MacPherson claims he's innocent.

Well, in addition to running the aforementioned shell game and bondage business, he pens a blog called Soho Politics, where he's been known to rail against car-free streets, bike lanes, and other measures to make the public right-of-way more pleasant for pedestrians, cyclists, and bus riders. Followers of the downtown community board scene knew MacPherson as an ally of the Soho Alliance's Sean Sweeney on CB 2, from which the alleged scammer recently resigned. Now the world knows him as the whips-n-chains guy who made a fraudulent fortune off the real estate bubble.

Sean Sweeney, the one-man show known as the Soho Alliance, has been sending this video around to the media, continuing his quest to preserve Soho streets for the convenience of motorists. What we basically have here is a careless truck driver butting grilles with a sociopath behind the wheel of an SUV. Sweeney's conclusion: Give these vehicles more street space and forget about providing cyclists with a basic safety amenity.

The head-scratching logic continues on his website, which bemoans congestion on Soho streets while railing against bike lanes, pedestrian zones, sidewalk cafes, and, in general, any measure that would actually mitigate traffic and improve conditions for people who walk and bike. The site touts clips of media outlets eating up Sweeney's act. Like the time Fox 5 put him on camera in a Grand Street hatchet job.

But where was Sean Sweeney and his media crusade in October, when a Con Ed worker was struck and killed by a truck on Grand Street? About that tragedy, the Soho Alliance site is silent.

Don't be fooled: No one on a bike was quoted for this story.

"By putting in a bike lane protected by a row of parked cars, the city has essentially turned Grand Street into a single lane," correspondent Ti-Hua Chang tells us, neglecting to mention that Grand Street already had a bike lane and a single moving lane before the parking protection went into effect (in fact, drivers have more space in the new design to make right turns). The difference now is that double-parking actually has consequences for other drivers instead of cyclists, but you don't see any motorist-on-motorist recriminations here. Also unmentioned in this traffic blame-fest: free East River bridges and the low, low price of on-street parking.

What we get instead is a parting shot from Sean Sweeney -- the man who fought tooth and nail against the Prince Street bike lane -- invoking the specter of people burning to death as a result of this safety improvement. Good thing Fox 5 put him on camera.

Mister Softee set up shop on the Prince Street bike lane near the corner of Broadway this weekend. Note the pedestrians squeezing through the narrow strip of sidewalk between the ice cream truck and the subway railing. Prince Street, you may recall, was slated to go car-free on Sunday's all summer long until the SoHo Alliance scuttled the deal back in March.

Have you got a good Eyes on the Street photo? Send it along.

Community Board 2's Traffic & Transportation Committee heard specifics last night on a DOT pilot project that would open a segment of Prince Street to pedestrians 14 days a year. And as expected, the committee and DOT heard from residents who want the pedestrian-heavy thoroughfare to continue to accommodate cars 24/7/365.

The city proposes to close Prince to cars from Lafayette to W. Broadway on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The project would last from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend.

According to surveys cited by DOT:

• Eighty-five percent of people travel to Prince Street by subway, on foot, by bike or on a bus.
  
• Eighty percent of pedestrians interviewed on a Saturday "experience the street as being crowded."
• Expanding pedestrian space would attract people to come to Prince Street more often, where they would spend "about five times as much money" in neighborhood shops and restaurants.
• On a typical weekend, 200 vehicles travel Prince Street in an hour, compared to 4,500 pedestrians.
  

While some members of the public spoke in favor, they were easily outnumbered by opponents. "There was a lot of screaming about an out of control street vendor problem that the City seems unwilling or unable to address," one Community Board member said.

For an idea of the tenor of the debate, one supporter of the plan who pointed out that pedestrian streets work in London and other cities was rebutted with cries of "This is New York City!"

...And this is Paris. Does this look like a horrible street to live on?

A key complaint of opponents is that the city doesn't do enough to enforce rules against sidewalk vending, prompting fears that Prince Street "Open Sundays" would become, in essence, noisy street fairs crowded with kiosks. But one attendee picked up on another strain of contention:

It was clear from last night's meeting that many of the people against the car-free Prince proposal want fewer pedestrians in the neighborhood, not more. In a sense, they concede that a car-free Prince would be more appealing to outsiders. It's just not what they want.

Still, the committee ultimately adopted a resolution that, according to committee member Ian Dutton, acknowledges the merits of DOT's plan but says it is unacceptable because it was proposed and developed without enough community input. While we have yet to see the actual wording, Dutton says the resolution proposes "forming a neighborhood stakeholders group to come up with a more comprehensive plan that the community can accept."

The resolution leaves open the possibility that the project is still alive, perhaps with community activists like Sean Sweeney of the SoHo Alliance -- currently, a vocal opponent -- working with the city to make it more palatable to all.

Graphics: NYC DOT

If you read the comments on the previous post, then you know something interesting is in the works for Prince Street. Next Tuesday, Community Board 2's Transportation Committee will consider a proposal to turn a six-block stretch of Prince Street, from Lafayette to West Broadway, into a car-free zone on Sundays from 11am to 6pm. The pilot project would likely run from Memorial to Labor Day. The idea for this long-sought reallocation of street space emerged from discussions between DOT and the SoHo Partnership, the neighborhood's innovative welfare-to-work program.

Not surprisingly, an opposition movement has already sprung into action. Faithful Streetsblog readers will recall the SoHo Alliance as the neighborhood group that seems to specialize in fighting street vendors, new bike lanes, sidewalk widenings and, generally, any livable street improvement that threatens to diminish long-time SoHo residents' access to on-street parking.

A tipster reports that the Alliance is papering the neighborhood with flyers arguing against the pilot project. Here's a sample bullet point from the flyer, which can be found in its entirety, below:

The current do-wop group will attract other noisy street performers to entertain the increased crowds of tourists. Food vendors will likely spring up. Will Jugglers and mimes be far behind?

Though the specter of mime-filled streets truly is terrifying (and quite politically savvy -- I mean, who's going to speak up for the mimes?) does a bad case of coulrophobia outweigh the potential benefits of car-free Sundays?

As it is, Prince Street is jam-packed with pedestrians and vendors on the weekend yet the majority of the public right-of-way is hogged up by a horn-honking, exhaust-spewing, barely-moving armada of SUV's and luxury sedans. When London pedestrianized some of its most popular shopping streets, it led to a bonanza for local businesses, a PR coup for the city's sustainability agenda and a generally nicer, more pleasant public realm for residents and tourists to enjoy.

If you want to help make a car-free Prince Street a reality, then speak up at Community Board 2's Transportation Committee meeting next Tuesday, March 11 at 7:30pm. The meeting will be at the NYU Silver Building, 32 Waverly Place, room 713. You can be sure the other guys will be there.

The Soho Alliance flyer can be found after the jump...

We're just catching up to this piece of good news in The Villager last week:

With the Houston St. renovation project on the West Side finally nearing completion, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that the sidewalks between Sixth Ave. and W. Broadway on the street's south side have doubled in width. And, in an interesting twist, the existing trees were left in place - right in the middle of the pavement. Ian Dutton, vice chairperson of Community Board 2's Traffic and Transportation Committee, said this was not a mistake by the Department of Design and Construction. "People really expressed concern that trees were being destroyed needlessly in this project," Dutton said. "So I think that was D.D.C.'s way of preserving these trees."

Surprisingly, some people had expressed concern about widening the sidewalks. Dutton said Lucy and Leonard Cecere, who own a building at MacDougal and Houston Street, feared they'd have more snow to shovel in the winter, while Sean Sweeney, the Soho Alliance's director, thought wider sidewalks could become a "circus," attracting an influx of vendors and performers on top of the vendors who already congregate there under a deal with St. Anthony's Church.

But Dutton said he believes that only a path needs to be cleared in winter, not the entire sidewalk. "I think it has actually changed the mood of the street," Dutton said of the mid-pavement trees. "It almost feels like a European promenade."… Meanwhile, Councilmember Alan Gerson is still fuming at the Department of Transportation over the project's having narrowed traffic islands at pedestrian crossings heavily used by local senior citizens. "I am at my wit's end with this department," he declared at C.B. 2's meeting last Thursday.

The street re-surfacing men and machinery were out in force in Soho last night. Houston Street Bike Safety Initiative Director Ian Dutton snapped this photo on Prince Street. Once the street is repaved, the Department of Transportation will stripe the hotly debated Prince and Bleecker Street bike lanes.

Lower Manhattan's newest east-west bike route is an alternative to the physically-separated bike lane that activists have long been pushing for on deadly Houston Street. In a presentation to Community Board 2 in March, DOT made the case that parallel bike lanes on either side of Houston Street is the better choice. DOT says its parallel route plan is based on successful projects in Berkeley, California and the Bergen/Dean Street bike lanes that run alongside busy Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. After extended debate, CB2 approved DOT's plan in April.

As a side benefit of the re-surfacing project, around 200 parking spaces will be eliminated to make way for the new bike lanes. Needless to say, the Soho Alliance will not be pleased.

Jan Gehl tried hard not to reveal any secrets during his Upper West Side Streets Renaissance presentation Tuesday night, but if you took a close look at his maps, it was apparent that Prince and Spring Streets have been part of his team's study area. What are the odds that Gehl will recommend that Mayor Bloomberg try out a car-free weekend pilot project for Soho next year? Pretty high, I'm guessing. If that moves ahead, how would a pedestrianized Prince Street fit with the new bike lane plan? Perhaps we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves here.

Dutton says there will be a ribbon-cutting for the new Lower Manhattan bike route at the end of the month.

Related:

• StreetFilms: Curbing Cars in Soho. 

Their goal? Prevent "reckless cyclists" from "speeding down busy Prince in their own private lane, running red lights, and hitting unwitting tourists and residents." They also want to preserve the 126 car parking spaces that currently hog up a whole lot more of the space on Prince Street than those evil street artists. Sound familiar?

Livable Streets advocates will need to show up in force at the full meeting of Manhattan's Community Board 2 to make sure that the full board supports the transportation committee's recommendation to install bike lanes. Find the meeting details in this e-mail from the SoHo Alliance:

Subject: Emergency: Community Board Meeting Thursday
From: Sean Sweeney, SoHo Alliance <info@sohoalliance.org>
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 18:12:48 -0400

Hi,

In August, the SoHo Alliance proposed a dedicated, protected bike lane as part of the reconstruction on Houston Street.  This was supported by the Community Board and by all our elected officials.  

D.O.T. rejected Houston and offered us Prince & Bleecker Streets instead.  DOT said Prince Street was safer, without offering any documentation or statistics.  In fact, DOT wants to turn Houston Street into a high-speed traffic corridor.

Last week the SoHo Alliance sent out emails and flyers to our members along Prince - from the Bowery to Sixth Avenue and from Spring to Houston - seeking comments on this counter-proposal from DOT.

91% of the respondents to last week's survey insisted on Houston over Prince.  Unfortunately, the traffic sub-committee of the community board acquiesced to the DOT and voted for a Prince bike lane.  

This proposal will cost us almost 200 parking spaces to provide for this special bike lane.  126 of these parking spots will be lost on Prince alone.

In addition, there are obvious congestion and safety problems created by some reckless cyclists speeding down busy Prince in their own private lane, running red lights, and hitting unwitting tourists and residents.  

We did not start this project to exchange cyclists injuries for pedestrian injuries.

I am organizing SoHo people to attend the Full Community Board meeting to speak out against this cockamamie and dangerous proposal.  We need to overturn the committee's report.

It is very important for SoHo.   Bodies Count!  

Thursday, April 19th, St Vincent's Hospital, West 12th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues (closer to 7th), Cronin Auditorium, 10th floor.

It starts at 6:30.  You must sign a "speaker's  card" to register your opinion and to speak.  Be sure to write "No Prince Street Bike Lane" on the card.  Arrive no later than 6:50.  It should be over by 8:00.

Please email this to friends and neighbors.

Regards,
Sean Sweeney