Streetsblog New York City

Elizabeth Press sends these shots of the northeast corner of Hoyt and Schermerhorn in downtown Brooklyn. In what may be a first for New York City, this nifty little DOT reclamation includes bike racks installed on the roadbed, not the sidewalk. (Update: DOT confirms that yes, this is something new for the city.) More on that later. First, take a minute to appreciate all the ways this project, which cost a mere $5,000, according to Ben Muessig at the Brooklyn Paper, has improved life for New Yorkers. 

Up until about six weeks ago, as you can see in this angle from Google Street View, everyone using the subway entrance here had to squeeze past a row of police vehicles commandeering the sidewalk. Now there's room to walk to the train with dignity. It's also safer to cross Schermerhorn Street, thanks to the shorter crossing distance, narrower roadway, and improved sight lines. Daylighting in action:

More pics after the jump.

These DOT photos [PDF] show off the revamped Bronx Hub -- the shopping district and transit nexus in Melrose that just received a slew of livable streets improvements. Planters, surfacing, and a few strategically placed concrete islands demarcate pretty substantial new swaths of pedestrian space, including a block-long plaza (shown above and in bird's eye view below). There's also a short stretch of exclusive bus territory and some interesting bike lane treatments. Follow the jump for more pics.

Work is underway on a major livable streets makeover [PDF] for the Hub -- a shopping mecca in Melrose that some have called "the Times Square of the Bronx." The DOT plan simplifies a complex traffic pattern where three streets converge. In the process, space is transferred from vehicles to sidewalk extensions, pedestrian refuges, and a new, block-long public plaza.

Other "Sustainable Streets" priorities are converging here too. New bike routes are planned for Third Avenue and Willis/Melrose Avenue, and New York City Transit has re-routed several bus routes in coordination with DOT's changes.

A tipster reports that some of the pedestrian refuges have already been completed. Streetsblog has requests in to DOT and DDC for a construction status report. Update: DDC says the projected completion date is next April (more specifics on the way, perhaps). If you have pictures, send them to us or upload to the Streetsblog Flickr pool.

After the jump, an overhead view of the Hub's pedestrian enhancements.

As a candidate for a livable streets makeover, Columbus Avenue is a no-brainer. A block from Central Park, it is home to the American Museum of Natural History and sports a string of active ground floor businesses, but the street itself is a classically car-oriented corridor: three moving lanes sandwiched between two parking lanes. The Columbus Avenue BID has been working with Project for Public Spaces to make the street itself more of a destination -- to create a walkable, transit-oriented "spine" running from the museum to Lincoln Center on Broadway.

The photo-simulation you see above, produced by the Open Planning Project, depicts the re-envisioned Columbus Avenue at the corner of 72nd Street (download the whole report). The main feature, on the left side of the street, is a physically separated bike-and-bus lane, which is accompanied by textured crosswalks, corner bump outs, and additional bike parking. Here's how this intersection looks today:

"We hope to become a model district for the city of New York," said Barbara Adler, executive director of the BID. "We've been trying to make Columbus Ave as environmentally-friendly and pedestrian-, worker-, and resident-friendly as possible. This report is a compendium of ideas that could happen if we lived in a perfect world."

As New Yorkers well know, sidewalks around subway stops and major transit hubs are often intensely crowded. Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC team is aware of this and buried on page 48 of the Technical Report supplementing PlaNYC's transportation recommendations is a new program called "Safe Routes to Transit" (SR2T). While the attention to pedestrian issues is welcome, given the scope of the congestion problem near major transit stops, SR2T is a fairly modest proposal and is best viewed as a good beginning, a point of departure for significantly improving the walking part of transit trips.

The new initiative -- which, notably, is focused entirely on the outer boroughs -- combines three existing programs under one umbrella and adds up to being the most specific and significant pedestrian improvement offered by PlaNYC 2030. SR2T has three elements:

Bus Stops under the Els - improve pedestrian and vehicle safety and circulation at intermodal stations located underneath elevated subway structures.

Started in 2003, four locations have been improved of the forty identified. Improvements consist of sidewalk islands, neckdowns and bus bulbs. Starting in 2008, DOT or DDC will build out three per year.

Subway/Sidewalk Interface - improve safety and relieve congestion on sidewalks and intersections adjacent to subway entrances

This subway/sidewalk interface project is a terrific DOT/ City Planning initiative begun at the urging of Transportation Alternatives in 2000. There are 468 subway stops in New York City and originally 29 were selected for a first look. Improvements at two subway stops have been completed and 24 more are planned. Starting in 2008 the city will complete two a year.

New York City's Department of Transportation failed to follow through on a 2004 pledge to build potentially life-saving pedestrian safety improvements along the Third Avenue corridor where a 4-year-old boy was run over and killed last Tuesday.

DOT's announcement of $4 million in funding for the installation of "median extensions, neckdowns and other traffic-calming" measures recommended by the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming plan was made after the February 9, 2004 deaths of Juan Estrada and Victor Flores. The Park Slope fifth graders were run over and killed by a gravel-filled truck at Third Avenue and 9th Street in circumstances eerily similar and almost exactly three years prior to Tuesday's tragedy

Last week, 4-year-old James Nyprie Rice was killed at the intersection of Third Avenue and Baltic Street in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn (newspaper stories had him incorrectly named as James Jacaricce). The boy and his 18-year-old aunt were walking in the crosswalk with the pedestrian signal giving them right-of-way when a yellow General Motors Hummer, driven by 48-year-old Ken Williams of Brownsville, made a right turn off of Third Avenue and ran them over, killing the boy and injuring his aunt. Juan Estrada and Victor Flores were also killed by a right-turning truck while walking in the crosswalk with the right-of-way. In both cases the drivers walked away with a summons from police.

As reported Thursday on Streetsblog, the May 2003 final report of the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project had recommended a set of pedestrian safety measures -- a "gateway treatment" consisting of "neckdowns" and a "raised crosswalk" for the intersection of Third Avenue and Baltic Street. These particular traffic-calming measures (illustrated at right) are designed specifically to protect neighborhood streets from through-traffic and help prevent the type of "right turn conflict" that killed all three boys.

The pedestrian safety recommendations were never implemented despite a March 19, 2004 announcement by DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall that DOT would make an "immediate review" of the Third Avenue corridor and accelerate "$4 million in funding for capital improvements associated with the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming... from Fiscal Year 2009 to Fiscal Year 2006." These funds, according to the commissioner's statement would "enable DOT to install median extensions, neckdowns and other traffic-calming initiatives." Fiscal Year 2006 ended on June 30.

The 2004 deaths of Estrada and Flores made the front pages of all of the dailies and Commissioner Weinshall's commitment to accelerated traffic calming was made following an unusual and emotional joint meeting of City Council's Transportation, Education and Pubilc Safety Committees. The March 1, 2004 public hearing, which opened with a moment of silence for the two Brooklyn boys, was convened to press DOT for pedestrian safety improvements around city schools and at the location where the two boys died.

Since March 2004 the Department of Transportation has accelerated the planning of its once-moribund Safe Routes to Schools program and provided Downtown Brooklyn and surrounding neighborhoods with a number of spot traffic-calming, pedestrian safety and bicycle infrastructure improvements, many of which are illustrated in this PDF document. At Third Avenue and 9th Street where Estrada and Flores died, DOT "granted to pedestrians" a seven second head start across the intersection ahead of motor vehicles, a traffic-calming measure known as a Leading Pedestrian Interval.

Yet, three years after Commissioner Weinshall's apparent commitment, DOT has not built neckdowns, median extensions or any other significant, physical pedestrian safety measures along the dangerous Third Avenue corridor.

The three fatalities above aren't the whole story either. On December 7, 2006 a 6-year-old boy named Andry Vega, was fatally struck at 3rd Avenue and 46th Street in Sunset Park by a truck running a red light.

Though pedestrian fatalities, on the whole, have declined in New York City in recent years, Third Avenue appears to be bucking the trend.

The May 2003 final report of the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project recommended pedestrian safety measures designed specifically to prevent the kind of collision that killed a four-year-old boy in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn on Tuesday afternoon.

 
A graphic from the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project final plan showing pedestrian safety recommendations for Third Avenue and Baltic Street

The five-year, $1.2 million, Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project recommended "neckdowns" and a "raised crosswalk" at Third Avenue and Baltic Street, the intersection where four-year-old James Jacaricce and his 18-year-old Aunt Ta-Nayin St. John were run over by a bright yellow General Motors Hummer driven by Ken Williams, a 48-year-old Brownsville resident (Click here to download that section of the Traffic Calming plan).

The boy and his caretaker were on their way home from the Police Athletic League nursery school at the Warren Street Houses when they were hit by Williams' SUV. They were walking in the crosswalk with the pedestrian signal giving them right-of-way when Williams, traveling northbound on Third Avenue, made a right turn and hit them, killing the boy and injuring his aunt. Police told the Daily News "The guy didn't realize he hit them because the vehicle rides very high." There is a car wash on the southeast corner of Third and Baltic. It is set back from the street and was closed for the day when the crash occurred. Apparently, the only thing impeding Williams' sightline was his own vehicle.

Looking up Baltic Street from Third Avenue

While it is impossible to know definitively if Tuesday's crash could have been prevented, the pedestrian safety measures recommended nearly four years ago in the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project are designed specifically to prevent the type of "right-turn conflict" that resulted in the four-year-old's death. The community-driven plan, created by the international consulting firm Arup, urged New York City's Department of Transportation to install neckdowns and a raised crosswalk at Baltic Street where vehicles from busy, fast-moving, truck-heavy Third Avenue turn onto the quieter, more residential street. A raised crosswalk makes pedestrians more visible to drivers as they walk across the street. Neckdowns make it more difficult for drivers to execute fast, careless turns into the crosswalk while pedestrians are crossing.

The recommendations were never implemented by the Department of Transportation despite widespread community support for the plan. DOT has not yet responded to questions about why the safety measures were never implemented.

Tuesday's crash is reminiscent of the deaths Juan Estrada and Victor Flores, fifth-graders at P.S. 124 in Park Slope, who were crushed to death by a right-turning, gravel-filled landscaping truck as they crossed Third Avenue at 9th Street, on February 9, 2004, nearly three years ago to the day of James Jacaricce's death.

In the wake of yet another gruesome killing of a pedestrian walking in the crosswalk with the right-of-way -- this time, a 4-year-old boy run over by a guy driving a Hummer -- Transportation Alternatives is arguing that these kinds of deaths can be prevented or, at least, made less likely, with the following five street design measures:

• Provide pedestrians exclusive crossing time so that turning motorists have the red light while pedestrians have the walk signal. (example: Union Square NW- 17th and Broadway
• Leading Pedestrian Intervals (LPI) or "pedestrian head starts" give pedestrians the signal before motorists, better establishing their presence in the crosswalk and making them more visible to turning motorists. (example: 23rd Street and Broadway, 23rd Street and 6th Ave).
• Neckdowns -- sidewalk extensions at corners, force motorists to make slower, more accurate and safer turns (example: 29th Street and 8th Ave).
• Raised crosswalks in which the pavement under crosswalks is elevated by 4 inches, again force motorists to slow down when navigating an intersection.
• Bollards -- placing steel bollards at corners (pictured) or on two way street, placing plastic bollards where the double yellow line meets the crosswalk protect pedestrians while waiting on the sidewalk and force drivers to make safer turns (example: 12th Street and 7th Ave).

Perhaps most notable, the T.A. press release also says that there were 170 pedestrian fatalities in New York City in 2006, a 7 percent increase over the previous year. DOT has not responded to requests to verify that number. Outgoing DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall touts improving pedestrian safety as one of the major accomplishments of her tenure.