A DOT team received a mix of gratitude and derision at Tuesday's public forum about recent pedestrian improvements in the Meatpacking District, which attracted an audience of about 100 people to the Housing Works offices on West 13th Street. It was an interesting window onto the competing interests now vying to shape what has been, from the beginning, a genuinely community-based project seeking to put pedestrians on equal footing with vehicle traffic.

Those who came to praise described the new sense of safety they feel walking around the area near Gansevoort Plaza. Those who came to scorn suggested rolling back those improvements in the hopes that livery passengers might not have to wait another minute or two to be dropped off right at their luxe destinations. The former enjoyed a two-to-one advantage over the latter among those who spoke, with much of crowd opinion resting with a sizable, aesthetically-driven middle ground -- people who professed support for street reclamation in theory, but just don't like the look of nipple bollards.

The goal of the meeting, said DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione, was to get "a sense of the overall feeling and a sense of what can be tweaked" about the project, which is slated to enter a permanent design phase this July, followed by construction the next year. There was no shortage of thoughtful ideas -- and clunkers -- for a neighborhood attempting to deal with the influx of cab and limo traffic on weekend nights. Taxi stands, anyone?

One solution for the Meatpacking District's livery congestion: taxi stands. Image: NYCDOT

On the side of preserving safety gains, longtime resident Cynthia Penney encapsulated the sentiment of many locals. "I love the fact that I can cross the street without taking my life in my hands," she said. "Judging by the crowds outside Pastis, I don't think anyone is having trouble getting here."

On the side of maximizing vehicular throughput, Andrew Winter, a representative of luxury resto/lounge tandem Vento and Level V (a favored haunt of "good-looking, well-heeled New Yorkers in their late twenties, happy about how, well, good-looking they are" says New York Mag), put it to DOT thusly: "Instead of spending money on moving these cement block things into new areas, can we focus our funds on how to get the traffic in and out much easier?"

Not that all testimony hewed to the residents-vs.-businesses pattern. Paolo Secondo, owner of the restaurant Revel on Little West 12th Street, was firmly in favor of the pedestrian improvements. "I believe that a privilege we can no longer afford in New York is to be able to arrive at a restaurant in a cab or a limo," he said, assigning blame for traffic congestion in the area to the willy-nilly pattern of livery pick-ups and drop-offs. "I would much prefer to have stands or drop-off zones." His call was bolstered by comments from a CB4 member who recounted how taxi stands had eased traffic tie-ups and quieted late-night honking in Chelsea's nightclub district.

One of the most intriguing storylines to develop was -- brace yourself -- the question of management. As Project for Public Spaces can tell you, the success of any public space depends on programming and maintenance. Someone has to care for it. The Meatpacking District, unlike Madison Square and other areas where DOT plazas have bloomed, does not have a BID to assume this role. It does have a merchants' association -- the Meatpacking District Initiative -- and here's the Catch 22: The MPDI is funded through voluntary contributions, not mandatory assessments, so if the businesses don't like the new public spaces, they don't have to pay for things like putting on events or keeping planters looking good, and perceptions of the pedestrian zones will suffer.

"People want us to fund something that our members are not pleased with," said MPDI founder David Rabin, who called for some of the pedestrian areas on Ninth Avenue to be narrowed or removed. "It is unacceptable for me to hear people say they think it's okay that it's hard to get to the Meatpacking District."

Rabin was followed immediately by Florent Morellet, one of the first restaurateurs to set up in the area and a driving force behind the public space plan. "Cabs can come to the outskirts of the neighborhood but not to the middle," he said in a plea to fellow business owners. "The concept that people can drive wherever and whenever they want is over. You're going to kill business with the old way of thinking. Don't think the old way."

Judging by much of the testimony, many of Rabin's design-conscious members would be satisfied with changes to surface appearances -- nipple bollards, apparently, offend their haute sensibilities. As one boutique owner put it, the street furniture doesn't match the "Paris-like setting" that first attracted her to the neighborhood. Finding a substitute may prove tougher than you'd think. Any device to demarcate pedestrian space will have to meet DOT traffic engineers' exacting safety standards, which the reflective tops of nipple bollards manage to achieve.

With the final design phase slated to commence this July, the Gansevoort project is one to keep an eye on. Some changes may already be in the works. We checked in with DOT the day after the meeting, and the agency said they hope to install taxi stands in the next month or two.

Looks like the Meatpacking District is about to receive its livable streets makeover.

The Open Planning Project's Lily Bernheimer snapped these shots of Gansevoort Plaza earlier today. The orange barrels and dashed lines appear to demarcate what will soon be new pedestrian areas and rows of planters. These improvements emerged from the efforts of the Greater Gansevoort Urban Improvement Project, an initiative begun in 2005. More tantalizing pics after the jump.

It appears from the view looking north that this stretch of Ninth Avenue is about to go on a serious road diet.

The view looking east.

The view south towards Greenwich Street.

Major public space improvements are on the drawing board for Lower Manhattan's old Meat-Packing District. Ian Dutton, Houston Street bike safety organizer, professional airline pilot and Streetsblog reader has the report: 

Last year, community groups came together as the Greater Gansevoort Urban Improvement Project to develop a vision to rein in chaotic traffic and create a great new public space for Lower Manhattan's old Meatpacking District. Only a few months later -- a virtual blink of the eye by city bureaucracy standards -- New York City's Dept. of Transportation has already stepped forward with a detailed plan that would create a new public plaza, a buffered bike lane, simplified pedestrian crossings, and a new road configuration designed to reduce the area's traffic chaos (download the plan here).

As Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan stalls in Albany gridlock, DOT's Office of Alternative Modes is showing one way for City Hall to take control of New York City's streets regardless of what Sheldon Silver or any other New York State Assembly member has to say about it.

DOT presented its renovation plan for the intersection of Ninth Ave. and 14th St. to Manhattan Community Board 4 on Wednesday evening. Ryan Russo, DOT's Director for Street Management and Safety, explained that the agency is taking advantage of a scheduled repaving of Ninth Ave. in mid-July to respond to long-standing community request to remove the two-block northbound contra-flow traffic lane from the avenue, which has been blamed for several pedestrian fatalities, most recently in February.

DOT's plan also includes the conversion of one southbound lane on Ninth Ave. to a buffered-bike lane. The expectation is that by year's end, this bike lane will extend down Hudson St. and Bleecker St., eventually linking up with the recently-approved Bleecker St. bike lane, providing a continuous bike route across Lower Manhattan, all the way to the East Village.

Russo explained that there are many collateral benefits of removing the northbound lane and reconfiguring southbound traffic. Most notably, DOT is creating a 4,500 sq. ft. plaza just above 14th Street. To the east of this plaza will be two traffic lanes and the new bike lane. To the west will be a single lane for traffic making the right turn onto westbound 14th Street. The new plaza island also breaks up the lengthy, treacherous 120' crosswalk into two manageable crossings of 34' and 24'.

Responding to board member concerns that the new plaza would be uncomfortable surrounded by traffic and that local residents prefer attaching the new public space to the busy sidewalk on the west side, Russo said the benefit of this plan is that it provides an immediate solution and is not considered a "capital project." Altering any of the curbing or the existing central island that separates the northbound and southbound traffic would require new drainage studies, new traffic signals, and would require a lengthy process for funding and contracting through other city agencies. Further, Russo said he believed that the traffic on the west side of the new plaza would be relatively light, similar to the traffic one finds on the cobblestoned west side of Union Sq. Park.

Commenting on the new public plaza, DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione mentioned that tables and chairs similar to those in Bryant Park have already been purchased, and that other programming such as a Greenmarket was being explored. Planters and granite blocks would sit atop a textured surface, similar to other public space reclaimations that have taken place in recent years. Jay Marcus, co-chair of Community Board 4's transportation committee, suggested that a group be created of neighborhood residents and members of CB4 and neighboring CB2 to oversee the planning of this public space.

On the south side of 14th St., the sidewalks would be extended, dramatically shortening the crossing distance of the current angled crosswalk. Also, a new crosswalk will be created across 14th St. on the west side of the southbound traffic lanes.

The CB4 committee was in general agreement that it was in the community's best interest to accept the current plan as a interim step, to be followed as soon as possible with the permanent plan emerging from the Greater Gansevoort Urban Improvement Project. As was pointed out by board members, the interim plan bears many resemblances to the design for the Ninth Ave./14th St. intersection that emerged from GGUIP and presents an opportunity to try out some possibilities before the capital program's implementation.

Here is another, more detailed view of DOT's plan, oriented with the north at the top: 

At Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's transportation policy conference last week, DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall said she was committed to working "with communities and other city agencies to reallocate street space" to "create public plazas in neighborhoods in all five boroughs."

"These open spaces," Weinshall said, "will make walking more enjoyable, preserve neighborhood character, and can serve as the heart of a neighborhood through which all activity can pulse."

The Commissioner's vision of community collaboration producing great new public spaces is a refreshing departure from DOT's traditional, top-down, engineer-driven focus on moving cars and trucks to "maximize vehicular level of service." The question is: How is Weinshall going to make it happen? How will New York City's Department of Transportation transform itself into something more like a Department of Streets and Public Spaces?

An answer to that question appears to be materializing along the cobblestone streets of Manhattan's Meatpacking District. Flying below the radar for more than a year now, a community-driven initiative to transform the broad, chaotic intersection of Ninth Avenue and Gansevoort Street into a thriving piazza is well underway. In the process, the Greater Gansevoort Urban Improvement Project (GGUIP) is quietly emerging as one of New York City's most promising Streets Renaissance initiatives.

What is, perhaps, most notable about the Gansevoort Project is that it isn't being put forward by a big real estate developer or Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff's Economic Development Corporation. Rather, it is a grassroots, community-driven effort. If city officials and Livable Streets advocates want a concrete example of how to make Commissioner Weinshall's public space vision a reality, this is the project to keep an eye on.

The Gansevoort Project is the brainchild of two neighborhood stalwarts, preservationist Jo Hamilton and restaurateur Florent Morellet. Last Monday evening, Hamilton and Morellet convened 150 residents and business owners from around the Meatpacking District to meet with an impressive group of experts and elected officials to share ideas and hammer out a collective vision for their neighborhood.

The process began in early 2005, when Project for Public Spaces began working with business owners and local residents to define problems, identify best practices, and formulate a vision for what people wanted their neighborhood to be (Click here to download PPS's findings). PPS's philosophy is that "If you plan a city for cars and traffic you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places."

The PPS approach, honed over decades of developing great public spaces in cities around the world starts with the notion of "community outcomes." By leveraging local knowledge, accounting for unique neighborhood characteristics and balancing competing priorities and modes of transportation, the community outcomes approach helps a neighborhood articulate a vision of what it wants to be.

As the residents and business owners of the Meatpacking District began talking about their neighborhood's traffic issues using PPS's community outcomes process, here is what they found:

Likewise, as they began looking at pedestrian and public space issues, they concluded:

Using the PPS process the conversation doesn't start with traffic and parking or arguments over speed bumps, bike lanes or any other specific solutions. Rather, the process begins with people talking about the problems they see in their neighborhood and their shared vision for the future. The consultants and engineers are brought in only after all of this has been worked through. This is where the Gansevoort Project is now.

At Monday evening's meeting, transportation consultant Sam Schwartz said that his company would study the neighborhood's traffic from a regional perspective, taking into account the effect that future changes might have on adjoining neighborhoods and the West Side Highway. Thomas Wright of the Regional Plan Association announced that his group would lead a series of community workshops through the winter. Assemblymember Deborah Glick, State Senator Tom Duane, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer all pledged their support. And the organizers stressed that the community, not the local politicians, would guide the decision-making process and shepherd design ideas through the relevant city agencies.

When Danish urban designer Jan Gehl visited the Meatpacking District in November 2005, he remarked, "the most encouraging part of my visit has been meeting citizens in every part of the city who are working to improve their own neighborhoods. New York City is very lucky to have this resource."

Indeed, every borough, every neighborhood, pretty much every New York City block has its own unique context and character. There can be no one-size-fits-all solution for making Livable Streets in New York. And there is simply no way that any one city agency can be expected to come up with the kind of detailed, site specific solutions necessary to make a Streets Renaissance happen in a city as big and diverse as New York.

As the Gansevoort Project is showing, there are neighborhoods in New York City that have the expertise, energy, resources and incentive to solve their own problems and develop their own solutions. To make a Streets Renaissance happen in New York, DOT and other city agencies have to learn how to leverage these great local resources. 

Commissioner Weinshall put forward a great vision for New York City's public spaces last week. If she wants to see that vision become a reality, the process underway in the Meatpacking District may very well be the model for how to make it happen.

Thor Snilsberg and Alec Appelbaum contributed to this piece.