post-9/11 lower Manhattan planning for the agency and before that worked at Regional Plan Association on a variety of transit-related projects.

She also said that protecting peds (or maybe it was preventing ped fatalities?) is DOT's #1 priority, and that there is a need to reduce auto use. She said she was excited about the new office of strategic planning within DOT.

Still, all in all, her speech didn't seem to question the status quo. I thought that Stringer painted a much less rosy picture and suggested the need for more radical change, setting up Enrique to provide more vision.