You also *really* should ensure that such a visualization incorporates the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Detectable warning strips would be just the start. Your curb ramps could be wider, and the street signs could be visible.

Recognize, I do, that it is always easier to critique than create.

The bus lane is okay I suppose (though just a dedicated lane, not really any form of true BRT.) Nice street surfaces, though perhaps a little demarcation-heavy. Trees are green as trees should be (though don't forget what this will look like about six months of the year.). I don't see any permanent street furniture (and I mean for sitting, not for ads for cars being used to fund "free" bikes.)

The main problem of course is that a little over half of the non-pedestrian space is still dedicated for cars, and including the bus and bike spaces it is all about Holy Traffic Flow, the Omega Molecule of Throughput (and why not? This street seems to have some off-street parking, based on that large sign. So why have something that no one can get to?)

Clearly examples like this of "complete streets" are better than most current designs for the spaces between buildings, but if the starting pointing was the bottom of a latrine in Hell, a JCDecaux public toilet (provided in trade for ads encouraging people to eat too much) has to be an improvement.

Many of us had it pounded into our heads that a "complete breakfast" includes juice, toast, cereal milk and meat.. and a good deal of us eventually realized that this was NOT the case, that it was just a marketing slogan by the various involved industries. Similarly, in the current way that "complete streets" is used, cars are bacon and perhaps milk is the desire for flow...(at least for me as I am lactose-intolerant). Complete streets - along with its fully un-demarcated European first cousin Shared Space - is a car-preservation plan, i.e. a car-industry preservation plan. As my friend says: "Green capitalism will save us! we just need more astroturf PR scams to convince affluent white people that their street could have a more aesthetically pleasing arrangements of cars!" Indeed, this marketing plan is fully endorsed by the people who call themselves eco-friendly.

What I suggest is that a new starting point, a new definition of "complete", is that simple and peaceful place between buildings for people to meet, talk and play. Every compromise to move people faster (starting with bikes and then with trams, buses, etc. unless it makes more sense to put these underground) is understood to be something to make the street LESS complete.

oh, and much praise for GOOD's transportation issue! i devoured it.

If we are going to make street changes to shift people from automobile to bicycle, we should provide a double bike lane, so bicyclists can easily pass slower bicyclists or bicyclists who are stopped waiting to make a turn. Notice that, in the picture, the one bicyclists waiting for the light to change fills up the bike lane, making it impossible for other cyclists to pass.

The same way the 9th Ave bike paths are plowed--with the tiniest, cutest damn snowplows you'll ever see.

Seriously, they are like little golf-carts with snow shovels on the front. Adorable.

(1) Has on-street parking been completely removed?
(2) Are delivery vehicles and taxis allowed to stop in the right-hand lane to drop off and pick up goods and passengers?

1. Speed humps at a signalized intersection are ridiculous. If you need to, raise the whole intersection.
2. I'm not optimistic that a tree can grow that well in such a narrow median, nor that it would provide adequate horizontal clearance.
3. I'm wondering how the snow will be plowed in that 5' bike lane with the extra barrier between the bike lane and the bus lane.