Marty, contrary to what you claim, there WAS a serious effort to organize a turn-out in support of closing Prince St.

Oh, Sean, how charmingly naive. One guy putting up flyers on a lamppost isn't a "serious effort." When organized activists finally decide to undertake a "serious effort" to make Prince St. car-free, you'll know all about it. It will look something like this:

http://www.transalt.org/campaigns/prospark

Or this:

http://www.grandarmyplaza.org/

Or this:

http://www.livablestreets.com/projects/inwood-livable-streets/summary

Or even like this:

http://www.streetsblog.org/category/special-reports/9th-street-road-diet/

And if those efforts seem too serious to prospective activists, I would also just add that I think it would, in fact, take quite a bit less work to win a few car-free trial weekends on Prince Street. The institutional support is there and the opposition is highly irrational and not at all representative of the diverse group of constituents who have a stake in Prince Street. Someone just needs to do the organizing work and stand up and rebut the NIMBY's. I wish I had the time to do it myself. It would be an incredibly fun campaign to put together.

Marty, contrary to what you claim, there WAS a serious effort to organize a turn-out in support of closing Prince St.

Days before the meeting, streetsblog regular Ian D. postered Prince Street with fliers denouncing the SoHo Alliance and urging the residents/businesses to attend the meeting in support of the DOT proposal. The SoHo Alliance did the same thing. However, SoHo Alliance members did not remove Ian's posters, although our posters were torn down. No aspersions cast, but you go figure.

150-200 people paid attention to the SoHo Alliance posters and showed up to protect our neighborhood.
Not one person, business or cycling advocate in SoHo paid attention to the opposition posters. Not one!

Marty, if you want to take time off of your daily and obsessive commenting on the streetsblog and actually do something fruitful like organizing a car-free Prince Street, as Timmy above challenged: Bring it on, dude!

And unlike 'streetsman' who claimed to be there yet supplies false information mixed with bitter scorn, at least T.A. head, Paul Steely White, had the honesty, graciousness and courtesy to approach me after the meeting to offer congratulations on producing such an effective turnout.

There were several Prince Street business owners at the infamous CB@ Prince Street MAUL transportation meeting and at least two of them spoke out against it. One was a gallery owner (on Price) and the other was (I believe) a general contractor (just off of Prince on Greene). There was also a reporter from the POST (he sat right next to me) and a reporter from the Villager. Check your memory. Check your facts.

We need to keep this discussion civil and factually correct. Bike lanes GOOD (we all agree). Parking lane in the middle of the street BAD (in my opinion).

Also, I believe the Lafayette bike lane is fairly successful. Sure motorists abuse it at times, but the only time I find it a problem is during rush when the abuse is ubiquitous. That's when the DOT should enforce/enrich!

I don't remember ANY business owners from Prince Street speaking at that meeting. And the reason FEW (not no, but few) residents showed up to speak in favor is because the city did not engage in propaganda prior to making their plan public to the community. The resulting turnout was a group of misinformed, threatened, bloodthirsty residents showing up like a torch-weidling mob to burn someone for a proposal they hadn't even seen, and take out all their frustrations with city government on a single target. It was a turkey shoot. They never even listened to the idea, they booed, they hissed, they made a mockery of the entire community board system.

Any idiot could get 200 angry people to show up at any community board meeting, in any neighborhood, any day, by putting up ridiculous posters saying that the city was proposing to turn their street into a "theme park" "every Sunday". But none of the hundreds of people that support the idea ever had their voices heard because they were not similarly called to action. It wasn't a publicized hearing - it was just a subcommittee meeting that you chose to manipulate. But after that hoax of a meeting, that kangaroo court, that joke that you think represents a model of the democratic process, the little mob had spoken and the city, it seems, decided they would rather pack up their plan and take it to other neighborhoods that are more interested in improving the quality of their street life (see: Bedford Ave., Montague Street, etc), where it worked wonderfully without "unregulated peddlers," "mimes," "honking," "pollution," or bicycle accidents as you claimed it would. I hope you and all the residents that showed up to desecrate that meeting enjoyed your summer of a crowded, loud, car-filled, exhaust-choked, vendor-obstructed Prince Street. They all have you to thank.

The thing about the Grand Street bike lane is that it's not a stupid cockamamie notion that some loonies at the DOT dreamt up this summer. They are emulating a successful model from other cities that have <a href=""high levels of cycling of low levels of injury. And we have already seen here in New York where some people argue they won't work, that the cycle tracks make streets safer, and more people are cycling as a result, which in turn makes cycling even safer.

It has worked exactly the same way in other cities. Generally the only people who feel comfortable on unprotected bike lanes are young, able-bodied, fast-riding experienced cyclists. In order to make cycling a meaningful share of commuter culture, and a practical way to get around, it has to be made safe enough for all ages, body types, and experience levels, and that means separated from traffic. Once there are networks of protected routes safely inter-connecting popular destinations, the level of cycling will dramatically increase. And the new cyclists will be safer, slower, less aggressive demographics of cyclists (women, children, seniors, etc.) that will better abide traffic laws. And the number of cyclists on the road will be so great that drivers and pedestrians will also be more attentive, injury rates begin to plummet.

And the most amazing part is that in EVERY ONE of the dozens of cities this has been done so far, there are always groups of locals saying it won't work here, it makes traffic worse, it's inconvenient, they're not necessary, it's more dangerous, business will fail, no one will use them. The mayors of Portland, Melbourne, Copenhagen, Paris, etc. could have predicted exactly what people like Soho Resident would say - they could produce thousands of similar claims. And yet each of these cities is now showing unprecedented traffic safety, more vibrant and more successful commercial areas, cleaner air, better health, less traffic congestion, and the list goes on and on.

What needs to change is the culture. The automobile/bicycle relationship. This type of bike lane segregates the two factions, teaching neither how to behave around one another.

Does any bike lane teach drivers and cyclists how to behave around each other, cameras or not? If we want shared space, then let's have a real woonerf. Otherwise, protected is the way to go.

And I agree with Doc: if you can't enforce it, don't mark it.

I'm all for automated bike lane enforcement, especially as NYPD has no interest in enforcing this manually. However, you'd have to get any cameras past David Gantt. That said, I guess all that takes is an extra 80 grand or so.

What needs to change is the culture. The automobile/bicycle relationship. This type of bike lane segregates the two factions, teaching neither how to behave around one another.

I'm all for more bike lanes. Broome Street from Centre Street going west could use a nice West-bound bike lane in my opinion. The Prince Street bike lane is a little bizarre just because Prince Street is so narrow. Regardless, I feel that parking cars in the middle of the street is not the way to go.

The city is broke right? If we installed cameras along these bike lanes and electronically ticketed vehicles that abuse them it would be a massive revenue stream for the city. Liek they do in Europe. You see the flash go off and you know you're going to get an unpleasant surprise in the mail.

The Grand street bike lane hurts bike lanes in general. It is not liked by any of the merchants (and I've talked to a lot of them) and is getting a tepid reception from residents. Put the bike lane back where it was (on the north side of the street, beside the parking lane) and paint it green.

Everyone I've spoken with loves the Lafayette Street Bike Lane. It's all a matter of scale. Houston Street is the correct place for an unprotected bike lane on both sides of the street in my opinion. Put them everywhere they fit, just don't put parked cars in the middle of the street where they cause problems.

PS: Just to clarify that I'm not your typical NIMBY. Get rid of all non-commercial parking for all I care. I sold my car last year. Who the hell has the time to play the parking dance? And toll them damned bridges already!

The perspective of a lot of people here, myself included, is that the best way to address automobile congestion is via road pricing. That enables trucks to get through without generating so much smog or wasting so much time, and a $20 tax on a truckful of merchandise is negligible. But our state politicians decided we don't want road pricing, so we have to find another way.

The problem is that right now the biggest force against congestion is congestion itself. Who wants to drive through such bad traffic? The corollary is that it doesn't much help to add more road space, because the new roadways simply attract more cars so that the overall congestion is the same. This, at least, at peak hours. The conclusion that I and others here reach is that it doesn't matter if you take road space away from even the most congested parts of the city: You will retain the same amount of congestion either way.

If congestion is bad no matter how you stripe the roads, then, why not take space away from cars and give it to people?

There needs to be balance. Bike lanes are great. Put them in as many places as possible, The Grand Street Bike Lane in it's current configuration? STUPID. West Broadway and Grand is a constant gridlocked mess.

It's as if people on this blog eat only the indigenous rats and pigeons of Manhattan rather than the bounty that is delivered (unfortunately) by truck everyday.

Let's be realistic. Bike lanes, light rail, subway freight, east river tolls, HOV pricing, etc. All good ideas in my opinion but all should go through public review.

Why not?

http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/03/07/soho-partnership-dot-propose-car-free-sundays-on-prince-st/

As you can see, it was 5 days before the meeting. It wasn't a last minute post. The people holding your views had plently of time.

Second, I like a lot of others in the neighborhood are in our 30s. We actually care about what happens and we appreciate what the older folks have done for us.

As to your claim that you can make the proposal happen, bring it on.

Aside from, perhaps, a desperate last minute post or two here on Streetsblog, no one made any effort to get livable streets advocates out to that Community Board meeting to support the car-free Prince idea. The only information the community was receiving was the "Mauling of SoHo" crud that Sweeney was spreading (Note that Sweeney is still, essentially, fighting the commercialization -- the "malling" of SoHo -- a battle that his so-called "organization" lost about 20 years ago). DOT, frankly, blew the car-free Prince effort. There was no community outreach or advocacy around it at all.

As soon as someone does decide to organize a car-free Prince campaign, you'll know about it. Trust me. It'll be big. I have no doubt that the idea will be popular and accepted and a well run campaign will manage to generate at least enough of a counterweight to your NIMBYism that we'll at least get to see some weekend trial events come to fruition. This, of course, is your deepest fear -- simply trying it. You know that car-free Prince will be popular and people will want more of it. Your nightmare: shoppers, tourists, residents and parents with children walking down Prince Street enjoying a sunny weekend morning or brisk pre-Christmas shopping day. Arggh! How horrible.

As for being "politically unsophisticated." All I can really say is thank you, Timmy, you hardbitten SoHo activist for educating me on the realities of New York City politics. You SoHo guys have been so effective in... well, come to think of it, you haven't really done anything progressive or constructive lately, have you? Like a Community Board you just kind of focus your energy on stopping things. I know you stopped that Robert Moses thing back around the time when my parents were getting married... Good work on that one. What is the SoHo Alliance anyway? Do you have members? A board? By-laws? Is there an office aside from Sean Sweeney's apartment? You guys are so sophisticated and yet... the organization seems to be one guy with some extra time on his hands.

A couple of years ago sophisticated like you, Timmy, were saying that things like separated bike lanes were "politically impossible" in New York City. Yet, politics and street designs are both a lot more malleable than you realize.

I am all for more community input, but not if it will hold up a project for years and years - which was the status quo for the last 30 or 40 years.