This week's Observer is running a profile of DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. It focuses on the speed with which many of DOT's Sustainable Streets projects are moving ahead and seems to suggest either:

a) Improving conditions for New York City's pedestrians, cyclists and bus riders is a Communist plot. Or,
b) The change that Sadik-Khan is bringing to New York City's streets is akin to the Russian Revolution.

You be the judge:

On the ideological scale of transportation planning, her policies err far closer to Trotsky than Reagan. She is decidedly pro-bike and pro-pedestrian, and thus inherently anti-automobile, earning her constant praise from the normally critical transit advocates.

This raises some obvious questions. If Sadik-Khan is Leon Trotsky does that mean suburban Westchester Assemblyman and congestion pricing foe Richard Brodsky is Josef Stalin? Will Sadik-Khan be exiled to an upstate gulag when Bloomberg is term-limited out of office?

All fun and games aside, as we gird ourselves for the Tony Avellafication of the 2009 mayoral race, the last two paragraphs of the article are worth discussing:

With many of Ms. Sadik-Khan’s key initiatives, there is a potential lack of permanency. The same features that allow the DOT’s projects to get in the ground swiftly could also seal their fate in a future administration: The city has claimed lanes of Broadway as open space with some epoxy, sand, paint, plants and tables, yet a future administration could just as easily pack up those tables and put lane markers right back down on the roadway.

This prospect seemed almost incomprehensible to Ms. Sadik-Khan, who seemed to think that public resistance to it would prove too great, the ease of removal notwithstanding. “People are very protective about their public space,” she said. “I think it would be very hard to take these spaces back to the state that they were in before.”

New York City drivers often fail to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk. More LPIs would help reinforce the rule.

When DOT installed a leading pedestrian interval, or LPI, by a Lincoln Tunnel exit on 34th Street last month, nearby residents were thrilled. Cars turning onto 34th from Dyer Avenue -- a tunnel off-ramp -- had long posed a hazard to people in the crosswalk, leading Community Board 4 to request signal timing exclusively for pedestrians. At first DOT declined to take action, but after 300 people signed a petition in favor of the LPI, it was installed in a matter of days. Now pedestrians crossing 34th enjoy a luxurious 17 seconds during which they have the all-clear.

LPIs make pedestrians safer. The most widely cited study [PDF], released in 1999 by Michael King, former director of traffic calming at DOT and currently a principal at planning firm Nelson\Nygaard, found that LPIs reduce collisions between turning vehicles and pedestrians by 28 percent. Implemented throughout the city, LPIs could cut the number of pedestrians hit by cars by more than 500 each year, the report noted.

The new LPI at 34th and Dyer was a welcome improvement, but why the initial hesitation? After all, installing an LPI amounts to little more than flipping a switch, and costs next to nothing. Current DOT practice, however, requires time-consuming studies of individual intersections to determine whether an LPI is warranted. A different option, which Transportation Alternatives is now pushing, would make LPIs the default condition at the intersections where pedestrians face the greatest threat.

DOT's new strategic plan, Sustainable Streets, recognizes the effectiveness of LPIs and aims to double the number in the city to 360 by 2010. That target could be expanded and accelerated if the agency were to adopt the method suggested by T.A. "LPIs should be as de rigueur as crosswalks," says T.A.'s Paul Steely White. "DOT should install LPIs at the 1,200 most hazardous signalized intersections based on historic pedestrian injury and fatality data." That would cover 10 percent of the city's signalized intersections.

The traffic engineers have yet to embrace the idea. DOT responded to T.A.'s suggestion in writing:

LPIs are installed after a study (that includes peak hour observations and an analysis of turning movement/pedestrian volumes and available accident data) determines their appropriateness. Your suggestion to implement LPIs at 10 percent of all signalized intersections (more than 1200 locations) is beyond the scope of existing operations.

One way to work around these limitations would be to install the LPIs first and study them later. "Then," says White, "traffic operations could identify those locations where they may deem it appropriate to remove the LPIs to prioritize motorized traffic."

With news surfacing that DOT is overhauling its design guidelines, now is an opportune time to standardize ped-friendly traffic signals, says T.A. Planning Director Shin-pei Tsay. "LPIs are a tool to complete a street."

Making LPIs standard operating procedure would also establish a precedent benefiting pedestrians beyond New York. "In switching the burden of proof to favor safety over traffic flow," adds White, "the DOT could set an example for all urban areas and establish itself as a leader in pedestrian safety."

Even drivers don't stand to lose much from this shift, as King's report makes clear:

Repeatedly, though, the question arises of how to justify the adjacent loss of green time for vehicles. Yet all the LPI really does is electronically enforce the legal responsibility of drivers, especially turning drivers, to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. At corners with high pedestrian volumes, the drivers are already suffering a loss of green time as they wait for pedestrians to cross. Furthermore, if an LPI is saving xx amount of pedestrians from being hit by cars, then it is fundamentally appropriate that the car should wait.

Photo: Clarence Eckerson

With more on DOT's Sustainable Streets plan, here's Transportation Alternatives' Paul Steely White on this morning's Brian Lehrer Show. Over the course of the 17 minute clip, White and Lehrer discuss parking policy, bike commuting and Bus Rapid Transit. Don't miss the Streetsblog plug.

Also this morning, Lehrer hosted New York Times reporter John Broder for a segment on the Clinton-Obama gas tax divide.

Let us pray. 

DOT revealed its "Sustainable Streets" strategic plan last night, in the very same room where the New York City Streets Renaissance Campaign held its kick-off event a little more than two years ago. Once again, Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson was there. Here are excerpts from the presentation by Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, who says that, rather than duplicate the livable streets efforts of cities like London, Paris and Copenhagen, her agency intends to implement "the New York City Model" of sustainable transportation and urban design.

Even so, one hears echoes of Danish planning superstar Jan Gehl when Sadik-Khan says DOT plans to "treat streets as valuable public places, rather than utilitarian corridors." Not that this is a bad thing.

Initial reaction to the DOT's green blueprint, though, has been mixed. While praising "Sustainable Streets" for its forward-thinking objectives, Transportation Alternatives sees shortcomings in the lack of "a clear street user hierarchy" that would prioritize pedestrians and cyclists above motorists when it comes to design and management. TA notes, for example, that 90 percent of planned bus and bike lanes will be protected from other traffic by paint alone. In a written statement, TA also makes the case for an accelerated timeline:

By pushing the completion of many key goals off to 2030, the DOT is underestimating its own ability and making it much harder for T.A. and other watchdogs to hold the next two administrations accountable. Even with current rates of progress, there is no reason why the DOT cannot halve traffic fatalities, complete the bike network, and traffic-calm streets around city schools by 2015.

That said, also in attendance last night were NYC Transit Chief Howard Roberts, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and TLC Commish Matthew Daus. Their presence seems indicative of a burgeoning level of cooperation among city agencies, the first sign of which came a couple of weeks ago when Sadik-Khan and Roberts made their expansive joint BRT presentation. At that time, Sadik-Khan announced that Kelly has pledged an NYPD unit dedicated to bus lane enforcement. If this is any indication, at least DOT won't be hemmed in by other bureaucracies as it carries out its mission.

We'll have ongoing coverage and analysis of the new DOT doc. In the meantime, if you've seen it, give us your impressions.

The DOT today released its "Sustainable Streets" plan, an outline for bringing "a green approach" to transportation in the city by implementing safer, more equitable "world class streets policies." Of course state lawmakers took away the most powerful tool in the box by rejecting congestion pricing, so the agency is out of necessity focusing on measures within the city's control, like Bus Rapid Transit, bike lanes and installation of public plazas.

The report may be downloaded from the DOT web site. The "Benchmarks" section contains itemized lists of short- and long-term goals, including a couple of tantalizing bits about weekend bike-ped corridors and reducing car use in city parks.

Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan will preview the plan tonight at an invitation-only event. More details soon.