A reader sends along this shot from the Hudson River Greenway exit at W. 72nd Street. Cyclists are apparently no longer required to dismount on the shared path that connects the greenway and Riverside Drive, a ham-handed directive issued by the Parks Department last summer. Our tipster says the new signs have replaced dismount instructions, which were reportedly backed up by threats of summonses.

Good to see Parks acknowledge the value of this link to cyclists with an eye toward safety for all users.

The first two shared bike/ped paths across Central Park are set to open in early September. At 96th Street, the path will run south of the transverse rather than north of it (both are shown on this map). Image:New York Times

Those paths will be clearly marked with new signage and painted diamonds on the pavement, as on the park’s only current bike/ped path, which connects West 106th Street to the loop drive. The paths won’t be divided into separate lanes for those on foot and those on two wheels, said Greenleaf, but the diamonds will be off to one side of the path.

What those signs should say was a point of contention. Greenleaf said they are likely to urge cyclists to go at “walking speed,” but many members of the CB 7 Parks and Transportation Committees found that overly restrictive.

The co-chairs of the Parks Committee, Klari Neuwelt and Elizabeth Starkey, pointed out that they had sent a letter to the Parks Department months ago recommending that shared paths in Central and Riverside Parks use language like “yield to pedestrians” or “go slow,” rather than speed limits that did not leave room for discretion. “It was not intended to have cyclists go so slowly they fall off their bikes,” said Neuwelt.

At one point, the restrictions on the paths may be more stringent still. Where the 96th Street route, which will run just south of the transverse road on a little-used path, crosses the East Drive, said Greenleaf, a dismount zone is under consideration. “There are issues about whether it’s actually safe to cross the drives on your bicycle,” she said, adding that those issues were exacerbated at that crossing by a hairpin turn just east of the loop.

A number of community board members pointed out how much more smoothly these paths could be implemented if cars were taken off the Central Park loop drives altogether. “It sounds like a lot of this is the result of avoiding automobile traffic,” said board chair Mel Wymore. The community board endorsed a car-free park trial by a vote of 32-1 in June.

The two board members who spoke against the shared paths, though, also cited the board’s support for a car-free Central Park to make their case. “The request is not by park users,” said Tom Vitullo-Martin in an argument echoed by Transportation Committee co-chair Dan Zweig. “It’s for roads to be cut across the park for bicycles.”

Even so, the bulk of community board members and neighborhood residents in attendance spoke in support of trying out the plan. No vote was taken, as Wymore wanted the board to speak up on the plan after the trial was underway.

Wymore also urged the Conservancy to generate hard data on which to evaluate the plan. Greenleaf said that the Conservancy is currently planning to have staff and volunteers qualitatively observing the way the lanes are used and gathering feedback from park users.

At the southern end of Brooklyn Bridge Park, DOT will calm traffic and create space on the street to take cyclists off the sidewalk. Click for a larger version. Image: NYC DOT

Last week we covered DOT’s proposed safety improvements for the north side of Brooklyn Bridge Park, where sidewalk extensions, bike lanes, and planted medians will all be used to help pedestrians and cyclists safely reach the waterfront. DOT is also turning its attention to improving access to the southern entrance to the park, presenting a plan to Community Board 6 tomorrow evening [PDF]. The proposal reclaims some significant tracts of asphalt, giving pedestrians and cyclists more room on a critical segment of the evolving Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway.

The southern access point to Brooklyn Bridge Park, where Atlantic Avenue meets Pier 6, is if anything less hospitable than the northern one. Atlantic Avenue is a notorious speedway — on a stretch further east, cars were recently clocked at an average of 38 miles per hour — and pedestrians who use it to reach the park must cross BQE ramps. Atlantic comes to an end at the park in the form of a 90-foot-wide asphalt rectangle, where pedestrians and cyclists approaching on the south side squeeze onto a sidewalk only four feet wide.

The most prominent item in DOT’s menu of improvements for park access will re-allocate a chunk of that space to pedestrians and cyclists, carving out a plaza and two-way bike lane from all the extraneous pavement. On the sidewalk side of the bike lane, a ten-foot buffer will ensure that truck drivers leaving the adjacent Port Authority facility can see cyclists.

The proposal extends the two-way bike lane treatment south onto Columbia Street, clearly separating cycling space from walking space — no more fighting over sidewalk scraps. The plan calls for separating the bikeway from traffic with Jersey barriers. The room for this expansion of bike-ped space comes from removing a southbound traffic lane and narrowing the others, which should have a traffic-calming effect. A new pedestrian island will also make it easier to cross Atlantic at Columbia.

The DOT plan also includes a signal retiming and possible red light enforcement camera at the northbound BQE on-ramp on Atlantic.

DOT will present the plan to the CB6 transportation committee tomorrow at Long Island College Hospital at 6:30 p.m.

Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

City planners often get very little public recognition for the work they do, and can sometimes take the heat on a project if it doesn’t prove politically popular. In the case of San Francisco’s revolutionary Pavement to Parks program, the early resistance to reclaiming public space from cars to create convivial spaces for people has gradually subsided and parklets are now in heavy demand. None of it would have been possible without the hard work and determination of Andres Power, an urban designer for the San Francisco Planning Department.

As the manager of the P2P program, Power has spent tireless hours managing the city’s initial plaza and parklet projects and moving them through the vast city bureaucracy. He deals regularly with merchants, neighbors and community groups. He’s worn a hardhat on many a Saturday and is the guy who gets called at midnight if something goes wrong.  Power’s unwavering dedication, even in the face of fierce opposition, has made him one of the unsung heroes of San Francisco’s livable streets movement.

Along with some of his colleagues at the Planning Department, Power is working from within to change the dysfunctional and old-school culture of city government with an eye to then transform our streets. The Pavement to Parks program is now catching the attention of cities all over the U.S. Last week, San Francisco issued a new request for parklet proposals, which means they’ll be spreading to even more neighborhoods.

Power was born in San Francisco and grew up in the East Bay city of Albany. I sat down with him recently to find out more about his interest in urban planning, and his involvement in the Pavement to Parks program.

Bryan Goebel: What sparked your interest in city planning?

Andres Power: I’ve always loved cities. Being in a place that’s dynamic and changing and exciting has always been something that has intrigued me. I’ve tried to think back and to figure out what my motivators were and I think I just landed in the right place, to be honest. I had some great professors in undergrad at Brown University that really were forward and progressive thinking and inspired me. Then, after undergraduate, I went and worked in New York at the Department of Housing and Preservation doing economic development for the city and it was just an amazing place to be. It was so crazy and frantic, such a huge and complicated bureaucracy, but still, individual people could make amazing changes.

Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

BG: So this was in your early 20s? You must have graduated from college early then?

AP: I graduated from Brown when I was 20. I was young for my age because I skipped a grade early on. So yes, I graduated early and worked for New York for, I guess, three and a half years. It was a really fun place to be, and I moved my way up through the system there and I was actually working in the Section Eight program. It was tangential to my interest but it was a fascinating work with a lot of smart people and it just really cemented my love for cities. It was so satisfying knowing that as a bureaucrat, I could make positive change for people.

BG:  Yeah, and I imagine living in New York deepened and inspired your interest in urban planning.

AP: Absolutely. There’s no question about it. At that time it was right after 911, so it was early 2002. The offices were four blocks from the World Trade Center so it was an interesting place to be, for sure, and the focus was really on emergency management type stuff, at first, and then things calmed down, and it was much more about starting to think about the future, and looking at the long-terms goals of the city. The notion of working for an entity that is thinking about what the future’s going to be in 20-25 years, and doing things in the short-term, to move us in that direction is incredibly satisfying. That’s what I do here now. It’s really about seeing what we want this city to look like, how we want it to function, how we want it to be for the next generation and working on the immediate steps to make improvements that move us in that direction.

BG: So you spent three and a half years in New York City, and then went to grad school at MIT for two years?

AP: Two years, yes.  MIT was an interesting place for sure. The urban studies program was somewhat isolated from the rest of the university but was still a crazy place. The buildings were all connected underground by these tunnels and there’d gatherings sometimes on the weekend in the tunnels where people would all dress up in Star Trek attire. So, a lot of the stereotypes that you would think of for MIT, definitely a lot of that happened there. It’s also a great place to be. People were really smart, really motivated and undoubtedly the program really cemented the notion that this is really what it was that intrigued me.

BG: So after MIT what happened?

AP: Getting a job anywhere in government takes a lot of time so the beginning of my last semester, in January or so, there was a posting for jobs here in San Francisco. I applied and actually got called back sooner than I’d anticipated, came out here over spring break, had an interview, had a second interview and was hired as an entry level urban designer for the San Francisco Planning Department.

BG: What exactly were you hired to do?

AP: The first thing I did was to come up with a streetscape plan for San Jose Avenue. It was a good first stab at doing this type of work and getting to learn the dynamics and the politics here. I remember going out with then Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval in his personal car. He took me down and showed me what he thought needed improvement. It was great, understanding the craziness and how the system in the city works, and how the public realm is managed by so many different agencies and entities. It was an eye-opening experience. Then from there I started doing a lot of graphics type stuff and early plan development for the Rincon Hill streetscape plan and the Better Streets Plan.

Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

BG: So how did Pavements to Parks get started? It all pretty much began with the 17th Street plaza, right?

AP: Yes. I’d been working with Adam Varat on content development for the Better Streets Plan for a couple of years at that point, and in that plan there was a lot of discussion about temporary uses of the right of way. What that meant wasn’t fully fleshed out but the idea was to be playful with the public realm and to think about uses that perhaps changed over time. Being creative in how we use a parking lane, for example, was particularly exciting to me. Then, New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn came and met with the different department directors and basically challenged the city to do something. She came and presented the work that she was doing to DPW Director Ed Reiskin, my director, John Rahim, and [SFMTA Chief] Nat Ford and the representatives of the Mayor’s Office and said, ‘This is what we’re doing in New York,’ which was a challenge to do something similar over here.

So, in response to that challenge, all the different departments submitted a list of possible projects based on culling the archives of community plans and public efforts. So that project, the Castro 17th project, was one that had been advanced by a couple of agencies. With DPW and MTA we moved it forward. This was around the same time that the Upper Market Streetscape Plan was being worked on and it talked a lot about making improvements to that intersection. So, it just sort of all came together, and [City Design Group Manager] David Alumbaugh felt very strongly that we should start off with something bold, making the subsequent projects easier by comparison. It was a smart move to make. As small as it is, the Plaza location was as complicated as one can be, with the streetcar going right through and cars coming from just about every direction. But we knew that the users were there, and that the community was generally on board with it. At the same time Public Architecture came to the city and was offering its services to help with a public space project.

“I think in my mind the most beneficial change is really pushing the city family to be okay with experimentation.”

Change is always hard. Beyond the actual projects that the Pavement to Parks program has installed, I think in my mind the most beneficial change is really pushing the city family to be okay with experimentation. At Castro, how a trial plaza could come together was incredibly challenging for the bureaucracy to wrap its collective head around. So the proposal languished. Getting approvals was incredibly difficult. But finally, with some colleagues we thought, ‘we’re just going to get this done, this is ridiculous,’ and we got it done. Once the project was installed some department heads came together with the Mayor’s Office to talk about what we learned and what the next steps were. Basically, what came out of that meeting was that we needed someone who would be empowered to just make things happen and someone who ultimately would be responsible for delivering the projects. So, they put me in charge and that’s how the program came to be.

Power with architect Jane Martin constructing the Guerrero Park plaza. Photo: Jamison Wieser

BG: What do you see as some of your biggest challenges now?

AP: Amongst the city family, I think generally speaking that there is alignment with what it is that we’re doing, but not everyone necessarily agrees 100 percent, or is as gung-ho about this work as I am. It’s incredibly difficult to get people to just say, ‘this is how we’re going to make it happen.’ The culture has been changing and it’s gotten much better, at least in a relative sense over the last number of years, but the culture’s always been, ‘no, you can’t do it and this is why.’ It’s never been, ‘This is what you want to do, let’s figure out how we’re going to make it happen.’ And as for design, it’s always been the common denominator that gets implemented. Everyone has to weigh in. Muni weighs in, the traffic engineer weighs in, the utilities weight in, the street sweeper weighs in. Then once you’ve resolved all of their individual concerns, you have your end product. That’s how things have been done historically, but at the end of the day that end product doesn’t necessarily advance the city’s collective goals. The most challenging piece is getting the projects through a system that is not geared to making these kinds of things happen in an easy way.

BG: What about the occasional opposition that arises from merchants, or neighbors, like what happened in Noe Valley?

AP: Not every project is going to work and I think it’s great, ultimately, that people speak up for what they believe. I may not necessarily agree with that position, and I may know their arguments are technically incorrect, but at the same time, I think it’s perfectly legitimate for people to not want something and I think that’s just part of the way things are in a heterogeneous community. Generally speaking, most people want urban public spaces, most people want open space, most people want amenities, most people want bicycle infrastructure, most people want storm water improvements. So, it’s not convincing people of the merits of that per se. A lot of it has to do with disagreements between one neighbor and another so these kinds of projects can become the polarizing element for that. I have no problem with this reality, and it’s why cities ultimately are fun places to work in. It’s not like working in the suburbs where you have a much more homogenous perspective on things.

“The culture’s always been, ‘no, you can’t do it and this is why.’ It’s never been, ‘This is what you want to do, let’s figure out how we’re going to make it happen.’ “

BG: I was walking on Dolores Street recently and had an encounter with a woman who was walking her dog and was just furious the city had removed a parking space in front of her house to install a crosswalk. There’s a ‘war on drivers,’ she exclaimed.  In your role as a planner, and this is a difficult question, but how do we win the hearts and minds of people like that who don’t feel like they want to give up any space for cars?

AP: It’s not an easy answer. If we knew the answer to that, then we’d be golden. I think there’s a couple of things at play. In large part our work is about education and we’re not always good at that. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best. I think generally the city family’s not very good at it, but really what we ought to be doing, as people who are paid to be thinking about the future, is tailoring our messaging in an understandable way and to be able to explain why it is we’re doing the things that we’re doing. So, I think a lot of it is education. Some people may just fundamentally disagree with your position and that’s okay. But many people, when you have an informed and rational discussion about the merits of an effort, can ultimately become your best supporters. But specifically when trade offs involve a car, I think unfortunately people can become very passionate about it.

BG: Emotions can get in the way.

AP: It’s very emotional, yes, and so to a certain extent you have to do your very best to educate, and to be that facilitator and explain what it is that you’re doing, and why you’re doing it, and what the benefits are for each person because ultimately it’s not just about taking away something from one person, and giving it to another. It’s about advancing our collective benefit. I think any type of change can be difficult for people, but at the same time, I do believe that delivering good projects and being able to show, for example, the lady with her dog, that benefit to her as she’s trying to cross the street. There really is an immediate benefit to her. She’s probably much less likely to get hit by a speeding car. Her dog is less likely to get run over because of that improvement that was made.  So, it wasn’t just about taking a parking space away, it was about making her condition better. I think the city is not the best at making this understood, although we’re constantly working to improve our communication.

Enjoying a light moment in the Castro plaza while shooting a Streetfilm. From left, Power, City Design Group Manager David Alumbaugh and filmmaker Paul Jaffe. Photo: Bryan Goebel

BG: Where do you see the Pavements to Parks program going?

AP: That’s a good question. The Pavements to Parks program has been really focused as of late on getting the parklets up and running. I think we’ve done that. I think we’ve created a model that is sustainable for the long term. We’ve done a lot of work, with great help from the Department of Public Works, the MTA and the SF Great Streets Project, to come up with the mechanisms to evaluate these projects and facilitate them because at the end of the day we want to be encouraging this. We want the city structure to be set up in such a way that it’s incentivizing and not making it difficult to make public improvements.  So, with that under our belt, to a certain extent the question now becomes, what’s next? Are there going to be more plazas? Are we going to be doing some other design typology perhaps that we haven’t even thought about yet? I think the answer to that ought to be yes. Aside from the physical projects that Pavement to Parks has produced, which I think are great things, one of the amazing contributions it’s provided is showing that experimentation is a good thing, and how it can produce good stuff. The vehicle of Pavement to Parks, this interagency cooperation, can apply to anything. Theoretically, it could apply to innovative treatments of a bike lane, or whatever it is we want to try. The structure of Pavement to Parks is such that the actual physical improvement can be anything, but the process to get it on the ground is really about what Pavements to Parks provides, and it’s an expedited process. I think it’s a great example of what happens when people come together saying, ‘We want to get this done, how are we going to make it happen,’ as opposed to figuring out a way why you can’t.

I think the streets of our city ought to be designed for the kind of use that provides the most benefit to the most people, both at the local level, and ultimately on a global level because what is sustainable in the long term is a city that encourages and gives priority to people who want to walk and who want to move around in a way that doesn’t produce an externality on somebody else. Unfortunately, for the last 50 years, it’s been the opposite. We have been prioritizing the mode of transport that provides the most externalities on people, and so I think a long-term vision for the city is one in which the fabric really is about the best common good. I think for me what that means is a place where driving is a last option. I think we’ve got a long way to go to get there, while, at the same time, I do feel like there will always be the need for a vehicle. I have to remember to say that because I do believe it. I think whether it’s a solar powered car or whatever it is, ultimately there is a need for transport of kids and goods but as a primary transportation mode, I think that there isn’t room for that in the city.

BG: What advice would you have for other cities looking to do parklets and plazas and repurpose space for people?

AP: Start with the location, either for a plaza or a parklet, that you know will be successful. One that has a strong on the ground partner who is vested in helping ensure that the space is successful. This is absolutely key as the success of the first installation sets the groundwork for many more. Also, don’t expect to create a program first. Start with a great project that people will be excited about and the the program will follow. Get authority from the very top – you’ll need it – so that you can push through the inevitable red tape. Also, have an answer to the inevitable questions that will come up. “Putting a parklet in will make the cross section of the street too narrow for a fire truck.” Remind the reviewer that a parklet is no wider than a parked car.  If it’s okay that a car is parked there, why can’t people sit there too. Celebrate the first project. From there, the next installations become easier.

Efforts to replace these dismount signs in Riverside Park are stalling, but Manhattan CB 7 is keeping up the pressure on the Parks Department.

The parks committee of Manhattan Community Board 7 restated its support for shared bike/pedestrian paths through Riverside Park and Central Park last night. In Central Park, the shared paths would create new east-west routes through the park, while in Riverside, the community board is fighting against the Parks Department’s surprise imposition of dismount signs on what was once a part of the greenway system.

In Central Park, progress is continuing apace, reported committee co-chair Klari Neuwelt. She said that Doug Blonsky, the head of the Central Park Conservancy, had told her that plans to allow bikes on certain east-west pedestrian paths through the park were moving forward around 102nd Street, 97th Street, and in the 80s. “You’ll have options in Central Park,” promised Neuwelt.

She added, however, that the plan to allow bikes to take the 72nd Street Cross Drive across the park is moving more slowly through the Department of Transportation than hoped.

In Riverside Park, however, a victory that seemed to be in hand remains elusive. Neuwelt said that she had been informed that the dismount signs in Riverside Park were to be replaced with signs urging bikes to ride slowly and share the space with pedestrians. Then, however, the Parks Committee received what Neuwelt called “a pretty weasely e-mail back from John Herrold,” the administrator of Riverside Park, shying away from any such commitment.

The Parks Committee promised to keep on top of Riverside Park to see that the dismount signs are removed. “We’re working on it,” said Neuwelt. “We’re not about to be taken for patsies either.”

In the long term, engineering efforts to take some pressure off the 72nd Street entrance to Riverside Park are still being pursued. CB 7 chair Mel Wymore noted that as part of the Riverside Center negotiations, funding was allocated to create a new ramp from 72nd Street to the greenway, so cyclists will go from road to greenway without passing through the park. The committee also pledged to continue pursuing the plan to create bike access from the 79th Street boat basin to the greenway.

In the short term, though, they said that getting rid of the dismount signs is the top priority. “There’s always going to be a need for bikers to enter at 72nd,” said Neuwelt.

The guidelines, a joint venture of the Parks Department and the Design Trust for Public Space, envision bike and foot paths connecting parks to each other and to surrounding neighborhoods, providing new opportunities for physical activity. At the same time, they recommend reducing (but not eliminating) the footprint of the automobile on city parks.

The Parks Department sees active transportation as a way to bind the entire park system together. “Understanding connectivity has to become part of the design mindset,” said Nette Compton, a senior project manager for design with the Parks Department.

In waterfront parks, for example, the guidelines reiterate the city’s commitment to a continuous greenway system for both cyclists and pedestrians. The city should create safe biking and walking routes to active recreation parks and playgrounds, it suggests, so that exercise doesn’t just begin when someone steps onto the basketball court. The Queens Plaza bike lane is held up as a case study in how to redesign the streetscape, as are Greenstreets plantings used to calm traffic.

At the same time, the guidelines make it a priority to reduce the amount of park space swallowed up by pavement.

“Large expanses of paved surfaces are detrimental to the overall health of landscapes,” the report states. “They disturb habitats, increase stormwater runoff, concentrate nonpoint source pollutants, instigate soil erosion, negatively impact soil health, and contribute to the urban heat island effect.”

The report offers a few suggestions to reduce and mitigate the presence of cars and traffic. The guidelines suggest that the amount of parking provided should be based on average use, not peak use, and that the size of each parking space should be reduced. Similarly, the driving lanes on park roadways should be narrowed as much as possible, and all pavement should be made permeable. The report stops short of noting the negative impact of traffic on park users or questioning the basic necessity of roads and parking lots in parks.

The guidelines also suggest that whenever possible, bikes and pedestrians should be kept separate, particularly if the bike path is used by commuters or cyclists riding at high speeds. The report does not, however, take the line that cyclists need to dismount in pedestrian areas, a position the Parks Department has enforced at times. Rather, they urge that sightlines be extended at intersections and entrances where cyclists and pedestrians mix, so that different users are visible to each other.

The guidelines, which include forewords from both Mayor Bloomberg and Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, should serve as the foundation for city park design in the years to come. Compton said that the principles and best practices of the report would guide all new projects the Parks Department takes on, including new parks and renovations to existing ones. One change Parks Department planners will see is a renewed emphasis on interagency cooperation. “There’s a real stress toward looking beyond the bounds of your site,” said Compton.

Noting that the guidelines are context-sensitive, she added that “which best practices are selected for each park will be very different.”

This little device could be the key to transforming parking on Roosevelt Island (and elsewhere in New York City). Photo: Matthew Roth

New York City is about to get a taste of what cutting-edge parking policy could look like over on Roosevelt Island. The island will soon be installing parking sensors under 29 spaces, local blogs Roosevelt Islander and Roosevelt Island 360 reported this week. By providing real-time data about what actually happens in those spaces, the sensors can help enforce parking laws, move toward smart and flexible curbside pricing, and prevent cruising and traffic congestion.

NYC DOT is sure to be watching Roosevelt Island’s progress. This September, the agency sent out a notice expressing interest in parking technology systems that include sensors.

The parking sensors on Roosevelt Island are made by the Streetline company, which supplied the 8,255 sensors that form the technological backbone of San Francisco’s innovative SFPark system (be sure to check out Streetsblog San Francisco’s coverage of the program here, here, and here).

The sensor uses a magnetometer to detect the presence of a vehicle, explained Streetline VP Ken Voss, as well as the moment when a car enters or leaves the space. “It also takes a magnetic signature of the vehicle and can detect if it’s the exact same vehicle that’s been sitting there,” he said. Finally, the sensors’ data can be linked with parking meters, revealing whether parkers are paying or not.

That kind of rigorous, real-time information is the key to making the most of on-street parking. If you want to price parking based on demand, for example, sensor data can provide the foundation for setting the right price block-by-block or hour-by-hour. If you want to accurately enforce time limits or make sure that parkers adhere to the time they paid for, real-time info can send enforcement officers directly to the scene of a violation. Or if you want to cut down on the miles of cruising drivers often resort to while searching for a parking space, sensors can direct them straight to an open spot.

Jonathan Kalkin, the head of Roosevelt Island’s operations committee and the prime mover behind the project, explained that he hopes to pursue each of those three goals. “We have an issue with people feeding the meter all day long,” he explained. “It’s very hard to enforce, because we have a small group of public safety officers.” With sensors, he expects, long-term parkers will stop hogging the spaces entirely.

Kalkin also said that the sensor data would be used to recalibrate the price of parking on the island. Right now, he said, Roosevelt Island’s on-street parking and its parking garage have very different price schemes. Using the sensor data, they should be able to intelligently reduce the garage’s prices for certain lengths of stay and open up on-street spaces for those frequenting a local merchant, for example.

Finally, he said, Streetline is developing an app that leads drivers to an open space. “It’ll be sophisticated enough to give you turn-by-turn directions,” he said. That could have a big environmental benefit for the island by cutting down on cruising. “Right now, you spend an hour and a half to park in a space to do something for five minutes.”

Voss added that Streetline can provide dynamic signage as well, and can provide the prices of available spots to allow drivers to make fully informed decisions.

The program is just a pilot for now, said Kalkin, and only needed the approval of the operations committee. The 29 spaces that will receive sensors were recently added when a stretch of road was converted from two-way flow to one-way for safety reasons. If it’s successful, the plan is to put it to the full board and expand it to the entire island by the spring.

One selling point of the program is that it cuts costs. “Because police officers can focus on other things, that saves money. It kind of pays for itself with that,” said Kalkin.

The sensors are part of a larger effort to use technology to help Roosevelt Islanders move around better. Kalkin said that the island was the first place in the city to have NextBus technology, which shows bus riders real-time arrival information, and is looking to use tidal power for new electric car charging stations.

Kalkin also wants to introduce “smart parking meters” that allow for payment with tap credit cards and cell phones.

“Roosevelt Island is leading. We’re the first East Coast city to have this technology,” said Kalkin.

The rest of New York City might be close behind. The city DOT put out a request for expression of interest for a parking sensor program in September [PDF]. “They’re definitely interested,” said Voss.

The RFEI doesn’t reveal too much about DOT’s intentions, but there are a few fascinating facts to pick out:

• DOT is looking for a program that can “provide the basis for dynamic pricing of parking.”
• They want a system that can tell the NYPD about both parking meter violations and stolen plates.
• DOT showed interest in using the sensors to finally get parking placard abuse under control. They’re looking for a system that could integrate with placards.
• They also asked about the possibility of integrating with pay-by-phone parking and off-street garages.

Though this Riverside Park path was signed as part of the greenway system and provides a crucial link to the Hudson River Greenway, the Parks Department slapped a dismount sign on top of it. The community board is currently looking for a less drastic solution to bike/ped conflict.

The Hudson River Greenway is the busiest bike route in the city, with around 5,000 cyclists riding it during the peak 12-hour period each day. This June, the Parks Department abruptly put up dismount signs at the 72nd Street entrance to Riverside Park, interrupting a popular access route to a major corridor within Manhattan’s green transportation network.

Cyclists, pedestrians, and dog walkers all use the 72nd Street entrance heavily, and while no resolution has yet been reached, many now see adding bike lanes at other greenway access points as the best way to reduce conflict. But even if those plans are pursued, cyclists won’t be able to ride this critical link without fear of getting fined unless the Parks Department changes the dismount policy.

At a meeting of the Manhattan Community Board 7 Parks Committee last night, CB members, the city, and local activists seemed to coalesce around a plan to improve bike access to the greenway at 79th Street, taking some pressure off 72nd and thereby mitigating the rationale for dismount signs. Both committee co-chairs saw the 79th Street plan as a partial solution worth pursuing and steered the conversation toward the more controversial question of what to do on the 72nd Street path.

Parks Department Greenway Coordinator John Mattera explained the 79th Street idea using an electricity analogy. “Bicycles follow the path of least resistance,” he said. If you want to reduce conflict on the 72nd Street path, he added, “the way to do that is to make a lightning rod out of 79th Street.” With fewer cyclists at 72nd, he said, the dismount policy could be swapped for something a little less heavy-handed. Mattera said that he’d spoken with the NYC DOT and that “as sure as anything can be at City DOT,” striping a new bike lane along 79th and leading into the park was part of their plan for 2011.

The plan got a generally positive response as a way of reducing conflicts between park users, though not everyone agreed with Mattera’s proposal. “Another way you guide electricity is by adding resistance, and there should be resistance at 72nd Street,” said committee member Tom Vitullo-Martin.

Though the lightning rod idea was popular in theory, implementing a safe access route from 79th Street could prove difficult in practice. “It’s a great idea, but it’s going to take a whole lot more than paint to make it safe for cyclists,” said Upper East Side resident Steve Vaccaro, who noted that cyclists would be riding by a highway off-ramp.

While everyone agreed that siphoning off some bike traffic from 72nd Street would help, waiting until those changes are in place would leave the dismount policy intact at least until next year.

Momentum on the community board seemed to be in the direction of walking back or replacing the dismount policy. “A 24/7 dismount is way overkill for the degree of congestion at that path,” said committee co-chair Klari Neuwelt, suggesting that it could be in effect only at the hours of peak use. “It has led to a lot of potentially unnecessary antagonism between user groups.”

The city's bike map, co-published by the Parks Department, clearly shows the 72nd Street path as part of the bike system.

Similarly, co-chair Elizabeth Starkey wanted to see a solution that enabled all park users to coexist, rather than putting the entire burden on cyclists. Ideas proposed over the course of the evening ranged from more creative signage urging slow speeds, to placing volunteer cyclists at the path to send the slow-down message, to building some sort of speed bump that only affects fast-moving bikes.

In the background of the whole discussion was the question of whether bikes are even allowed on the 72nd Street path in the first place. Riverside Park Administrator John Herrold claimed they are not. “Cycling is in fact illegal on any park path,” he explained, adding that until recently, the department had chosen not to enforce that rule in Riverside Park.

However, as many in the audience pointed out, the 72nd Street path to the Greenway is clearly marked on the city’s official bike map, which bears the Parks Department seal and Commissioner Adrian Benepe’s name. The inclusion of the 72nd Street path on that map for many years, said Herrold, has been “a mistake.”

Of course, it’s not just the maps. Directly above the “cyclists dismount” signs, markers on the path indicate that it’s part of the Hudson River Greenway.

You can't tell from this EDC rendering, but Willoughby Square Park will sit on top of a garage with 694 parking spaces. Image: NYC EDC.

If you’ve ever wished you could dodge more cars and inhale more exhaust on your way to the park, Downtown Brooklyn’s next green space is for you. It will be built on top of a garage with nearly 700 underground parking spots.

Last Thursday, the city’s Economic Development Corporation released a request for proposals to build Willoughby Square Park, a new public space set to open on Willoughby between Duffield and Gold. Instead of using city funds to build the park, EDC is building 694 parking spaces underground and getting the garage’s developer to pay for the park construction.

City officials have repeatedly referred to the new public space as Brooklyn’s Bryant Park. Like Bryant Park, it will be privately run and surrounded by towers. But here’s one major difference: Bryant Park sits on top of the stacks of the New York Public Library, not an enormous garage. Two decades ago, the city was thinking creatively about how to combine an ambitious park restoration with the storage of 3.2 million books and 500,000 reels of microfilm. These days, the city seems intent on combining its development and public space plans with the storage of congestion-causing, streetlife-suffocating private vehicles, even in incredibly transit-rich downtown Brooklyn.

The merger of park and parking garage is no surprise in an EDC-sponsored project. The agency has recently been in the headlines for building so much parking at Yankee Stadium that the developer may default on its bonds, and EDC president Seth Pinsky once told Streetsblog that providing too little parking at a project would be “the worst thing we could do.” You can also point the finger at the Department of City Planning, which put forward the idea for a park over a garage in its 2004 rezoning.

Central Park Conservancy Administrator Douglas Blonsky, former PlaNYC head Rohit Aggarwala, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe and Dasha Rettew of the Climate Group announce greener lights in Central Park. Benepe, Sadik-Khan, and Blonsky could make the park car-free today. Photo: NYC DOT via City Room.

Central Park Conservancy head Douglas Blonsky wants his park to get a lot more bike-friendly, he revealed at a meeting of Manhattan’s Community Board 7′s parks committee last night. Not only is he working to create shared use paths that would allow cyclists to cross the park east-west safely and legally, he repeatedly announced his support for removing vehicular traffic from Central Park entirely.

The context for both positions is what Blonsky called “the skyrocketing use” of Central Park. Estimating that the park is visited 35 million times annually, there are ever more conflicts between cars, cyclists, joggers, strollers, dog-walkers, and other park users each year.

The result is a stream of complaints. Cyclists say park rules force them to choose between violating the law by riding on pedestrian paths, looping miles out of their way, or navigating the treacherous transverses, where a cyclist was killed in 2006. Pedestrians say they feel threatened by the cyclists illegally riding on pedestrian-only paths. “A lot more of the complaints are from the side of people who don’t like bikes on the paths and are afraid of them,” said Blonsky.

With cyclists riding east-west whether it’s allowed or not, Blonsky hopes that re-orienting some existing paths as legal routes for cycling will help everyone get along. He suggested four routes. (It might help to follow along on a Central Park map, available here). The easiest to implement would travel roughly along 102nd Street, a route which he said is already used by as many bicyclists as pedestrians. Another path would travel either on the north or south side of the 97th Street Transverse. Another route would likely pass near the Great Lawn, in the low 80s, but heavy pedestrian volumes might force that path to include a segment where cyclists have to dismount.

Each of these routes would be a relatively narrow shared-use path, perhaps similar in look and feel to the Hudson River Greenway above 103rd Street, and intended for slow speeds. While potholes on the paths might get filled, they wouldn’t be widened or rerouted.

The fourth path would travel along the 72nd Street Cross Drive, making it a slightly different challenge. While the first set of paths are currently walkways under Parks Department jurisdiction, the Cross Drive is a road with car traffic, operated by DOT. “If we didn’t have vehicles in the park, that would be easy to do,” said Blonsky. In the meantime, he suggested that DOT could perhaps reduce the Cross Drive to only one lane for cars.

In the long term, Blonsky also suggested paving pieces of the bridle paths through the park and opening those to bikers as well. That would be expensive, however, while opening the four routes he suggested could happen almost immediately with sign-off from Parks and DOT.

As for when these east-west routes could be open, the ball is in the Bloomberg administration’s court. “Right now, DOT’s looking at it and we have to wait until we hear back from them,” said Blonsky. He explained that DOT needs not only to make a decision about the 72nd Street path but to think about integrating these routes with the on-street bike network.

Blonsky suggested that supporters of his plan contact Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and let her know how they feel. Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe has been “supportive of coming up with a plan,” continued Blonsky, but nothing’s official.

“The Parks Department and the Department of Transportation are working together with the Central Park Conservancy to try to develop some shared east-west paths that would allow cyclists traveling at a low rate of speed to traverse the park legally in several locations,” said a Parks Department spokesperson, noting that details are still being worked out.

Every committee member but one, and every community member who showed up to speak, supported the plan to provide east-west access for cyclists. “Although none of these paths is as wide as you want them to be to accommodate every use,” said committee co-chair Klari Neuwelt, “that’s New York.” In cramped quarters, she said, Blonsky’s plan has “the best shot at meeting all those needs.” The committee decided not to pass a formal resolution, however, because Blonsky wasn’t sure whether one would be helpful.

One striking feature of Blonsky’s comments was his repeated support for making Central Park car-free. When one committee member mentioned the danger of allowing dogs to go off-leash in the park, Blonsky replied, “Another reason to get cars out of Central Park.” He brought up a car-free park again as the solution to complaints about cyclists on the park loop ignoring red lights and the inability to bike around the park clockwise. “It’s way too much recreation use blending in with the vehicles,” he explained, “or too many vehicles.”

He implied, however, that such a move wasn’t happening in the very short-term: “I think DOT wants to look at the numbers right now and evaluate them in light of our last reduction [in car-free hours],” he said.

Bridge traffic and very wide streets make the intersection of 135th and Madison difficult for pedestrians to cross, impeding access to the Harlem River Park. Image: Google Street View

The fate of Harlem River Park exemplifies the challenges of bringing recreation to a riverside dominated by the Harlem River Drive. The park is new and beautiful, but underused. It's no surprise. To get into the park, pedestrians and cyclists have to walk by a series of ramps and access roads funneling huge volumes of traffic between the highway and the many nearby bridges, most of which are free. Local residents and the Harlem Community Development Corporation have been raising the issue for years and since 2007, Transportation Alternatives has worked with them to develop a set of recommendations for improvements [PDF]. 

To try and knit the community together with its park, DOT is developing a set of safety improvements for the intersections near park entrances, particularly 135th and Madison, 139th and Fifth, and 142nd and Fifth. Interestingly, Transportation Alternatives' CrashStat map shows that these intersections aren't the locations in the neighborhood with the most crashes, by a long-shot. It seems that pedestrians and cyclists are so deterred by the unsafe conditions there that many don't even venture over.

This beautiful park can't serve the community if it's not safe to walk there. Photo: Harlem River Park.

Community members who attended the meeting weren't sold on all of DOT's suggestions, according to BicyclesOnly. Many would have preferred to add or extend leading pedestrian intervals to the crossings, giving pedestrians more of a head start into the intersection. DOT told the crowd that wasn't an option due to the volume of traffic in the area. Regardless, everyone in the audience desperately understood the need for safety improvements. 

In fact, in some ways the audience was urging DOT to go further than it could. Many residents complained that the pedestrian bridges that take you over the highway and into the park were too steep for seniors to use, limiting access to the park. They wanted the Harlem River Drive to be turned into a boulevard, like West Street, so that you could cross to the park at-grade, with traffic signals. DOT representatives replied that such a change falls under the jurisdiction of the state DOT.

Though there's a rule forbidding parking bikes to objects that aren't racks, it's easy to miss unless you already know what to look for. Photos: Noah Kazis

By Hudson River Park regulations -- the park isn't run by the city Parks Department -- bikes may only be parked at a bike rack. "Bike racks are designed to have bikes locked to it; our railings and lightposts are not," explained Hudson River Park spokesman David Katz. "This was an iron railing. It's going to get scratched. It's going to get scuffed."

According to Katz, the bikes had been locked to the sea wall railing near Leroy Street for around two and a half hours when park enforcement officials decided they had to go. Katz claims that staff asked nearby park users, including those in the dog run and at Pier 40's athletic fields, if the bikes were theirs. When no one claimed them, they cut through the locks and took them to the park headquarters inside Pier 40. "Since they are in violation of park regulations," added Katz, "they are summonsed."

Ultimately, all ten bikes were reclaimed, said Katz. The owners had all been on a cruise together on the nearby Queen of Hearts boat.

The Gothamist report pointed a finger at the park for not notifying the cyclists that their property was about to be seized. In particular, the lack of signs announcing the rule was seen to make the seizure unfair. Katz claimed that the rule was prominently displayed. "There are large signs at every entrance to the park," he said, including the bike parking rule along with other regulations. 

The truth is somewhere in between. I visited the park and there are, in fact, posted signs at every entrance. I found five within a minute or two walk of the Queen of Hearts' dock. They aren't large, however. You wouldn't see the bike rule unless you were looking for it. Had the cyclists sought out the parking regulations, they would have found them, but it would have been very easy not to have noticed the rule at all.

Another complicating factor is the availability of bike racks. There's a small rack immediately across the path from the Queen of Hearts, which Katz says was empty when the bikes were confiscated. The rack doesn't have room for ten bikes, though. A block further south, there is ample bike parking, but it's inside a Pier 40 walkway, not visible from most angles.

Those difficulties suggest that Hudson River Park should be doing more to accommodate cyclists, said Transportation Alternatives' Noah Budnick. "If that's the rule they want to promulgate," he said, "they have to go above and beyond to publicize it. And if they're going to take people's bikes, they should at least have a tagging policy in place." After all, said Budnick, the greenway is the busiest bike path in the country and each one of those riders is a Hudson River Park customer. As shown on Saturday, current efforts aren't enough. 

We got a couple of e-mails this week about a new directive from the Parks Department ordering cyclists to dismount on the Riverside Park path that connects the Hudson River Greenway and Riverside Drive at W. 72nd Street. On his Flickr page, BicyclesOnly says he learned of the restriction from parks enforcement:

[An] officer rode his SUV up the path behind me and issued a "warning bleep" and ordered me to dismount. I pointed out to him that the dismount instruction was first announced ahead of me and it was the first time I had ever seen the sign (which was true), so why did I have dismount? He told me that they would be getting more signs so that the entire pathway would be a dismount zone, and directed me to dismount.

Following his instructions, I dismounted, took out my camera, and a took this picture. He then asked why I was taking a picture. I told him there was no reason for me to tell him. He then told me it was a violation of park rules to take a picture of any official Parks Department signage. I told him I didn't believe there was any such rule and that I'd like him to go ahead and issue me a summons for taking a picture in the park. He got upset and scolded me for being sarcastic (I wasn't being sarcastic), but he didn't write me the summons.

He then proceeded to follow directly behind me in his SUV as I walked my bike up [the] hill. Then he took up a position in the 9A underpass and began scolding other cyclists.

Another tipster told us that a parks officer said cyclists would be issued summonses for ignoring the new rule, which, he points out, exponentially increases the commute time from Riverside Drive to the greenway. "The rule change and signage are symbolic of Parks' vague approach to dealing with the growing volume of cyclists on the greenway," he said, adding that the dismount order has not been accompanied by suggestions for alternate connections.

We have a message in with the Parks Department for details on the new dismount rule, including what's behind it.

In San Francisco, the Pavement to Parks program has launched an initiative that may someday alter the way U.S. cities treat their commercial strips.

Taking the PARK(ing) Day concept a step further, the Parklets Program is experimenting with allowing businesses to convert parking spaces into public spaces and cafes. The first was installed in March outside the Mojo Bicycle Cafe on Divisadero Street, where two parking spaces were reallocated. Now cafe tables and chairs, benches, bike parking, and plants sit on a raised platform over the asphalt. If all goes well through the evaluation period, the idea is to eventually implement a regular permitting process that business groups and communities can apply for. It looks good: Owners of Mojo say business is up 30 percent and they have had to hire more staff.

The Pavement to Parks program has already transformed a number of community spaces in the Castro, Showplace Triangle and Guerrero Park.

Of course, we're talking about art vending.

The idea dates back to at least the 1990s -- in 2003, the creators of Central Park's "The Gates" appealed to Mayor Bloomberg to drop it -- and is based on the city's claim that artists are taking up too much room, causing congestion and safety issues for park-goers. The new rules [PDF] would curtail the number of vendors and vending locations by up to 80 percent in Union Square Park, Battery Park, on the High Line, and in some sections of Central Park (see maps here). Tomorrow's hearing will be held at 11:00 a.m. at Chelsea Recreation Center, 430 W. 25th Street.

It's not clear who's clamoring for a vendor crackdown. In an informal survey, the advocates at the Street Vendor Project found that most people in Union Square Park like the art vendors just fine.

Whatever the motive, this seems like a solution in search of a problem. The vendors don't impede pedestrian movement any more than the Union Square Greenmarket or the line snaking around Shake Shack in Madison Square Park. Regardless of personal opinions about the quality of their wares, art vendors bring life and vitality to areas intended for human-scale activity. Clearing them out of public spaces en masse misses the point of what city gathering places are all about. To quote urbanist William H. Whyte, "What attracts people most, it would appear, is other people."

If Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe is truly concerned about safety, and park patrons being crammed into tight, contested spaces, he could start with this:

Photo of Central Park loop on Earth Day 2010: Ken Coughlin

Photo:rickweller/Flickr

Per an email from project coordinator Ellen Macnow of the Parks Department, via Inwood and Washington Heights Livable Streets: 

A contract has been signed with the firm Lichtenstein Consulting Engineers, and they will start work soon. Lichtenstein is charged with producing designs for the bridge, including structural improvements, new ramp access and new protective fencing. Their work will result in a contract to be bid out for construction, which is funded by Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC program.

Public comment meetings will be scheduled in the spring.

Macnow says the High Bridge Coalition "will be working hard this year to engage the local and advocacy communities in the design." (Parks has already conducted at least one round of public input, in August of '07.) There was also concern upon the project's announcement nearly three years ago that access would be limited to daytime weekend hours, a fear Macnow tried to mitigate. "We want everybody who wants to use the bridge to use the bridge," she said.

Built as part of the Croton Aqueduct in 1848, the High Bridge spans the Harlem River to connect Washington Heights with the High Bridge neighborhood. It stopped carrying water in 1958, and was closed to the public completely in 1970.

The asphalt expanse where Flatbush and Vanderbilt Avenues meet at the north end of Grand Army Plaza. Photo: Google Street View

We missed it in the run-up to the holidays last month, but this item in the Brooklyn Paper is worth a longer look. DOT has announced its intention to implement some safety fixes at the northern end of Grand Army Plaza.

According to the Brooklyn Paper, the agency may calm the racetrack conditions on the plaza's north end, where drivers speed around the traffic circle without stopping:

The suggested improvements would do away with the loop in favor of a normal traffic light with a left turn signal at the intersection of Vanderbilt and Flatbush avenues inside the circle.

At October's Walk21 Conference, I got the chance to tour the High Bridge, a viaduct connecting Manhattan and the Bronx which has been closed to the public for nearly 40 years.

Opening the High Bridge to pedestrians and cyclists has been a long-held goal for many New Yorkers. (I remember reading about this effort back in 1998, during a postcard campaign directed at then-Parks Commissioner Henry Stern.) Many community groups, non-profits, and public agencies have advocated for its restoration, including the City Parks Foundation, The High Bridge Coalition, and C.L.I.M.B.

Over the years, many target opening dates have been announced, but recently momentum has really picked up. Very early in 2010, community input and design will finally begin. Then, if all goes well, it shouldn't be long until we can all walk and bike across this magnificent structure.

A protected bike path will soon wrap around the circumference of Park Circle. Some segments are bi-directional.

The DOT plan [PDF] got a thumbs up from Brooklyn CB 7 back in June. Here's a look at the wide open sea of asphalt Park Circle used to be, seen from Coney Island Avenue:

The best thing about the project is that motor vehicles are now channeled into a tighter space. Traffic is noticeably calmer -- the circle doesn't feel like an extension of nearby speedways anymore. Here's a tighter shot of that same angle today, zoomed in on a fairly huge new traffic island:

More pics after the jump.

A bi-directional approach to the Ocean Parkway Greenway -- much, much easier to use than the overpass you see in the background.

It's also much easier to cross Prospect Park Southwest where it meets the circle. Technically, there's separate space for pedestrians and cyclists at this crossing, but I think we'll see a lot of sharing here.

The exit from Prospect Park. Yes, that is a "multi-lane" bike path heading toward Park Circle.

Not pictured in this post: The terrible TD Bank building on the opposite side of Prospect Park Southwest from the park. Its curb-cutting driveways, parking lot, and drive-through window are a real blemish on this much-improved urban space.

We have a few still shots for now, and some archival footage of the old Petrosino from the Streetfilms vault, featuring Streetsblog publisher Mark Gorton and Project for Public Spaces' Ethan Kent. Yes, they filmed this just four years ago:

After the jump, a shot from Robin showing the square's spiffy new bike parking.

A view of the new Petrosino from Spring Street.