As you may know, Transportation Alternatives put on a red carpet premiere Tuesday night for the "Biking Rules" PSA competition at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The contest pitted video entries against each other in two main categories: "Why Biking Rules" and "Street Code."  

Videos in the "Street Code" category encourage people to use lights, bells, stop at red lights, ride with traffic and generally ride safely and courteously. "Why Biking Rules" is pretty self-explanatory.

Out of some 80 total submissions, about 40 PSAs (and a slideshow of photos) played to a sold out theater. The shorts were truly impressive and scored a well-earned victory over George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, and Mariah Carey at the box office.

Above is one of the winning high-def entries in the Biking Rules category: "Lights Turn Heads," by Aldo Arias and Pam Tietze. You can see the rest of the winners here.

BRT + bike: East Side avenues have enough space for physically separated busways and protected bike lanes.

Sometime next month, reports Pete Donohue in today's Daily News, DOT intends to release detailed plans for First and Second Avenues. So far, we've only seen what an "off-set" bus lane configuration would look like, but DOT and the MTA are still considering a range of options. It's pretty clear that off-set bus lanes, placed between curbside parking and traffic, won't qualify as world-class.

Unlike separated lanes, off-set lanes require camera enforcement -- and state legislation -- to function properly. Albany rejected bus cams last year, and even if legislators suddenly change their minds, a camera-enforced off-set configuration invites conflict. Buses would have to contend with cars and delivery trucks trying to access the curb. Separated lanes eliminate that conflict and, paired with protected space for cyclists, invite more biking and walking.

So what would real-deal BRT look like on the East Side? The image up top is one of two options that Transportation Alternatives is backing to deliver the maximum benefits for transit riders, cyclists and pedestrians. The window of opportunity to get these ideas out there won't stay open much longer.

"We are pushing for a visionary design that's going to catalyze thousands of pedestrians, cyclists and bus riders, and turn them into champions of BRT," said TA's Wiley Norvell. "We know there will be opposition to change on First and Second Avenues, regardless of what is proposed; what is critical is that the design delivers the kind of new mobility that will build its own constituency of ardent supporters." Each option is projected to reduce the 70-minute travel time along the whole M15 bus route down to about 40 minutes, Norvell said. Implementing the same improvements applied to the Bx12 route on Fordham Road would only bring travel time down to 60 minutes.

Follow the jump for the other preferred design, showing a center-median bus-and-bikeway.

A center-median BRT configuration, with a protected bike lane similar to the new path on Allen Street.

Keep in mind that these are conceptual plans, and there's a great deal of flexibility in the details. In both configurations, local buses would operate in the separated busway, with smaller local stations placed in the median. Correction: In the first configuration, local bus service continues unchanged along the curbside. In the second, local buses would operate in the separated busway, with smaller local stations placed in the median. The second design can accommodate either two bus lanes in between stations, so BRT buses can pass the locals, or bays spaced at intervals for local buses to pull over and allow BRT buses to pass. Elements like bikeway design, curbside parking, and turning restrictions on vehicles could likewise vary within the framework of these plans.

Also, don't forget that BRT enhances service mainly by reducing the amount of time buses stand still or get bogged down in traffic. Average speeds improve dramatically, but these buses won't be zooming down the avenues.

Organized support for a multi-modal solution for the East Side is starting to coalesce. "If the DOT doesn't put bikes in their BRT designs, they're missing an opportunity," said Kurt Cavanaugh, managing director of the East Village Community Coalition, a local advocacy group. "Planning for buses and bikes together makes it as sustainable as possible."

Second-rate design is really not an option on this one. We have a mayor who's gone to the mat for congestion pricing, a DOT commissioner committed to safer, greener streets, and an MTA chair who's made better bus service priority number one. If New York can't pull off a visionary design for sustainable transportation now, maybe we never will.

Mayor Bloomberg has already shown how much his administration can accomplish in just a few years. Since Janette Sadik-Khan's appointment to head the DOT in 2007, the city has striped hundreds of miles of bike lanes, reclaimed acres of street space for pedestrians and improved bus travel for tens of thousands of New Yorkers. "More of the same" is no longer a dirty phrase when it comes to local transportation policy. During the next four years, the mayor needs to accelerate this progress, and introduce a few key innovations to maximize the value New Yorkers get from their new streets.

There is plenty of room to build on the Bloomberg administration's record of support for safer, greener streets. Photosim of 34th Street: Luc Nadal and Marc De Decker, ITDP.

Well, the release of DOT's Street Design Manual back in July was an especially auspicious development. This groundbreaking playbook contains templates that can transform streets in neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs. The manual is an engineering document, but it also makes sense as an outreach tool. Community groups concerned about street safety could use the manual as a menu, requesting traffic calming solutions for their neighborhood from DOT. Liberal use of these new designs, applied through a smart community-based process, could pay huge dividends all over the city.

For a fraction of the cost of subway line construction, buses could move millions, if the mayor throws his weight behind BRT.

One sensible way for the NYPD to roll out this approach to traffic enforcement would be to start in areas frequented by children and seniors. Seniors make up 12 percent of New York's population, yet account for 39 percent of pedestrian fatalities. And according to the Department of Health, auto traffic is the leading cause of injury-related death in children ages 1-14. DOT's Safe Routes to School and Safe Routes for Seniors programs have spawned imitators around the country, but our city is no longer the national leader. Other cities are now far ahead of New York when it comes to implementing these street safety programs. Combined with police enforcement, short-term and inexpensive improvements such as leading pedestrian intervals, reductions in signalized crossing speeds, and a citywide slower speed limit in school zones would prioritize pedestrians, save the lives of children and seniors, and get New York City back in the forefront of planning streets for safety.

Greater safety helps more New Yorkers feel at ease riding on our streets. As the city's bike network matures, a large-scale public bike-share system is a no brainer. Bike-sharing weaves cycling into the larger transportation network. In Paris, Velib tripled cycling in a few months with 20,000 bikes spread over 1,400 stations. Montrealers took more than a million rides on Bixi in fewer than six months, and similar gains have been repeated around the globe. The same explosive growth would happen in New York overnight, if Mayor Bloomberg backed bike-share in a big way. Seventy-four percent of trips here are five miles or less, meaning they're very bikeable and easily converted to bike-share trips. If he builds it, they will come.

The same is true of new and better bike facilities. Since the city installed the Ninth Avenue cycle track, biking on the West Side has gotten safer, and so has walking. In Brooklyn, the Kent Avenue protected path is having an identical effect. Traffic-protected bike lanes on Queens Boulevard, through upper Manhattan, down the Upper West Side, and all along the East Side -- where there is a dearth of safe space for cyclists -- would encourage thousands more New Yorkers to ride.

Mayor Bloomberg is a MetroCard guy, but it's much easier to spot him on the subway than riding the bus. That should change in the next four years. Although 2.4 million people ride New York City Transit buses each weekday, the bus system is the city's most underperforming transportation resource. Improvements like pre-paid boarding and signal priority, which have been installed along Fordham Road in the Bronx, could speed service on bus routes around the city. And a true Bus Rapid Transit network, with dedicated lanes for buses and level boarding for passengers, would add another dimension to our transit system. For a fraction of the cost of subway line construction, buses could move millions, if the mayor throws his weight behind BRT.

Mayor Mike has a lot on his plate in the coming weeks, months and years. But if he wants to keep New York City moving toward a sustainable future and shore up his legacy as the Livable City mayor, then safer streets, robust bike-share and better buses are the fastest way to get there.

Much of the answer, says Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former Baltimore cop, boils down to the way police perceive their work:

Photo: Wiley Norvell.

The NYPD fails to enforce traffic crime in part because the NYPD does not track traffic crime. And part of the reason the NYPD doesn't track traffic crime is because deterring it doesn't bring the same clear rewards as more traditional law enforcement.

"It doesn't draw on the skills police see themselves as having. It is annoying and time-consuming for officers to do traffic stops," Moskos says. "Partly because the people you are helping aren't there to appreciate how you are helping them. There is not much gratification for traffic work on a personal or professional level, because the people you are helping are not there to thank you."

To make the benefits of law-abiding behavior behind the wheel more apparent, perhaps a good first step would be to strengthen the NYPD's working relationships with advocates for street safety. (Case in point: San Francisco's new police chief, George Gascon, said he would consider creating a liaison to cyclists in an interview with Streetsblog San Francisco last month.)

Drawing on the "broken windows" school of policing that NYPD has famously employed for two decades as a core strategy to deter crime, Singer notes that New York's streets will remain hazardous as long as motorists perceive the consequences of reckless driving to be arbitrary and rare:

Applying the rigor of the Broken Windows Theory to traffic enforcement would change the way the NYPD measures and deters traffic crime. The new regime would end the practice of consistently ignoring moving violations spotted through the patrol car window. But more importantly, as the application of Broken Windows did with street crime, it would indicate to drivers that they cannot get away with it, that the lawlessness police ignored in the past will no longer be tolerated in the present.

"There is no question about it, you would have to do this on a regular basis, almost consistent basis, to be effective," says Lou Riccio, Commissioner at the NYC Department of Transportation during the Dinkins administration. Riccio was one of several traffic experts interviewed for the "Executive Order" report. "That's the problem with enforcement, it is random. [Behavioral psychologist B.F.] Skinner said [you need] random rewards and certain punishments. What we do is no rewards and random punishments, and they may actually exacerbate the problem. If [drivers] get caught, they think it's just the bad luck of the draw. And therefore they don't change their behavior."

The unidentified driver of this car, who injured six when he slammed into a Queens bus stop this month, is one of thousands of city motorists who harm and endanger others without consequence.

Maureen McCormick has specialized in prosecuting reckless drivers for 14 years. She led the Kings County Vehicular Crimes Bureau in Brooklyn, and now works for Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice. On Tuesday, McCormick said she believes the state's criminally negligent homicide statute, by virtue of its status as a Class E felony -- the least severe of all felony categories -- is "illogical on its face." Further, McCormick said, courts often go soft on killer drivers by twisting the language of the statute in ways unintended by the state.

McCormick cited a 2008 case as an example. Here is her account from a March Streetsblog interview:

As recently as May 2008, New York's highest court held that a 17-year-old driver who violated his junior license by driving with four unrelated passengers, without seatbelts, and who also was speeding at 70-72 mph through a curve with a posted caution speed of 40 mph, and who lost control sending the car over an embankment and killing three of his passengers, could not be held criminally liable (People v. Cabrera, 10 NY3d 370 [2008]). This decision alone has resulted in numerous defense motions to have cases dismissed claiming that "speed alone" or any traffic infraction "alone" is not sufficient to sustain criminal negligence. Our position is that this is nonsense.

McCormick wants state legislators to tell the courts they are misinterpreting the law. Another panelist, Oregon civil attorney and bike lawyer Ray Thomas, suggested that instead of trying to read defendants' minds -- the Cabrera case turned on the driver's perception of risk -- states should rely on objective, definable criteria. In Alabama, to cause a death while violating a traffic law is to commit homicide, regardless of intent. In Alabama, Georgia, Idaho and North Carolina, the severity of the charge stemming from a non-fatal crash depends on the extent of the victim's physical injuries. These approaches have worked well, Thomas said. Another way to remove subjectivity from court decisions, and to reduce the chance of reversal on appeal, said Thomas, is to assign penalties to certain acts undertaken while driving, like texting.

Thomas was instrumental in the successful push for Oregon's "vulnerable user" law. Focusing on road workers and school kids is a good way to win over police and appeal to the "protective impulses" of legislators, Thomas said. While acknowledging that Oregon, too, has a long way to go in the traffic justice arena, its vulnerable user law has singled out anyone not "encased in a steel exoskeleton," as Thomas put it, as worthy of extra care. A driver convicted of causing death or serious physical injury to a vulnerable user in Oregon must complete a traffic safety course and 100 to 200 hours of community service, or else pay a fine of up to $12,500 and lose his or her license for one year.

New York has its own vulnerable user law in the works, named after Hayley Ng and Diego Martinez, two pre-schoolers who died when an unattended, idling van backed onto a sidewalk in Chinatown. But given the horrific consequences of driver-on-pedestrian violence, such measures are abysmally inadequate. As McCormick said Tuesday, to truly be punished in New York State for killing someone with your vehicle, you almost have to be intoxicated.

Not that weak laws are 100 percent to blame. The only charge that applies to either a vehicular assault or homicide that does not require the presence of alcohol or drugs, said Peter Goldwasser of Transportation Alternatives, is criminally negligent homicide. Between 1994 and 2008, there were only 29 indictments for this crime in all of New York State, according to Goldwasser. During that period, about 10,000 people died on New York State roadways.

The third symposium panelist, Brooklyn-based criminal defense attorney Scott Cerbin, believes New York prosecutors have the tools at their disposal to dispense justice, but lack fiscal resources. Due to overwhelming case loads, Cerbin said, the majority end in pleas, which result in lighter sentences. In fact, Cerbin is skeptical that Cy Vance will be able to substantially beef up Manhattan's vehicular crimes unit as promised, especially if the city experiences a surge in other violent crimes. McCormick agreed -- to a point -- likening traffic safety efforts to school art and music programs: the first to be cut when budgets get tight.

Cerbin also said that NYPD officers virtually never charge motorists with reckless driving, and prefer to issue summonses rather than make arrests. This breakdown at the point where a traffic offense occurs, be it a fender-bender or a gruesome death, illustrates what could have been the theme of the day: in the words of Ray Thomas, "perspective imposes outcome." Every level of lawmaking and enforcement -- from the cop to the assistant district attorney, the state court judge to the state legislator -- is populated by people who identify as much or more so with fellow drivers as with victims of vehicular violence.

Thomas argued that, since a vehicle can do catastrophic damage even with no intent to harm, a new paradigm is needed wherein driving a car is considered a privilege requiring a considerable amount of care, with commensurate consequences for recklessness. What we have instead is a system so infused by car culture that anyone outside a vehicle is considered to be tempting fate. As for other drivers or passengers who lose their lives, well, accidents happen.

Whether a cultural shift is needed to bring about changes in laws and enforcement, or vice versa, one thing is clear. To paraphrase Maureen McCormick: We have a lot of work to do.

Headless meter poles on Madison Avenue, awaiting rebirth. Photo: Wiley Norvell.

New York's trusty single-space parking meters are a dying breed. They've served commercial corridors admirably, but they're rapidly giving way to muni-meters (which are much better suited for innovations in curbside pricing, like DOT's PARKSmart program).

The downside of the shrinking meter supply: New Yorkers have even fewer options to lock up their bikes. While DOT is in the process of adding 5,000 bike racks in the next few years, the rate of rack installation hasn't kept up with the rapid pace of meter removal. So cyclists could breathe a little easier last week, when DOT revealed that it will repurpose defunct meter poles as bike racks, a policy that advocates had been urging the agency to adopt.

We're already seeing signs of re-born meters out on the street. Transportation Alternatives' Wiley Norvell sent this pic of headless poles on Madison Avenue, where DOT will convert four meters per block (two on each side of the street) into bike racks.

Prior to voting overwhelmingly in favor of protected bike lanes at last week's Manhattan CB 8 meeting, the board also approved a motion to convert meters to bike racks on Madison from 69th Street to 90th Street. But not before a lengthy debate prompted by the board's liaison to the Madison Avenue BID. Apparently concerned about sidewalk clutter, the BID doesn't want converted bike racks on the avenue itself, but on the corners of each side street instead. (This would defeat the purpose of the conversion, since there are no parking meters on side streets.) The notion that customers ride to their shops has yet to gain sway with this particular BID.

As Norvell told Streetsblog, more official bike parking is good news for everyone who uses the sidewalk. "Lack of on-street parking is why bikes end up chained to anything and everything that's nailed down," he said. "Converting these existing poles to bike racks is a fast and inexpensive way to increase the supply and keep sidewalk clutter under control."

So, what will the meters look like once the conversion is complete? We have a request in with DOT for an image of the final product. Norvell tells us the re-purposed meters will incorporate the "hoop" design of the city's new official bike rack. For some out-of-town previews, here's how they do it in Sacramento and Baltimore. And Matt Roth at Streetsblog San Francisco wrote up a great piece this summer detailing how several other cities handle the disappearing parking meter problem.

Cy Vance, far right, joined by (l-r) Oregon attorney Raymond F. Thomas, TA's Peter Goldwasser, New York attorney Scott Glen Cerbin, and Nassau County prosecutor Maureen McCormick. Photo: Brad Aaron

Don't take our word for it. This is the message from Cy Vance Jr., the candidate who next Tuesday is all but certain to be elected Manhattan's next district attorney. Speaking at today's legal symposium on vehicular violence at the Cardozo School of Law, Vance called the number of city traffic fatalities "extremely large" when compared to its 500 annual murders, and reiterated his campaign pledge to make vehicular violence a priority on his watch.

"Safety on our streets is going to be a very, very important issue for our office," said Vance, who noted that his son is a Manhattan cyclist.

Vance restated his commitment to allotting additional resources to the Manhattan DA's Vehicular Crimes Unit, as well as his intent to curb dangerous driving with prevention techniques currently applied to other potentially deadly behaviors. Vance also said he plans to approach traffic crime through the "community justice" model [a concept explained in this PDF], working with NYPD precincts to identify specific problem areas.

Much of today's event -- co-hosted by the Cardozo School, Transportation Alternatives and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign -- was devoted to what other states are doing to hold killer drivers accountable. We'll delve into that in a follow-up post. Vance said that he, too, plans to look nationwide to keep up with case law.

"I have a lot to learn," he said. "I will be an active student."

Painted lanes are not enough, East Siders told CB8 last night. Photo: BicyclesOnly/Flickr.

Thanks to groundwork laid by Transportation Alternatives' East Side committee, yesterday's proceedings offered further evidence that, as Charles Komanoff wrote a few weeks ago, cyclists are shedding their status as "the embattled minority." By and large, the discussion lacked duke-it-out drama. During the public comment period, eight speakers testified in favor of the resolution, including TA's bike advocacy director Caroline Samponaro, who delivered a few hundred signatures for good measure. None spoke against. And when it came time for the board to take up the matter, a few CB 8 members identified themselves as bike commuters.

People spoke movingly about their harrowing experiences trying to ride in their own neighborhood, and about the inadequacy of un-protected bike lanes. "Painted lines on the road are not safe," said Jack Russell, 62, a 29-year resident of Yorkville. Given the lack of protected space and the disconnected state of the East River greenway, several cyclists testified that they ride far out of their way -- over to the Hudson River path -- to get downtown. Anthony Romer, a recent transplant from Madison, Wisconsin, told the board that he just doesn't ride as much since he moved to New York: "If I ride here, I put my life on the line."

It's true that community board members were not asked to render a decision on a specific route. But they had plenty of real New York City examples to draw from (not just tales from Europe) as they formulated their votes. Anyone who's ventured outside in Manhattan recently can picture the Ninth Avenue bike lane and the newly transformed Broadway, which were invoked on more than one occasion last night. If last night's vote is any indication, it's hard to argue with the impressive safety records of these existing Class 1 bike facilities. They provide solid proof that safer streets for cyclists are safer for pedestrians too.

Three years ago, when local resident and activist Glenn McAnanama approached CB8's transportation committee about better bike lanes for the neighborhood, the idea that bike infrastructure makes streets safer didn't gain much traction. "Whenever cycling came up they turned it into a discussion of scofflaw cyclists," he said. "Increasing the number of cyclists in the neighborhood was not on their agenda." He views last night's vote as a sign that the CB has committed to street safety and wants to "get more iterative with the DOT."

The vote of confidence in protected bike lanes would never have happened without the advocates and volunteers working on TA's East Side campaign. "Last night was really the culmination of a year-long effort by our East Side committee to be more engaged with the community board," said Samponaro. "Going to your community board and advocating for these things at a local level can bring change."

For Samponaro, the signature moment of the night came when 11-year-old Clark Vaccaro talked about the dangers he faces on his ride to school. "I don't think the CB expected that," she said. "It becomes very hard to vote against these measures when you see the faces of people who are asking for them."

Photo: New York Times

Vance will deliver opening remarks at the symposium, set to convene at 9 a.m. at the Cardozo School, 55 Fifth Ave. in Manhattan.

"I am pleased to be invited to next week's event," Vance said in a statement to Streetsblog. "This seminar will address very important public safety issues facing Manhattan and our entire city."

The presence of the candidate who in all likelihood will be Manhattan's next top prosecutor (Vance, a Democrat, faces no Republican opposition in the November 3 general election) again gives safe streets advocates reason to believe that long-awaited progress in the fight for traffic justice is at hand.

"Mr. Vance’s actions continue to indicate that, if elected, his office will give vehicular crimes the attention they deserve," said TA’s Peter Goldwasser.

The October 27 symposium is free and open to the public. Further details are on the TSTC web site.

Diego Martinez and Hayley Ng are among the many victims whose killers never face justice.

Later this month, Transportation Alternatives, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law will hold a symposium addressing the prosecution of vehicular homicide in New York State. TSTC's Mobilizing the Region reports:

Prosecutors, defense attorneys, and legal advocates will examine the existing legal framework and discuss innovative or untried techniques and those in use in other states. The program is free and open to everyone. Attorneys will be eligible for CLE credit.

"This is a watershed moment," says TSTC's Kyle Wiswall. "There are too many examples of mayhem on the streets that go unprosecuted. We'll be discussing why this is so, and, perhaps more importantly, what can be changed to find justice for the vulnerable users and victims of careless driving."

No word yet on whether they will be in attendance, but this would be a great opportunity for members of Team Vance to get a head start on the new Manhattan DA's traffic justice agenda. Peter Goldwasser, general counsel for TA, is optimistic that the symposium can build on recent progress in the fight against vehicular violence.

"It's our hope that the discussion will lead to concrete progress in finding justice for the innocent victims of careless and negligent driving," Goldwasser says. "We want to get to the very root of the problems lawmakers, prosecutors and judges encounter when these cases arise. Furthermore, with the recent election of a new Manhattan District Attorney who specifically included a pedestrian safety plank in his campaign platform, we are further encouraged that change is afoot."

Panelists will include Maureen McCormick, a former Brooklyn prosecutor who now works for Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice, known nationally for her vigorous pursuit of justice for victims of drunk driving.

"With this symposium," says Wiswall, "we will help move the issue of traffic justice from awareness to action."

The symposium will be held on October 27 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Cardozo School of Law, 55 Fifth Ave. in Manhattan. RSVP info and other details are here.

Site of James Langergaard's fatal August 14 crash

Tomorrow, TA will be holding a special Queens Boulevard Bike Pool ride in honor of James. The ride will pause at the site of James' crash to dedicate his ghost bike. The ride meets at the Queens foot of the Queensboro Bridge bike-pedestrian path (Queens Plaza North at Crescent Street in Long Island City), and ends in Forest Hills. Riders depart at 6:30 p.m.

I recently helped install James' ghost bike and saw for myself the intersection where my friend perished. Queens Boulevard is notoriously dangerous to cross, but this is a particularly forbidding stretch for anyone not encased in steel and glass.

James was riding south on 69th Street and had begun the perilous traverse of a 10-lane highway. After crossing three lanes of the "access" road, he came to the four-lane "express" portion of the Boulevard. Vehicles traveling down this corridor are given copious visual cues that they are on the urban equivalent of a limited-access freeway. They hurtle along a concrete, fenced-in channel that could be transplanted to any suburban no-man's land without alteration. The only things out of place would be a crosswalk and a 30-mph speed limit sign, which may be the highway department's idea of a joke given the inducements to exceed it.

As he approached the express lanes, James' view of traffic coming towards him from the left would have been partially obscured by a fence and signs placed in the median. He wouldn't have gotten a clear view of approaching traffic until he was only a few yards from the intersection. All he had to remind him that he was about to enter a zone of mortal danger was a distant "Don't Walk" signal at the other end of the intersection. That and a thoughtful sign placed on the median to his left warning any pedestrian foolish enough to venture across this deadly expanse to "Be Alert: Proceed With Caution."

According to witnesses, James was crossing against the light. But capital punishment should not be the likely penalty for an error in judgment. James was arguably as much the victim of an infrastructure designed exclusively for the convenience of motorists. All others who stray into the area are an afterthought, at best.

By coming on the ride or attending the dedication, you can help send a strong message to the community and the city that these casualties of the Boulevard will not be forgotten, and that such inhuman landscapes in the middle of a congested city must not be tolerated and must change.

WHERE: Ride meets at the Queens foot of the Queensboro Bridge  bike-pedestrian path (Queens Plaza North at Crescent Street in Long Island City); Ride ends in Forest Hills

WHEN: Friday, October 2; Riders depart at 6:30 p.m.

Monthly bike commuter pools on Queens Boulevard are led by TA's Queens Committee to provide cyclists with a safe ride home, and build support for protected space for cyclists on the borough's most iconic roadway.

Chalk up more bikeway innovation to the folks at the NYC Department of Transportation. Nearly complete, the Sands Street approach to the Manhattan Bridge is now safer and more enjoyable thanks to a New York City first: a center-median, two-way protected bike path. The facility is a perfect solution to counter the dangers posed by a tangle of roads and highway on-ramps that burden the area. Dramatic before-and-afters tell the delicious story.

We'll also take you back into the archives to April 2005, when, following a severe injury to Transportation Alternatives' Noah Budnick, advocates held a passionate rally asking Mayor Bloomberg to not only improve bike access to the Manhattan Bridge, but to all East River bridges. Four years later, there's much to be proud of. As DOT Assistant Commissioner for Traffic Management Ryan Russo points out, back in 2005 about 800 cyclists used the bridge daily. In 2009, those numbers have soared to over 2,600. That gives us a serious case of happiness.

In preparation for Park(ing) Day festivities tomorrow, here's a flashback to last year. If you're setting up a spot, or will be hanging out in one or more the 50-plus spaces to be reclaimed for the day, share your photos with us by tagging them "parkingdaynyc" and "streetsblog" on Flickr. We'll be posting pics from across the boroughs.

Transportation Alternatives will also unveil the winner of the POP.Park competition on St. Marks Place between First and Second Avenues.

See you at the park, wherever it may be.

Cy Vance, at left, with Richard Aborn at a Chelsea pedestrian memorial march in June. Photo: Brad Aaron

At TA's candidate forum, and again at a Hell's Kitchen pedestrian memorial march, Vance heard personally the heart-rending stories of victims of vehicular violence. In response, he issued a detailed plan to ramp up the vehicular crimes bureau, improve crash site investigation techniques and lobby lawmakers for legislation to clamp down on dangerous driving -- including graduated penalties for repeat offenders, so that today's speeding red light-runner isn't tomorrow's hit-and-run killer.

Vance has promised to work with NYPD to target high-casualty areas and, for drivers whose actions result in death, to forgo the arbitrary "Rule of Two" in seeking punishment more suited to the crime.

"After years of watching dangerous drivers who kill put back behind the wheel, we are confident the next DA is going to utilize the robust and varied resources of the office to implement comprehensive pedestrian safety initiatives," TA Executive Director Paul Steely White said Wednesday. Time will tell how quickly, and to what extent, these initiatives come to fruition -- and continued vigilance will no doubt be required. But after this campaign street safety will surely be a hot topic in many contests to come. For that, livable streets advos can give themselves credit.

Team Amsterdam's concept for a bike and bus boulevard down Broadway.

Team Amsterdam won running away at Saturday night's New Amsterdam Bike Slam design battle, the two-team competition to devise the best plan for boosting bicycle modeshare in New York City. But Team New York could go home with their heads high -- they presented a lot of ideas that would work wonders on New York City streets.

The team labels are a little misleading. This was not an exercise in intercity jingoism. Team Amsterdam included Dutch city planners and American designers, by and large, while Team New York featured American planners and Dutch designers. The contest, hosted by Transportation Alternatives and Velo Mondial, asked competitors to come up with an overall vision for increasing bicycling, designs for four specific types of infrastructure, and a plan to make biking culturally mainstream. Some of their ideas you could picture on the streets of New York tomorrow, given sufficient resources. Other concepts were a little more outlandish.

My impression of the evening is that the Amsterdam team won the hearts of the judges thanks to consistent branding, an excellent presentation, and a cohesive message: That biking must become the easy transportation choice for New Yorkers, not the hard choice. They threaded the word "bright" through all of their concepts -- a brilliant, simple, but not at all obvious choice to associate with the bicycle (it's also closely associated with a bike coating prototype that team member Michael Mandiberg is developing).

In terms of realistic and effective infrastructure plans, though, I personally give a slight edge to Team New York. With a tighter presentation, their ideas might have won out.

I'll keep it brief and break down some highlights in bullet point form.

From Team New York:

• "Safe Zones" around bridge approaches with high-visibility bike lanes saturating the grid, a 20 mph speed limit and heightened fines;
• Two-way, separated bike approaches to every bridge entrance;
• A bike boulevard down Broadway -- they presented this concept as a two-way separated path, with plantings, running down the middle of the street with one car lane on each side;
  
• Separated bike paths on Houston Street;
  
• Safe zones around every school and public housing development. In the East Village and Lower East Side, if you traffic calm streets and add protected bike infrastructure around these locations, you'd end up with a fairly well-connected grid. To my eyes, this looked like a brilliant strategy for rolling out safe streets infrastructure; 
• Different scales of bike parking for different needs, including on-street bike corrals;
  
• For major employment centers like the Municipal Building: automated secure underground bike parking, a la Japan, encased in an attention-grabbing transparent structure (pretty far out).

As imagined by Team New York, safe zones would guide cyclists to and from bridge approaches.

• Two-way separated bike approaches to bridge entrances. This team suggested a Williamsburg Bridge bike path stretching to Lafayette Street. I sense a pattern;
• A bike and bus boulevard down Broadway (shown up top, one of the most talked-about images of the night);
• Put most bike infrastructure on neighborhood streets, not traffic sewers like Houston --  a big difference between the two teams;
• A new neighborhood street layout: angled car parking, delivery zones, and bike corrals on one side -- bike lane with no car parking on the other side;
  
• A grade-separated bike "freeway" slipped underneath the FDR. Bold, but not something that seemed appealing to ride on or worth fantasizing about very much;
• A guarded bike parking hub at the Municipal Building with direct connections to the subway.
  

Team Amsterdam's concept for a neighborhood street. The parallel parking spot is for deliveries and the green parallelogram is for bike parking.

Both teams, I should mention, tied everything together with a robust bike-share network.

If there was anything more captivating than the re-imagination of street space on display Saturday night, it was the spectacle of Meatpacking hotspot Cielo crammed with sustainable transportation geeks, with just a smattering of regular club-goers looking totally perplexed and a little miffed.

An aside about the Meatpacking District: This was the first time I'd seen the Gansevoort area in full swing on a weekend night. You've got to see this traffic to believe it. Looking east from Ninth Avenue and 14th Street, the line of cabs, limos, livery cars, and assorted machines for preening stretched as far as I could see, way beyond Eighth Avenue. The notion that a few pedestrian extensions on Ninth Avenue exacerbate all this gridlock is totally preposterous. People on foot need that space or they'd be risking life and limb crossing the street in front of these impatient drivers.

Tomorrow night, Paul White does his best Chairman Kaga.

The teams, each comprised of American and Dutch planners jumbled together, have been roaming the city the past few days, hatching their plans. They've been asked to address everything from law enforcement to bike culture in their presentations. The most interesting visuals should appear in the second round of the contest. That's when the teams will unveil designs for four types of bike infrastructure: a bridge crossing (the Williamsburg Bridge, specifically), a greenway, a neighborhood-scale network of streets, and a large office building (the Municipal Building).

L-r: Council candidates S.J. Jung, John Choe, Evergreen C. Chou, James Wu and Isaac Sasson

With the September 15 primary fast approaching, the race to succeed Liu in District 20 is one of two especially compelling Queens contests, where long-time council incumbents are leaving open seats. (District 26's Eric Gioia is running for public advocate. Streetsblog will profile the race to replace him later this week.)

Of the three District 20 candidates who answered the Transportation Alternatives Candidate Survey -- S.J. Jung, John Choe and Evergreen C. Chou -- all expressed support, to varying degrees, for road pricing, bus rapid transit, bike-share, public plazas, and improved traffic enforcement. Each candidate also said he would like to see innovations like BRT and Summer Streets come to Queens.

Choe served as Liu's chief of staff for eight years, and has the endorsement of his former boss. If elected, Choe says he would advocate for improved service on the 7 train, BRT on Northern Boulevard, and unrestricted subway access for bikes. He would also like to see ferry service on the Flushing River. Choe says he would favor targeted traffic enforcement with increased fines for speeders, and thinks congestion pricing "should be further explored" as a means to reduce traffic and provide funding for transit expansion in areas without easy access to subways.

Choe and Jung, an entrepreneur and community volunteer, are in sync on many if not most transportation issues. But Jung differentiates himself in a couple of key areas. Jung is the only candidate to employ the term "traffic justice" in his survey responses, citing "thorough investigation of all traffic crashes" as a component of a successful strategy to reduce dangerous driving. He also supports "exploring the option" of raising on-street parking rates to "discourage long-term parking, convince some drivers to utilize garage parking and direct others to take public transit."

Chou, a Green Party nominee, is big on bikes: bike lanes, bike parking, bike-share, and bike racks on buses. He would also like to see lower transit fares. While he seems to favor the interests of pedestrians, cyclists and transit users, Chou's positions are largely short on specifics -- though he is the only candidate among the three to declare his unqualified support for congestion pricing.

Candidate James Wu didn't return the TA survey, but according to a Gotham Gazette write-up of the District 20 race, he "would seek to curb rampant jaywalking and reduce speeding." Wu says he would also push to restrict traffic on Main Street in Flushing to pedestrians and buses.

Democrats dominate the District 20 field -- Yen S. Chou and Isaac Sasson round out the Democratic roster -- but with Chou along with Republican Peter Koo in the race, voters won't finalize their choice for John Liu's successor until November.

L-r: City Council candidates Ken Baer, Doug Biviano, Ken Diamondstone, Jo Anne Simon, Evan Thies.

It was an opportunity for the candidates to show how well they understand the most critical transportation problems facing New York City by rebutting Reina with a well-reasoned argument. Traffic generated by the free price on Brooklyn's three East River bridges overruns the 33rd District, which includes parts of Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Park Slope. Congestion pricing, supported by outgoing rep David Yassky, should be as much a no-brainer here as it is in Lower Manhattan.

Only one candidate, Doug Biviano, a former campaign staffer for Kucinich 2008, came close to giving Reina what he asked for. "I'm not against congestion pricing," he said, "but I think we have to be careful about unintended consequences. Do we want to hit people with that toll? In this climate, I don’t think we want to. That would kill contractors."

Biviano was followed by Evan Thies, who played an active role in last year's campaign to pass congestion pricing as a consultant for Environment Defense and the Pratt Center. "I do absolutely support congestion pricing," he said to some applause. "Neighborhoods like this are disproportionately affected by the traffic that’s created by the lack of congestion pricing. Contractors in the outer boroughs supported congestion pricing, because instead of spending time in traffic, they’d be spending more time working for clients." Thies later named congestion pricing his top transportation priority and noted that the next City Council will need to take it up again in 2010 to fund the MTA Capital Plan.

Jo Anne Simon, an attorney who serves as Democratic district leader in the 52nd Assembly District, gave another strong statement in support of pricing. "The gratuitous traffic that comes over the bridges is just that, gratuitous," she said. "We’re a doormat. It’s costing us in infrastructure; it’s costing us in health. The challenge for us as policy makers is to convince people in the outer boroughs that congestion pricing benefits them too. It’s not just for Manhattan."

Ken Diamondstone and Ken Baer, the other two candidates at the forum, also endorsed congestion pricing. Baer took the more enthusiastic stance, noting that pricing revenues can help plug the MTA Capital Plan's $10 billion hole. Diamondstone said he "believes strongly" in the policy but thinks exceptions must be made for people with disabilities and, in a novel carve-out suggestion, musicians.

By this point in the debate, candidate Isaac Abraham was long gone.

Abraham, whose base is in Williamsburg's Satmar Hasidic community, left soon after taking a swipe at the Kent Avenue bike lane, about 30 minutes into the event. (He told the crowd of about 50 that he had a wedding to attend.) At least Abraham made an appearance, which is more than we can say for no-show Steve Levin, a protege of Brooklyn Democratic boss Vito Lopez. The day before the debate, Levin backed out of his commitment to attend.

On the question of truck traffic, the need to fund the Cross-Harbor Freight Tunnel was widely invoked by the candidates, but council members can't do much to advance a project that needs billions in federal cash to get built. The more intriguing responses came from Simon and Thies. Simon raised the prospect of truck tolls on the East River bridges (you can do it with E-ZPass transponders, she said), which would put a halt to the free counterclockwise route that sends trucks through downtown Brooklyn streets, while Thies proposed giving Traffic Enforcement Agents the authority to "bust trucks for traveling on non-truck routes."

It wasn't the only question on which Simon and Thies distinguished themselves. While the two Kens showed a solid commitment to street safety measures like automated enforcement and traffic-calming infrastructure, Simon and Thies consistently displayed a broader and more current grasp of transportation issues.

Responding to a question about improving streets for walking, biking and transit, Thies was the only candidate to broach the politically difficult subject of off-street parking reform. "I'd like to prevent garages from being built in developments near subway stops," he said. "It’s bad urban planning, it brings traffic." Simon, meanwhile, made the evening's sole statement on bike-share, a project that she said "needs to be pursued."

Aside from Abraham's early turn at the mic, fireworks over bike lanes failed to transpire. One audience member did mention that she fears cyclists while driving at night, and asked the candidates if they would push legislation requiring cyclist registration and helmet use. To read what they had to say, check out "Audience Question #1" over at TA's candidate survey blog.

Tonight's debate: Come for the bike lane drama, stay for the discussion of parking policy. Photo: Brooklyn Paper.

To get a sense of the hot transportation topics in the district, especially the North Brooklyn neighborhoods closest to tonight's venue, Streetsblog spoke to Teresa Toro, chair of Brooklyn CB1's Transportation Committee, and Michael Freedman-Schnapp of Neighbors Allied for Good Growth.

Here's what they want the candidates to address tonight:

Bike and pedestrian safety. Streetsblog readers are familiar with the twists and turns of the Kent Avenue bike lane saga. In a district that includes approaches to all three of Brooklyn's East River bridges, it's probably not the last such dispute we'll see. "There’s a clear need in the district to continue to improve biking infrastructure and to make walking safer," said Freedman-Schnapp, noting that, in addition to the bridge approaches, corridors like McGuinness Boulevard have particular safety deficiencies that need to be addressed. The fact that all three bridges remain free, Toro reminded us, attracts a disproportionate amount of traffic to the district and discourages people from biking and walking.

Truck traffic. As the latest Kent Avenue dust-up has made apparent, truck traffic is a big issue in North Brooklyn. "Truck-generating uses are important employment sources in the neighborhood," said Freedman-Schnapp, but management and enforcement of truck routes are lacking. For some sharp insight into how better truck route planning can address some of the complaints arising from Kent Avenue's conversion to one-way flow, check out this post from neighborhood blog Brooklyn 11211.

Too much parking, not enough planning. Williamsburg and Greenpoint have seen a spike in car-oriented development since a 2005 rezoning took effect. Thanks in large part to Department of City Planning parking minimums, thousands of new units have been built with more space allotted to parking compared to the existing urban fabric, causing a surge in traffic volumes.

"The rezoning had no transportation plan," said Freedman-Schnapp. "They analyzed the impacts. They had this very thick EIS. Then nothing happened to address those impacts."

The EIS badly misjudged the transportation impacts of the rezoning, Toro said, calling the end result a huge missed opportunity. "The area around the Bedford Avenue station is prime real estate because of its proximity to transit. You have such a clear demonstration of people preferring transit, and yet they're being handed the option of car ownership." She wants to know whether the candidates support studying traffic-calming improvements and enhanced bus-to-subway connections to relieve the area's growing traffic pressures.

The traffic trouble unleashed by abundant residential parking figures to intensify if projects like the Domino Sugar factory redevelopment -- where 70 percent of luxury units are slated to include parking, according to Freedman-Schnapp -- proceed as planned. It will be interesting to see where the candidates stand on reforming the city's parking requirements.

Transit crowding, transit funding. Crowding on the L train is reaching Lexington Avenue line proportions, said Freedman-Schnapp, and even northbound G service can get cramped in the morning -- problems that ultimately boil down to how well we fund our transit system. "[The candidates] can yell at the MTA all they want," he said, "but when it comes down to it, they need more money to improve service, so where’s the money going to come from?"

A bit more background on the generous neckdown at Smith and Bergen spotlighted earlier today: This pedestrian amenity never would have been built without the long-term organizing for the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project. Street protests and advocacy campaigns stretching back more than a dozen years are bearing fruit now.

And advocates are still on their game, pushing for more. This slideshow comes from Dave "Paco" Abraham, a volunteer with Transportation Alternatives' Brooklyn Committee who's had his eye on the corner of Smith and Bergen in particular. "I always thought that intersection needed something," he said. Thousands of commuters pass through the subway entrances on these corners every day. You've got students walking to schools on Bergen and customers heading to the restaurant row on Smith. They're all contending with traffic that tends to accelerate on the excessively wide Bergen as drivers try to make the light at Court Street.

When Abraham heard the city was moving on a big slate of downtown Brooklyn traffic calming measures, he drew up a letter urging the maximum possible sidewalk extension and the addition of bike parking at the northwest corner of the intersection. He met with more than a dozen merchants in the immediate vicinity and asked them to sign on. "I don’t think there was a place I went to that said no," he says. "It was tremendous." He also garnered support from local civic groups and the two nearest schools -- the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School and the Mary McDowell Learning Center.

It's hard to say precisely what effect Abraham's campaign had on the final outcome at this intersection. But there's a lot more sidewalk real estate here than at your typical curb extension, and, at the very least, DOT knew there was widespread local support for something ambitious, thanks to his organizing. DOT is considering the addition of bike parking, a spokesman told Streetsblog earlier this week.

If you're interested in putting together a similar campaign for a specific intersection, Abraham has a whole tutorial about building momentum for a "bike parking swap" posted on the Livable Streets Community site.