PRIORITIES PEOPLE!

I'd rather have a subway system that doesn't look like it's out of Planet of the Apes (aged 2000 years old) The Roman baths in England are in better shape!!!

I'd rather have AFFORDABLE HOUSING!
MORE Mom and Pop businesses (that we've lost due to unaffordable commercial rent) and LESS BANKS!!!

PLUS when I'm paying for a cab...I WANT 5 lanes!!! to GET home faster!!

Let people who want to raise families do it OUTSIDE of NYC. New York is for ADULTS!. It's not a place for children. It's for people who are here to work on their careers. AND with corporations paying what my mom earned back in 1979..right now..we need affordable housing before we even put money into the subway system, let alone a beautification of the streets to cover up and enhance the false illusion of the economy.

A while ago, Garvin & Associates published "Visions for New York City: Housing and The Public Realm" for EDCNY. This was sort of a preview-of-PlaNYC proposal, in it, on p82, you will see which streets in 4 boroughs were nominated for "pedestrian reclamation" to the city. Of these, most are partial (not the entire length of the street) unless noted. They include
in Manhattan -
Macombs Pl
St Nicholas (entire)
Gansevoort

in Brooklyn -
Washington Ave
Kings Hwy
7th Ave

in Queens -
Rockaway Blvd
Bayside Ave
Willets Pt Blvd
Newtown Rd

in the Bronx -
Third Ave
Soundview Ave
Hunts Point Ave

I personally think pedestrianization is a great idea, it has already been attempted in Lower Manhattan, but something like Broadway in the UWS would be a mega-implementation and would probably spur pedestrianization throughout the city if done well.

-j

... Some (e.g., very heavily used truck/bus routes) fall apart in less than 5 years.

Engineering literature tends to say streets should be reconstructed every 30-50 years. Sometimes more frequently because of changes in usage, utilties, changes in alignment/design/safety standards. But every 300 years is probably good enough.

Most streets deteriorate to the point of needing some kind of remediation in 7-10 years. Some (e.g., very heavily used truck/bus routes) fall apart in

Still not sure that neighborhood's pedestrians need as much help as others. Seen 21st street in Long Island City? Very terrible to walk.

No argument from me there. My understanding is that the DOT decided to have a Gehl-designed pilot project in each borough, and to use that to inspire other neighborhoods. It looks like the one for Queens will be Flushing, but we can apply that to LIC. I'd love to see 21st Street redesigned.

Ironically, the city abandoned sidewalk maintenance during the fiscal crisis. Homeowners are required to do the job instead.

Well, the income of residents in a luxury apartment on the Upper East Side is clearly better able to support a sidewalk replacement than an old two-family home in East New York. And the quality of the sidewalks shows this.

Although now multiple dwellings rather than the city gets sued if the sidewalk is left in disrepair, while the city still gets sued if the homeowner allows the sidewalk to go to pot.

Talk about a regressive "tax!"

Moreover, property owners shovel the sidewalk, while tax dollars plow the streets. And during blizzards, in transit-oriented neighborhoods (such as Park Slope/Windsor Terrace), they get cleared last (probably a sensible policy).

OK this sounds right for an average. It took 33 years to get my side street in Long Island City paved. A few years later a garbage truck fell through the street. It turned out to be hollowed out by water. It was completely torn-up and rebuilt. There was a picture of the truck in the hole in the Daily News some years back. Good luck to the Upper West Side project. Still not sure that neighborhood's pedestrians need as much help as others. Seen 21st street in Long Island City? Very terrible to walk.

At the current level of funding, the mean time between street resurfacings in NYC is a bit over 20 years. The mean time between reconstructions (i.e., replacing curbs, sidewalks, water, sewer, doing new traffic designs, the whole shebang, not just the black top) is approximately 300 years.

Those figures don't mean much unless you say what an appropriate time between resurfacings is. Of course, it depends on how much the streets get worn, which in turn depends on how many cars, trucks and buses travel over them, and how heavy they are.

Clearly, the streets get more worn and need to be replaced more often if they have more cars and heavier ones on them. This is one reason I support congestion pricing: all these people who drive solo to work are driving up my tax bills. I want them to pay a fairer share of it.

Along the lines of Larry Littlefield's proposal, I propose that we allocate street money for the benefit of pedestrians first, then buses, then cyclists. If the outer-borough drivers that Weprin represents want their streets repaved, let them find the money.

At the current level of funding, the mean time between street resurfacings in NYC is a bit over 20 years. The mean time between reconstructions (i.e., replacing curbs, sidewalks, water, sewer, doing new traffic designs, the whole shebang, not just the black top) is approximately 300 years. (These are actual real facts, derived from published data, e.g., the Mayor's Management Report and the City's annual asset condition reports, not something I pulled out of my butt; the reconstruction figure does not have an extra decimal place). Obviously, there are some areas that (for good or bad reasons) get more frequent service, but the reality is NYC's infrastructure has been starved for funding for decades. There is a lot of interesting stuff happening in the way of rethinking designs and concepts for streets right now, but there is absolutely no question that this "quality" is coming at the expense of all ready less than adequate "quantity".

To build on your other response to Sam, after seeing the presentation it seems obvious to me that it will be a lot easier to build support for livable-streets policies on the Upper West Side than in other neighborhoods, but that "wins" on the UWS can help persuade more recalcitrant neighborhood leaders that it's the way forward.

Of all the criticisms above, Sam's is the most well-taken--basic improvements in outlying neighborhoods should not be neglected. On the other hand, these sorts of measures are suited to the most pedestrian-dense areas of the city.

Sam's argument is good, but I honestly am not aware of bombed-out streets that haven't been resurfaced in thirty years. That's not the case here in Sunnyside or Woodside.

Sunnyside, Woodside, and plenty of other neighborhoods in western Queens are pretty pedestrian-dense. I'd love to see Jan Gehl come to Sunnyside - they said he'd do an area in each borough - but downtown Flushing, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst are just as deserving.

But I'm loving the vision of Amsterdam Ave...

I love photosims. I love dance music. I imagine that photosims - no matter how well you manipulate them, how expertly crafted, could get tiring after a while or people might not stay to the end. But give them a little momentum....

I know some colleagues would prefer I use something a little more placid, but in the past I have gotten overwhelmingly great comments from the combo. Did you see Curbed today? I couldn't have written it better myself.

It ought to be the point of every livable streets advocate to point out the predicted people to car to building ratio as rendered and make the developer justify the assumption.

What's the relationship to Carly and Clarence's rocking work? I'm betting Carly's ratios are defensible. Definitely danceable.

I think there is a "showcase" rationale at work in proposing the UWS first: if it is successful it would probably be replicated elsewhere. But I can't deny that it looks like the usual pattern of unequal allocation of resources towards parks and other public spaces in the wealthiest neighborhoods.

How does it work? Trucks drop some things off. Other things are dropped off by hand-truck. In some places this involves setting specific drop-off hours, some it doesn't. Pedestrians can do their shopping without getting run over. Result? More shopping. For small businesses, the benefits are huge.

Right now, trucks double-park right in front of NYC stores, or they park down the block and items are hand-carted into the store. The difference to trucks and shops could be minimal.

As for emergency vehicles, good street design includes removable bollards and other ways of providing access when it is *needed.*

This isn't crazy-talk, it's just something that New York hasn't done. The fact that Times Square is a place that people still drive through (since you can't realistically stop and park there) shows just how backward we've been.