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Despite a positive vote in committee, earlier this week Community Board 7 on the Upper West Side sidelined a plan to bring more bike racks to the area, after some procedural maneuvering by transportation committee co-chair Dan Zweig stifled discussion. With a key presentation from DOT on extending the Columbus Avenue protected bike lane coming up next week, the episode is a reminder that just about any change to the street faces an uphill battle with Zweig and his fellow co-chair, Andrew Albert.

Next week CB 7 will discuss a bigger issue than bike racks: the potential extension of the Columbus Avenue bike lane. Image: DOT

On Tuesday evening, Manhattan CB 7′s full board meeting seemed to be off to a good start. A proposal for a bike corral at Broadway and West 105th Street, which DOT modified to include more bike parking in response to committee members’ requests, passed the full board 34-1, with two abstentions.

Next up: a resolution asking DOT to consider installing bike racks at locations that the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance Campaign had determined met the city’s standards on Broadway, Amsterdam Avenue, and Columbus Avenue. After reaching out to adjacent businesses and property owners, asking if they wanted to opt out of getting a new bike rack, the campaign was left with 111 bike rack locations that it presented the transportation committee, which passed a resolution in support, 7-2.

Committee co-chair Dan Zweig, who voted against the resolution, introduced the issue to the full board Monday night. In giving many board members their first glimpse of the proposal, Zweig acted ”as though the work we had done was really threadbare,” said Lisa Sladkus, an organizer of the campaign. Zweig wanted committee members to talk to business owners and property owners themselves about each bike rack location.

“We felt we went over and above what was required,” Sladkus said, adding that the campaign modeled its outreach on DOT’s popular CityBench program, which allows adjacent businesses or property owners to opt out. Sladkus said she even sent Zweig a file containing voicemails, emails, and letters between businesses and property owners and the UWS Streets Renaissance Campaign. “Whatever we provided, they wanted more,” she said. ”Dan Zweig did not believe us.”

Quickly after Zweig gave the resolution a withering introduction at Monday’s meeting, board member Ian Alterman made a motion to send the issue back to committee. With the motion on the table, board members were forbidden from speaking about the merits of the bike rack plan. The board, which had heard only criticism of the proposal, voted 23-13, with one abstention, to kick it back to the transportation committee.

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A preliminary rendering of the two-way bikeway and planted buffer slated for West Street in Greenpoint. Image: DDC

NYC DOT and consultants for the Department of Design and Construction gave Greenpoint residents a glimpse of preliminary designs for the West Street segment of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway Wednesday night at a full meeting of Brooklyn Community Board 1. The two-way bikeway proposed for West Street is the first of 23 capital projects that will eventually comprise the finished, 14-mile greenway.

While CB 1 voted in 2008 to support a similar redesign of Kent Avenue (a preliminary segment in the greenway), the current board seems to have regressed since then, and residents who support the project shouldn’t take anything for granted. At Wednesday’s meeting, the fundamental premise of establishing a two-way bike lane on the street received some support from the audience, but also a hostile response from the transportation committee chair.

For motor traffic, the plan would convert the length of West Street, currently two-way, to one-way northbound. Approximately 80 parking spaces on the west side of the street would be replaced with a two-way bike lane, separated from motor vehicle traffic by a mountable curb.

A mountable curb is not what Milton Puryear of the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative would have preferred for West Street. “It’s not ideal,” he said, noting that the he often encounters parked cars on the Sands Street bike path, which has a mountable curb. While the proposed design will be open to similar incursions, Puryear said, it will be “way better than the way it is.”

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On Thursday, Queens Community Board 3 voted to support a more sophisticated way to price on-street parking on commercial streets [PDF], supporting DOT’s proposal to bring the PARK Smart program to Jackson Heights.

PARK Smart can be the most effective traffic-reduction policy in DOT’s toolkit. In some NYC neighborhoods, drivers cruising for parking constitute nearly half of all traffic. PARK Smart adjusts meter rates and extends hours in an effort to align the price of parking with demand, which makes it easier for drivers to find a spot and cuts down on cruising and double parking. Jackson Heights will be the first neighborhood in Queens — and one of only three in the city — to participate in PARK Smart.

New PARK Smart reforms will extend parking meter hours in Jackson Heights to 10 p.m. Map: DOT

The program’s specifics vary in each neighborhood. In Jackson Heights, the PARK Smart pilot will adjust metering on blocks of 37th Avenue, 74th Street, 82nd Street, Broadway, Roosevelt Avenue, 37th Road and Roosevelt Avenue. Meters on 74th Street and Roosevelt Avenue had a one hour limit; under the new policy drivers will be able park for up to two hours. Along one block of 74th Street, meters that turned off at 7 p.m. are now extended until 10 p.m.

While the extension of meter hours will cut down on cruising in the evenings, the pricing in Jackson Heights is not going to change for stays under an hour, limiting the potential to improve parking availability and reduce traffic before 7 p.m.

For drivers who stay longer than 60 minutes, there are now two types of meters in the neighborhood. This is where the new pricing structure comes in. Meters on “progressive rate” streets will charge an increasing fee to discourage long-term parking and keep spaces available for shoppers on major commercial corridors. Meters on “value rate” streets will charge 50 cents for each additional 30 minutes after the first hour — the same rate as the first hour. If someone wants to park for two hours, a progressive rate meter would cost $4, while a value rate meter would cost half that.

The changes will be phased in over the winter, according to DOT, and the pilot is expected to last for about one year. It looks like this initial phase could produce data regarding the difference between “progressive” meters and “value” meters that may inform future PARK Smart phases in Jackson Heights.

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Looks like Queens Community Board 1 has some competition when it comes to irrational opposition to on-street bike parking. DNAinfo reports that a proposed bike corral at Wyckoff Avenue and Starr Street in Bushwick has some detractors at Brooklyn Community Board 4.

“The transportation will be disrupted…and anyone hit by a car or bike coming out of that parking lot for bikes has to fend for himself,” worried Eliseo Ruiz, the transportation committee’s chair. “It looks like this is just going to be storage for bikes.”

Excellent points here. Also: Anyone struck by a meteor coming out of that parking lot for bikes has to fend for himself. Anyone attacked by a bear coming out of that parking lot for bikes has to fend for himself. And anyone crushed by a falling piano coming out of that parking lot for bikes has to fend for himself.

It is, after all, just storage for bikes. Watch out!

A fearsome "parking lot for bikes" on Smith Street. Photo: Jeremy Charette

Last night, Manhattan Community Board 7′s transportation committee debated the merits of bringing protected bike lanes and pedestrian refuges to Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues between 59th and 110th Streets. This would be a big gain for the Upper West Side, which currently only has one mile of protected bike lane on Columbus Avenue. After years of debate and negotiation, residents are growing impatient with the committee’s indecisiveness on street redesigns that make walking and biking safer.

The existing Columbus Avenue bike lane runs from 77th to 97th streets. Photo: DOT

Supporters, who outnumbered opponents in last night’s audience, provided testimony that emphasized the safety benefits of the street redesigns. Resident Detta Ahl said that the protected bike lanes give her the confidence to ride her bike in the neighborhood. On the street, “I am in rough water, with sharks,” she said. “When I’m in the protected bike lane, I am in a pool, with a lane line, and a lifeguard.”

Willow Stelzer noted that pedestrians and drivers have benefited as well. “It’s not just about bicyclists,” she said. Since the refuge islands were installed on Columbus Avenue, she said, her mother feels safer crossing the street.

The committee chairs, Andrew Albert and Dan Zweig, faced tough criticism last night for the committee’s lack of movement on complete streets. “Leadership for the Upper West Side is lacking,” said Henry Rinehart. “We’re falling behind other neighborhoods.”

Mary Beth Kelly, whose husband was killed while riding his bike on the Hudson River Greenway at 38th Street, also expressed frustration with the slow pace. ”He’s been dead for six years and I’ve been showing up at these meetings,” she said. “You just want to sit and waste our time.”

“This committee has not been proactive to date about bike lanes,” said former board chair Mel Wymore, who currently sits on the transportation committee and is running for City Council. While noting that “community board members are volunteers,” Wymore said that “to request leadership from a community board is completely fair game.”

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Are small businesses that cater to cyclists less desirable than those who look to draw motorists? That seems to be the position of Queens Community Board 1.

A good percentage of these business patrons don't count to Queens Community Board 1. Photo: DNAinfo

DNAinfo reported yesterday on the board’s refusal to endorse a bike corral proposed by The Queens Kickshaw, located on Broadway between Steinway and 41st Streets in Astoria.

Owners Jennifer Lim and Ben Sandler, the wife-and-husband team who opened the popular restaurant and cafe in March, say a “good percentage” of their customers arrive by bike — enough that Transportation Alternatives has declared The Queens Kickshaw a bike-friendly business. Yet without proper parking, customers have nothing to secure their bikes to other than a nearby meter.

Lim and Sandler went through the city’s CityRacks application process, but their request was denied by both the CB 1 transportation committee and the full board. Since DOT chooses to defer such decisions to community boards, these budding entrepreneurs are back to square one.

And here’s the kicker:

[T]he board denied the request “because it’s going to take up a very valuable parking space,” said Lucille Hartmann, District Manager.

She said the parking is crucial for merchants on Broadway and Steinway streets, which are major shopping areas.

“Many businesses there are competing with shopping malls where there is parking available,” Hartmann noted.

Got that? Community Board 1 quashed a request from a business for more parking on the grounds that it would take parking from businesses.

Speaking with DNAinfo, Hartmann suggested Queens Kickshaw customers could be accommodated by two new bike racks that will soon be installed at a library across the street. There was no word on where library patrons might park.

Hartmann was not available for comment on the board’s decision. Meanwhile, Lim and Sandler — who, it must be said, are being awfully gracious about this — are giving it another shot. They have posted an online petition, which they plan to present to the board once they gather enough signatures. At this writing they have 324 names and counting.

Tomorrow night, the transportation committee of Manhattan Community Board 7 will take public input on the possible expansion of protected bike lanes on the Upper West Side.

Traffic crashes and injuries dropped significantly after the installation of the Columbus Ave. protected lane. Photo: Civitas

On the agenda is a request from the board that DOT complete a proposal for protected lanes and other changes to the streetscape, including pedestrian islands, turning lanes and loading zones, on Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues from 59th Street to 110th Street.

The existing protected lane, on Columbus from 96th Street to 77th Street, was narrowly endorsed by CB 7 in 2010. Six months after its installation, traffic crashes were down by 34 percent, and the number of traffic injuries dropped by 27 percent, according to DOT.

Data collected by the city following the completion of the one-mile segment showed that, on the blocks of Columbus to the north and south of the bike lane, 29 percent of motorists were clocked speeding, while between eight and 17 percent of vehicles on the stretch of Columbus with the bike lane were found to be traveling faster than the 30 miles per hour speed limit.

The protected lane is also popular with residents, according to a survey conducted by City Council Member Gale Brewer. Safe streets proponents want protected bike lanes running north and south, and want those lanes to connect with existing protected lanes on Eighth and Ninth Avenues.

Nevertheless, a community board recommendation is no sure thing.

“For too long, the leaders of the transportation committee of Community Board 7 have neglected to protect residents and visitors on our streets,” said Lisa Sladkus, of the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance, in an email to Streetsblog. “Protected bike lanes protect ALL road users, including motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists. There are no excuses for not implementing them on many of our streets, connecting people to parks, work, school, and commerce. Yes, parking will be re-allocated for this change. As a community, we need to stand up for safety over the desire to park private vehicles on our public streets. Upper West Side residents deserve safer streets. Please help us in communicating this message to our appointed leaders of the transportation committee. They need to hear a unified and strong voice.”

Tomorrow’s meeting will be held at 250 W. 87th Street at 7 p.m.

DOT’s proposal for a bike lane on Bay Ridge Parkway, which would have preserved all travel lanes and parking, was scrapped after local politicians blasted the concept and Brooklyn Community Board 10 voted against it, 32-8, in May 2011. At the time, the future looked bleak for bike lanes in Bay Ridge.

Instead of simply saying “no,” however, the community board is back, proposing its own bike lane routes to DOT that cover more mileage than DOT’s original proposal.

The current bike map for Bay Ridge is pretty bare. CB 10 voted this week to add more bike lanes to the neighborhood. Map: DOT

Following a 6-1 vote by its transportation committee in June, the community board voted 40-2 on Monday to send a list of potential streets for bike lanes to DOT. The streets include Sixth Avenue, 68th Street from Sixth Avenue to Shore Road, 72nd Street from Shore Road to Sixth Avenue, Marine Avenue and 11th Avenue.

“There will be more bike lanes in Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights, no matter what,” said transportation committee Chair Brian Kieran.

While CB 10′s vote is only advisory and does not guarantee that DOT will install bike lanes at the recommended locations, the request itself represents a significant shift from the board’s confrontational past with the agency.

When DOT first proposed bike lanes, many board members felt the plan was “written in stone,” said CB 10 member Bob HuDock. ”The view of DOT down here is that DOT is kind of the enemy,” he said.

Many neighborhood residents were not happy with DOT’s proposal for bike lanes along Bay Ridge Parkway, Third Avenue, Fort Hamilton Parkway and 92nd Street because, they said, they didn’t want cyclists being directed to high-traffic streets.

After DOT’s original proposal was voted down last year, board member Judith Grimaldi made a motion to ask CB 10′s transportation committee to suggest alternate bike lane routes to DOT. Minutes after DOT’s plan failed, Grimaldi’s motion passed.

In the months that followed, it took a lot of work to change minds and ensure the issue got attention. “There was a big education process,” HuDock said, “proving to people that this was not some frivolous issue. A lot of people in this community rely on bicycles for transportation.” That work paid off with June’s transportation committee vote and this week’s full board vote in support of bike lanes.

“Whenever any specific bike lane was discussed,” HuDock said, opposition would rise, with the “caveat that, ‘We’re not opposed to all bike lanes.’” HuDock doubted the argument. “I always thought this was just rhetoric … but maybe there was more open-mindedness here than I thought.”

Community Board 6 is concerned about a bike-share station at 18th and Irving Place that DOT already eliminated from consideration. Image: NYC DOT

Where can bike-share stations be located, according to the East Side’s not-in-my-backyard crowd? Not Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, which is both too serene for bikes and too crowded with protestors. Not around the corner from the Israeli consulate, which is too fat a target for terrorists who, as Marcia Kramer could tell you, prefer to deliver explosives via bike. Not in areas that are too residential. Nor in areas with store entrances or medical offices. And if that leaves anywhere — the sidewalk under a 42nd Street overpass was recommended as a model location — no station should have more than ten docks.

Each of those objections was raised in a document sent by Manhattan Community Board 6 to the Department of Transportation last week, cataloguing 14 locations that the board had received complaints about. A letter drafted by transportation committee chair Fred Arcaro and signed by board chair Mark Thompson endorsed some of the residents’ complaints — even one about a non-existent station proposal — and enclosed the rest without comment while requesting a formal DOT response to each one. While the letter notes that the CB received many comments supporting bike-share, none of those are included.

In January, CB 6 voted 39 to 2 in support of the broader bike-share program, and overall the board has tended to take positions in favor of projects like the redesign of First and Second Avenues. But as transportation committee chair, Arcaro has repeatedly stood in the way of livable streets improvements in the district, and his letter adds the community board’s imprimatur to some truly baseless complaints.

The shoddiness of this anti-bike NIMBYism is perhaps best illustrated by one of the three stations singled out in Arcaro and Thompson’s letter. They complain of a station in front of the service entrance of 130 East 18th Street, a residential building on the corner of Irving Place. That location, however, wasn’t selected by the Department of Transportation for a bike-share station.

As DOT reps explained at a CB 6 meeting I attended in May, the station had only ever been included as an option on the maps DOT used to gauge community preferences for station locations, which included five times more options than would ultimately be selected. Once the residents said they didn’t want a station there, it was taken off the list.

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Community Board 10 has yet to get behind the DOT plan to save lives on Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard.

Safety improvements on deadly Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard could be in place by September, the New York Times reported yesterday, despite continued resistance to the redesign from the local community board.

Three people have been killed while walking on Adam Clayton Powell this year; 12 were killed by drivers since 2006. The road’s wide, straight lanes lead motorists to approach highway speeds: the average speed after 8:00 p.m. is 50 miles per hour, according to the Department of Transportation.

Though Community Board 10 has repeatedly stated that it understands the seriousness of the safety problem along the corridor, it has for years opposed the most comprehensive proposals to fix Adam Clayton Powell. In 2009, CB 10 voted against a plan to add a buffered bike lane to the street. CB 10 opposition forced the road diet proposed for the street this time around to be shrunk to cover only half the distance initially proposed, and the board still hasn’t signed on to the plan.

Breaking from its usual procedure, DOT is ready to move ahead with or without the community board’s firm approval. Construction is set to begin in August, according to the Times, and last a month.

“We just don’t understand it yet,” transportation committee chair Deborah Gilliard said of the plan to extend medians and narrow traffic lanes. Instead, the Times reported that her committee wants to see “more left-turn traffic signals, 30-miles-per-hour speed-limit signs, and pedestrian crossing signals that give those on foot a head start.”

Correction: This post originally ran under the headline “DOT Rejects CB 10 Suggestion for Incorrect Speed Limit Signs on ACP Blvd.,” based on the New York Times report that the transportation committee wanted “35-miles-per-hour speed-limit signs.” The Times has since corrected their piece to reflect that the paper mistakenly reported the speed limit, and the committee did not ask for 35 mph speed limit signs. Streetsblog has in turn corrected this post.