Streetsblog New York City

At the end of its second meeting on a DOT proposal to improve bike safety on the Manhattan approaches to the Queensboro Bridge, the transportation committee of Manhattan Community Board 6 reached a conclusion. The committee needed more time to make up its mind.

The highlight of the plan is a two-way protected bike lane on First Avenue beneath the Queensboro Bridge. Image: DOT

“We will have a decision by June,” chair Fred Arcaro said.

North of 59th Street, Community Board 8′s transportation committee decided last week that two meetings was enough, and voted to support the plan with modifications. It’s scheduled to go before the full board on May 22.

Last night, Robert Cohen, who is not an appointed board member but sits on the CB 6 committee, said that DOT’s presentation, with diagrams, maps, and photo simulations, wasn’t enough. He needed a walk-through with DOT to fully comprehend the proposal. Other committee members said that they had already done a walk-through, but Arcaro went ahead and asked DOT to do a site visit with committee members.

DOT had tweaked the proposal [PDF] since it first presented the plan last month. It now includes a traffic signal for southbound cyclists using the proposed two-way protected bike lane between 59th and 60th Streets. In addition, signal timings at the intersection of 59th Street and First Avenue have been changed so that pedestrians and cyclists will cross the intersection at different times than drivers turning from First Avenue to 59th Street on their way to the Queensboro Bridge.

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There is nothing exceptional or interesting about the sight of cars parked in front of a New York City residence. But I’m running this dull photo anyway, because this is basically the same condition that has irritated some residents in downtown Manhattan neighborhoods about bike-share. Instead of cars going in between the traffic lane and the sidewalk in front of their building, it’s a public bike station, and for some people — specifically, the residents of 99 Bank Street — the transition was so jarring they felt compelled to litigate.

Someday soon, the sight of a bike-share station in front of a residential building is going to be just as boring as this picture, but we’re not there yet.

Tonight, Manhattan Community Board 2 is hosting a discussion about the recently-installed bike-share stations in SoHo and Greenwich Village, and with Citi Bike still such a novel thing, the kvetching won’t be in short supply. If you live or work in the area, this is an important opportunity to point out to your neighbors that bike-share is going to help New Yorkers get around, and the sky is not going to fall because of public bike stations. You’ll also get to see Sean Sweeney in full-on brow-beating mode. Don’t be intimidated.

The meeting starts at 6:30 in the auditorium of P.S. 41, 116 West 11th Street.

Over the weekend, the first Citi Bike stations were installed. And before you could say, “the New York Post,” NYC DOT put out a report today reviewing the extensive public planning process that informed hundreds of bike-share station siting decisions. The next time you see a story about a handful of people complaining about the placement of a bike-share station, remember all the thousands of New Yorkers who participated in this process.

One of 159 public meetings where New Yorkers told bike-share planners where they want Citi Bike stations to go. Photo: DOT

Also buried in the report is a significant piece of news about pricing: DOT revealed that Citi Bike will offer $60 annual memberships (a discount from the regular $95) to NYCHA residents and members of Community Development Credit Unions.

In 2011 and 2012, Streetsblog reported on the online portal where New Yorkers could suggest bike-share stations and the public workshops where participants mapped out where they wanted stations to go. Here’s what the report says about how DOT used that information to come up with a preliminary map of 600 bike-share stations:

Eighteen months of meetings, demonstrations and discussion, 14 community planning workshops, and more than 10,000 online suggestions produced a vast quantity of information on where New Yorkers wanted to see Citi Bike stations. DOT’s first task was to code and synthesize the workshop results from nearly 3,000 possible station locations. Locations that received red “No” arrows during the workshops were removed and locations that received significant numbers of green “Yes” votes were highlighted. Suggestions for other stations not depicted on the maps were vetted by DOT staff to ensure they met the technical criteria.

Comments received via the Website or recorded by note-takers at the workshops were added in. Stations that received votes via the Website were prioritized over stations that had not. DOT planners then used a Geographic Information System (GIS) program to create a predictive model for how big each individual station would need to be. The model analyzed the surrounding land use (residential, commercial, parkland, schools, etc.), population, tourism rates and subway turnstile counts and other transit use throughout the program area. The model also made use of newly available taxi GPS data on origins and destinations of trips, as well as durations and times of day throughout the city.

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Borough President Scott Stringer considers community boards “the first line of defense for Manhattan neighborhoods.” But one name among his final round of appointments, announced yesterday, makes you wonder if Stringer believes Manhattan neighborhoods should be protected from reckless drivers.

Stringer re-upped CB 7′s Daniel Zweig, who along with transportation committee co-chair Andrew Albert opposed the expansion of protected bike lanes on the Upper West Side. Though the existing protected lane on Columbus Avenue has made conditions safer for all street users — pedestrian injuries are down 41 precent — Zweig has said he does not believe DOT’s numbers.

After months of delays by its transportation committee, CB 7 endorsed extending bike and pedestrian infrastructure on Columbus by a wide margin.

Zweig’s reappointment was recommended by City Council Member Inez Dickens. Dickens remained silent last year as a DOT proposal to tame traffic on deadly Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard was watered down at the behest of CB 10.

Albert will be eligible for reappointment next year, after Stringer leaves office, as will Erik Mayor and Frank Brija, two Stringer appointees to CB 11. Brija and Mayor, owners of Patsy’s Pizza and Milk Burger, respectively, waged a misinformation campaign against proposed safety measures for First and Second Avenues in East Harlem, leading the board to temporarily rescind its support for the project.

Among other claims, Brija and Mayor said that safer space for cycling and shorter pedestrian crossings would increase asthma rates.

When 6-year-old Amar Diarrassouba was crushed by a truck driver at an intersection that was slated for improvements, Mayor blamed the victim’s 9-year-old brother. During the ensuing backlash on Twitter, Mayor wrote: “[E]xplain how a narrow road is healthier? Is it like breathing through a straw?”

While some of Stringer’s community board picks are obstacles to safer streets, at least he’s open about who’s behind the appointments, which is more than can be said for other borough presidents.

Brownsville is set to have extra asphalt converted to bike lanes after Community Board 16's supportive vote last night. Photosim: NYC DOT

Good news out of Brooklyn last night: After a community-driven process that started in 2011, Community Board 16 voted to support painted bike lanes and sharrows on 15 miles of Brownsville streets.

The proposal calls for bike lanes on New Lots Avenue, Pitkin Avenue, Mother Gaston Boulevard, and a north/south pair on Hendrix Street and Schenck Avenue. DOT is also in the process of installing more than 600 bike racks in the neighborhood and community partners are hosting bike rides and helmet fittings.

The effort to bring bike lanes to Brownsville was started by Bettie Kollock-Wallace, who now serves as CB 16′s chair. Kollock-Wallace began working with the Brownsville Partnership and the Brooklyn District Public Health Office, which reached out to community members, Transportation Alternatives, and DOT to formulate a plan for bike lanes.

Community Board 5, covering East New York, is expected to vote on the plan soon. Its transportation committee supported an earlier, less comprehensive version of the plan in November. The lanes are slated for installation this spring, according to the Brownsville Partnership.

Image: NYC DOT

Last night, the transportation committee of Brooklyn Community Board 6 voted unanimously in favor of a new PARK Smart zone for Atlantic Avenue, Smith Street, and Court Street, and for a Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway segment connecting Van Brunt Street to Valentino Pier in Red Hook.

The new PARK Smart zone, which Stephen covered earlier this week, works differently than PARK Smart in Greenwich Village and Park Slope, where on-street parking rates rise when demand is highest. NYC DOT’s proposal for Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill is to have rates rise progressively after the first half hour. The goal is to reduce traffic by discouraging long-term parking and all-day meter feeding in curbside spaces that should be turning over frequently. Brooklyn CB 2′s transportation committee voted for the plan on Tuesday.

DOT also presented plans for a Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway segment that would loop out to Valentino Pier from Van Brunt Street. We have a request in with DOT for last night’s presentation (Update: Here it is), but in the meantime, below is a map of this part of the greenway from DOT’s implementation plan [PDF]. It looks like the segment that the CB 6 committee voted for last night includes capital projects 12, 13, and 14 (not 14a), or parts thereof:

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A capital reconstruction of this pedestrian plaza on Ninth Avenue between 14th and 15th Streets got a positive vote from Community Board 4's transportation committee last night. Photo: Google Maps

Last night, two community boards in Sunset Park and Manhattan’s West Side voted to support bike lanes, bike parking and permanent pedestrian plazas. As a result, Sunset Park will be receiving shared lane markings on Fifth Avenue, the permanent reconstruction of a plaza at Ninth Avenue and 14th Street will move ahead, and bike lanes and on-street corrals are on track for the West Side of Manhattan.

In Sunset Park, Brooklyn Community Board 7 voted to support the extension of shared lane markings on Fifth Avenue from 23rd to 65th Streets. (On Fifth Avenue between 23rd and Dean Streets, there are already bike lane and sharrow markings.)

The proposal received a supportive transportation committee vote in July, but stalled after a 15-9-10 vote at the full board in October. CB 7′s first vice chair, Daniel Murphy, reintroduced the sharrows resolution last night, and it passed, 23-5, with seven abstentions.

“We always planned to reintroduce it, it was just a question of when,” Murphy said, adding that a few board members who opposed the plan in October switched to support it this time around. “We didn’t get angry. We got rational,” he said. Murphy said he doesn’t believe this will delay DOT’s ability to install the markings this spring. Streetsblog has asked DOT to confirm an implementation schedule.

In Manhattan, Community Board 4′s transportation committee passed a resolution in support of the permanent reconstruction of a 9,000 square-foot plaza on Ninth Avenue between 14th and 15th Streets. DOT will add street trees on the east side of the plaza; the committee is asking DOT to add greenery to the center of the space, as well.

The Ninth Avenue protected bike lane, which shrinks to a standard painted lane at this location before becoming a buffered lane on Hudson Street, is often full of double-parked cars and trucks. “They told us there is not enough space on the avenue to create a protected bike lane,” committee co-chair Christine Berthet said. “We’re definitely not happy about it.”

A median pedestrian island on Ninth Avenue at 15th Street will be removed and replaced with a curb extension. The design will include cobblestones to match the aesthetic of plaza spaces on Ninth Avenue as it approaches Gansevoort Street.

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Image: NYC DOT

Last night, Manhattan Community Board 7 signaled its support for an extension of the Columbus Avenue protected bike lane — which currently runs one mile, from 96th to 77th Streets — north to 110th Street and south to 69th Street [PDF]. The 26-11 vote (with one abstention) was a much wider margin than CB 7′s 23-19-1 vote in favor of the initial Columbus Avenue bike lane segment back in 2010.

Council Member Gale Brewer didn't talk about the bike lane in her comments before the board last night. "I knew it would pass," she said later. Photo: Stephen Miller

Attendees at last night’s meeting were overwhelmingly in favor of the bike lane, with 29 speaking in favor and only two against the plan. Many wore pink stickers from the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance Campaign to show their support.

Before the vote, CB 7 Chair Mark Diller expressed his support for the plan as well. Calling it “imperfect but worthwhile,” he said the community would be better off with the safety benefits the redesign brings to the street. Diller added that, unlike many other city agencies, “the Department of Transportation seems to care what we think,” and that the community board would have to continue its dialogue with DOT to ensure that the project is successful.

The protected bike lane extension will bring the types of safety benefits seen on the initial segment — pedestrian injuries dropped 41 percent — to dozens more blocks, but it won’t provide a continuous link to the Ninth Avenue bike lane, at least not yet. One aspect of the plan that may be reexamined is the absence of a protected lane south of 69th Street, where DOT is proposing an additional vehicle lane (currently there are three), one of which would be an “enhanced shared lane” similar to the shared lanes on First and Second Avenues in Midtown.

By wringing additional car capacity from the street, while doing very little for bike riders and providing no improvements for pedestrians near the dangerous bowtie intersection with Broadway, DOT’s plan upset both bike lane supporters and opponents on the board.

“They added something that wasn’t even identified as a problem,” said Lisa Sladkus of the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance. After comments from board members last night, Sladkus told Streetsblog, “I think they know it’s something that needs to be addressed.”

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Theresa Scavo and her car. Photo: Brooklyn Paper

It’s no secret that NYC community boards are highly protective of on-street parking, since their members seem more likely to be car owners than the population at large, but it was news to us that board chairs and district managers have free parking perks.

The Brooklyn Paper reports that, come February 1, community board chairs will lose the city-issued placards that allow them to park in metered spots for three hours. While you’d think that would spur them to walk, bike, or take transit to get to meetings in their own neighborhoods, CB 15 chair Theresa Scavo says she will spend less time performing civic duties and more time feeding the meter.

“If I park at a meter that only takes an hour’s worth of quarters, I can’t stay at the meetings the whole time,” Scavo said.

Judging from the quotes collected for this story, it’s as if free parking is considered a reward for the onerous burden of community service — even among community board staff, who are paid for their work.

“They’re doing the community a favor,” said Community Board 18 district manager Dorothy Turano. “I’m doing it as part of my obligation, and there’s no question I deserve to have this pass, but so does [Community Board 18 chairman] Sol Needle.”

Turano and other district managers will retain their parking perks.

The sense of entitlement on display here goes a long way toward explaining why many community boards tend to value curbside parking — for automobiles, not bikes — above all else. From street safety projects to Greenmarkets, in some districts no sacrifice is too great when it comes to preserving the privilege of on-street vehicle storage.

If it looks like their volunteer work might compromise the time required to tend to their cars, Scavo and other auto-dependent board chairs should consider surrendering their posts to people who have a more realistic perspective on what it’s like to get around in New York.

Mark Gorton is the publisher of Streetsblog and lives on the Upper West Side with his wife and four children. This is an edited version of a message he sent to Dan Zweig and Andrew Albert, the co-chairs of the Community Board 7 transportation committee, after neither of them voted in favor of extending the Columbus Avenue protected bike lane this Tuesday. (The project did clear the committee and will be going to the full board later this month.)

Dan and Andrew,

I am writing as a follow up to last night’s CB 7 transportation committee meeting. I was heartened by the overwhelming community support for extending the Columbus Avenue bike lane, and I was glad to see the outcome of the vote of the transportation committee. However, I am still distressed that the leadership of the transportation committee is still so misinformed about the basics of street safety.

I understand that you have the perception that more cycling makes our streets less safe, but that is just not true. DOT studies on Columbus Avenue and around the city show that protected bike lanes make our streets safer for everyone. Similar studies from around the world also demonstrate that fact. The cities in the world that have the safest streets (Stockholm, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, etc.) are also the cities with the most cycling. In the complicated ecosystem of our streets, bicycles are a safety device. Ninety-nine percent of the danger on our streets comes from motor vehicles, and the largest safety effect of bicycles is their impact on reducing the danger from cars and trucks.

I understand that you “feel” differently, but the basics of street safety are well-established principles. Whatever your feelings might be or whatever anecdotal observations you might make do not change the reality of street safety. Your misperceptions have delayed much-needed safety improvements for our neighborhood, and as a result, people are being injured and killed. Hundreds of your neighbors have come out time and time again to tell you how much these safety improvements mean to them, their families, and their neighbors. Last night, multiple people were on the verge of tears because they so desperately want these safety improvements. It amazes me that you have not been moved by the strength, depth, and emotion of the testimony from your neighbors that you have heard time and time again.

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