Photo: artgyrl/Flickr

Though it isn't spelled out in the bill, Int. 836 is ostensibly intended in part to minimize bus traffic on narrow residential streets, increasing pedestrian safety and, like Int. 742, reducing the buses' negative impact on neighborhoods.

Both bills are supported by the group Our Streets Our Lives (formerly Tour Buses No -- Tourists Yes), which worked last year to prod the Department of Environmental Protection to enforce tour bus emission standards. Group member Barbara Backer says most licensed tour buses are now in compliance with those rules. Of the new proposed regs, Backer says: "With re-routing no one will lose one job, tourists will still be able to visit the same businesses, and the re-routing will mean less disruption for local residents. Buses can use their hop-on-hop-off feature on major thoroughfares and still convey the same number of people to the same areas they do now."

Monday's hearing, a joint session of the council's consumer affairs and transportation committees, gets underway at 10 a.m.

As of this writing, the Committee on Environmental Protection is considering Int. 622, which would require school buses to be fitted with filters to reduce kids' exposure to diesel exhaust, and would mandate that buses be retired after 16 years. The Natural Resources Defense Council has been tracking the measure, and has background here.

Relax guys, you can keep your jackets. Photo: SliceofNYC/Flickr

Intro 416-A would require motorcycles in New York to be equipped with EPA-stamped exhaust systems -- a federal mandate since 1983, but one that is rarely enforced. Though replacing or altering EPA-approved mufflers is against the law, installations of louder after-market equipment are common.

NoiseOFF, a Queens-based org dedicated to combating noise pollution, writes:

Modified motorcycles can reach noise levels in excess of 100db(a); a level that easily triggers an involuntary stress response commonly known as "flight or flight." This results in the secretion of adrenaline, with ensuing spikes in cardio-respiratory rates, muscle tension, and elevated blood pressure. For affected residents, the never-ending cycle of noise constitutes a serious health issue.

"It is already illegal to ride with loud pipes in NYC," says NoiseOFF founder Richard Tur. "Intro 416-A is designed to allow better enforcement of the law."

A similar local ordinance was adopted in Denver. The New York iteration is sponsored by Council Member Alan Gerson. It would allow for graduated fines for repeat offenders, as well as confiscation of illegally-equipped motorcycles.

Not surprisingly, such laws are unpopular with motorcycle owners and lobbying groups, who claim they discriminate against their vehicle of choice while letting drivers of loud cars and trucks off the hook. Sound from other vehicles is, in fact, already regulated under current city code, but the New York bill nevertheless got plenty of attention from motorcycle enthusiasts when it was introduced late last year.

"We're still working diligently to get it passed," a Gerson spokesperson told Streetsblog.

While the new bill would ideally raise the profile of noisy motorcycles as a quality of life concern city-wide, some NYPD precincts are already well acquainted with the problem. Police in Inwood and Washington Heights, where neighborhood streets often double as a race course, routinely ticket riders and have impounded over a dozen motorcycles this year.

Motorcycles confiscated by the 34th Precinct in Upper Manhattan. Photo: Manhattan Times

This year has been especially bad already, and with the dangerous and noisy recreational traffic has come an uptick in criminal activity. Crime levels remain relatively low in the 34th Precinct, but robberies are up. Inwood in particular has seen a spate of alarmingly violent muggings lately. Not to say that the two are necessarily related, but to harried residents they are part and parcel of the same problem: lawless and increasingly unsafe streets.

In response, the 34th Precinct says it has ticketed drivers and even confiscated vehicles, and has promised to step up patrols and take a zero tolerance approach to noise. Last weekend was a bit calmer than usual on my Inwood block, but Upper Manhattanites are accustomed to selective enforcement, and have learned that complacency is never an option.

CB 12 has asked the city to install speed bumps in trouble spots, but DOT says daytime speed tests conducted last November (a month when motorcycle racing isn't normally an issue) didn't meet required criteria. The board has requested that tests be performed again on a weekend as late at night as possible, since DOT told transportation committee members that the agency doesn't gather such data overnight.

Tomorrow's meeting, which is co-sponsored by Council Members Robert Jackson and Miguel Martinez, will be held at CB 12 headquarters, 711 W. 168th Street in Washington Heights, at 7 p.m. As always, the more locals in attendance the better.

For the latest on this and other relevant issues in Upper Manhattan, keep an eye on the Inwood and Washington Heights Livable Streets group.

Alaska's Copper River Highway runs through forest land. (Photo: alaska-in-pictures.com)

As the Associated Press reports, the most immediate impact of Vilsack's move will come in Alaska, where the Tongass National Forest was poised for a road-building project linked to new logging. But preserving roadless forests is a hot issue all across the west, particularly in California, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has sought to keep roads out of three national forests that are close to the Los Angeles metro area.

It's important to note, though, that Vilsack's directive is only in place for a year -- meaning that roadless forests won't be assured protection unless Congress steps in to pass the bills sponsored by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA).

And for anyone wondering whether keeping roads out of forests is a local issue, check out the Forest Service's list of pavement-free zones in each state. You may be surprised to know how many protected areas there are.

This morning our friends over at Transportation for America are launching a new site called My Commute Sucks, designed to give people around the country a place to vent their frustration over the nation's overburdened and inefficient transportation systems. Commuters can share their tales of commuting woe, upload photos and videos, and also take action by contacting members of Congress to ask for a more sane and sustainable approach to transportation policy.

Already the stories are starting to pile up. Here's one from a New Jersey commuter named Betty:

The Garden State Parkway in New Jersey is a nightmare, just like Jersey's other main arteries.

I would love to bike to the train, but the town of Little Silver doesn't have safe cycling roads. Pedestrians are also at risk on some of the very busy, sidewalk-free and shoulderless roads. 

Finally, the trains are a mess with many discontinuous lines, requiring bus/taxi/light rail connections between stations. ugh 

Build bikeways and we will come! Fix the trains and we will ride!

Brian Fellows asks:

Why should we tolerate 1- and 2-hour commutes?  Think how much time we spend away from our families, burning fossil fuels, and getting stressed out -- every day, every month, every year.  The quantity is staggering.  Even now, just 5 months after the start of our metro area's light rail system (which people are flocking to!) it still takes me an hour to get to work.  Building more lane-miles simply induces more people to drive -- and there you have it: even more traffic.  I would like Congress to attach requirements to highway money that mandate recipients/states to design higher-density and mixed-use development along the highway corridors. 

Go ahead and add your own story. The site has lots of interactive features, including a Twitter feed for micro-rants (tag with #mycommutesucks). You can also follow them on Twitter, they're @mycommutesucks.

Photo by pawpaw67 via Flickr.

Now she's making the publicity rounds promoting her book, Free-Range Kids. In a recent interview with Salon, she pointed out that  while many American parents are terrified to let their children walk a few blocks or ride public transit, they think nothing of driving them everywhere -- even though car crashes are the leading cause of death for children in the US:

Skenazy: If you don't want to have your child in any kind of danger, you really can't do anything. You certainly couldn't drive them in a car, because that's the No. 1 way kids die, as passengers in car accidents.

Salon: Rationally, why aren't cars the bogeyman instead of stranger abduction?

Skenazy: It would change our entire lifestyle if we couldn't drive our kids in a car, and it's a danger that we just willingly accept without examining it too much, because we know that the chances are very slim that we're going to have a fatal car accident. But the chances are 40 times slimmer that your kid walking to school, whether or not she's the only one, is going to be hurt by a stranger.

Skenazy's answer gets to the heart of why it is so hard for people to accept the many ways in which automobiles hurt everyone in society, perhaps especially children -- through crashes, through polluting the air, through promoting obesity. We can imagine a life in which our children are not allowed to play outdoors, walk to a friend's house or spend any time unsupervised. But we just can't imagine life without cars.

Or can we?

Before and after: Fulton St. and Marcy Ave. Image via DOT.

• Brooklyn: Fulton Street & Marcy Avenue; Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, applicant. Just off the bustling commercial corridor of Fulton Street, the Marcy Avenue plaza will narrow the width of Marcy Avenue between Fulton and MacDonough Streets to create 8,000 square feet of new pedestrian space in the heart of Bedford Stuyvesant. This project dovetails with the Bedford Stuyvesant Gateway Streetscape project by the Mayor’s Office of Comprehensive Neighborhood Economic Development and the NYC Economic Development Corporation, which is redesigning Fulton Street from Bedford Avenue to Troy Avenue.
• The Bronx: Boston Road & E. 169th Street; South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation, applicant. By removing a slip lane this project will expand McKinley Square by 8,000 square feet.  This will allow the community to enhance a farmers market and create a town center for the neighborhoods of Morrisania and Clermont. The removal of the slip lane will allow children arriving by bus to walk to nearby PS 63 without having to cross a street, reducing conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles.
• Manhattan: Forsyth Street (between Canal Street and Division Street); Renaissance Economic Development Corporation, applicant. The Forsyth Street plaza will provide additional sidewalk space along the western portion of Forsyth Street to enhance the street environment currently alongside and underneath the Manhattan Bridge. In addition, the project will create an upper plaza on a vacant portion of property adjacent the bridge’s off-ramp so that residents and cyclists traveling off the bridge can enjoy public open space that looks down upon Forsyth Street and the surrounding neighborhood. In total, the project provides up to 10,000 square feet of new public space.

DOT, along with the Department of Design and Construction, will work with the applicants to develop site plans. Construction is expected to begin in 2011, as funding allows.

SeeClickFix users report Union Street gridlock

Unlike most 311 systems, the visual mapping function enables users to see all existing complaints about a particular problem or to add their voice to an existing case, thus promoting it to a more urgent position in the queue. Users can create "watch areas" and receive notices when other users identify a problem within it. Each case generates an e-mail that is sent to the appropriate agency responsible for fixing it.

According to founder Ben Berkowitz, who is based in New Haven, Connecticut, SeeClickFix got its first trial run last year when New Haven's mayor, John DeStefano, Jr., was looking for a way to better respond to public quality-of-life complaints and to reduce duplication of efforts within agencies. DeStefano required the city to respond to cases that had been generated by the public on SeeClickFix and report the status of the cases online.

The system was so successful that the city now uses SeeClickFix as a proxy 311, with agencies such as the DOT, DPW, and police department using it for non-emergency issues. DeStefano was so happy with the service that he sent a letter to more that 100 other mayors encouraging them to try it.

Berkowitz says the system has now expanded beyond the local government to utility companies and non-profits.  He said they have seen numerous cases of good Samaritans responding to complaints without prompting, such as one carpenter who fixed several park benches he located on the site.

"That's the beauty of open source," says Berkowitz. "At first, we thought of calling it Little Brother, like 'Little Brother is Watching,' but then we realized we needed to be a bit more kind to government."

Berkowitz explains that SeeClickFix often coordinates with newspapers, such as those in Boston, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh, to promote the software to the public, then advocates for the city to try responding to cases and noting the progress online. When the Philadelphia Inquirer added the SeeClickFix widget to its site, Philadelphia 311 soon started responding online to newly-generated cases.

In San Francisco, Phil Bronstein, editor-at-large of Hearst Newspapers Division, is a big fan of SeeClickFix and is planning to use the mapping widget on SFGate.com. Kevin Skaggs, executive producer of SFGate, said a collaboration with SeeClickFix has been in the works since Bronstein blogged about them last year, and that SFGate will use the widget in a few months on its new hyper-local Chronicle sites.

The new Chron sites will resemble the New York Times' recently launched local blogs, where SeeClickFix is already a presence. As of now, the Times has incorporated the map widget into the New Jersey edition of "The Local," which covers Maplewood, Millburn and South Orange. Berkowitz hopes the Times' Brooklyn blog, targeted at readers in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, will follow suit. If that happens, he sees city residents using SeeClickFix as a tool for broad scale community improvement.

"We know that it can be much bigger than 311 in New York," says Berkowitz. "It's a really great method for getting a dialogue started."

With reporting by Brad Aaron.

A DOT team received a mix of gratitude and derision at Tuesday's public forum about recent pedestrian improvements in the Meatpacking District, which attracted an audience of about 100 people to the Housing Works offices on West 13th Street. It was an interesting window onto the competing interests now vying to shape what has been, from the beginning, a genuinely community-based project seeking to put pedestrians on equal footing with vehicle traffic.

Those who came to praise described the new sense of safety they feel walking around the area near Gansevoort Plaza. Those who came to scorn suggested rolling back those improvements in the hopes that livery passengers might not have to wait another minute or two to be dropped off right at their luxe destinations. The former enjoyed a two-to-one advantage over the latter among those who spoke, with much of crowd opinion resting with a sizable, aesthetically-driven middle ground -- people who professed support for street reclamation in theory, but just don't like the look of nipple bollards.

The goal of the meeting, said DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione, was to get "a sense of the overall feeling and a sense of what can be tweaked" about the project, which is slated to enter a permanent design phase this July, followed by construction the next year. There was no shortage of thoughtful ideas -- and clunkers -- for a neighborhood attempting to deal with the influx of cab and limo traffic on weekend nights. Taxi stands, anyone?

One solution for the Meatpacking District's livery congestion: taxi stands. Image: NYCDOT

On the side of preserving safety gains, longtime resident Cynthia Penney encapsulated the sentiment of many locals. "I love the fact that I can cross the street without taking my life in my hands," she said. "Judging by the crowds outside Pastis, I don't think anyone is having trouble getting here."

On the side of maximizing vehicular throughput, Andrew Winter, a representative of luxury resto/lounge tandem Vento and Level V (a favored haunt of "good-looking, well-heeled New Yorkers in their late twenties, happy about how, well, good-looking they are" says New York Mag), put it to DOT thusly: "Instead of spending money on moving these cement block things into new areas, can we focus our funds on how to get the traffic in and out much easier?"

Not that all testimony hewed to the residents-vs.-businesses pattern. Paolo Secondo, owner of the restaurant Revel on Little West 12th Street, was firmly in favor of the pedestrian improvements. "I believe that a privilege we can no longer afford in New York is to be able to arrive at a restaurant in a cab or a limo," he said, assigning blame for traffic congestion in the area to the willy-nilly pattern of livery pick-ups and drop-offs. "I would much prefer to have stands or drop-off zones." His call was bolstered by comments from a CB4 member who recounted how taxi stands had eased traffic tie-ups and quieted late-night honking in Chelsea's nightclub district.

One of the most intriguing storylines to develop was -- brace yourself -- the question of management. As Project for Public Spaces can tell you, the success of any public space depends on programming and maintenance. Someone has to care for it. The Meatpacking District, unlike Madison Square and other areas where DOT plazas have bloomed, does not have a BID to assume this role. It does have a merchants' association -- the Meatpacking District Initiative -- and here's the Catch 22: The MPDI is funded through voluntary contributions, not mandatory assessments, so if the businesses don't like the new public spaces, they don't have to pay for things like putting on events or keeping planters looking good, and perceptions of the pedestrian zones will suffer.

"People want us to fund something that our members are not pleased with," said MPDI founder David Rabin, who called for some of the pedestrian areas on Ninth Avenue to be narrowed or removed. "It is unacceptable for me to hear people say they think it's okay that it's hard to get to the Meatpacking District."

Rabin was followed immediately by Florent Morellet, one of the first restaurateurs to set up in the area and a driving force behind the public space plan. "Cabs can come to the outskirts of the neighborhood but not to the middle," he said in a plea to fellow business owners. "The concept that people can drive wherever and whenever they want is over. You're going to kill business with the old way of thinking. Don't think the old way."

Judging by much of the testimony, many of Rabin's design-conscious members would be satisfied with changes to surface appearances -- nipple bollards, apparently, offend their haute sensibilities. As one boutique owner put it, the street furniture doesn't match the "Paris-like setting" that first attracted her to the neighborhood. Finding a substitute may prove tougher than you'd think. Any device to demarcate pedestrian space will have to meet DOT traffic engineers' exacting safety standards, which the reflective tops of nipple bollards manage to achieve.

With the final design phase slated to commence this July, the Gansevoort project is one to keep an eye on. Some changes may already be in the works. We checked in with DOT the day after the meeting, and the agency said they hope to install taxi stands in the next month or two.

Bus Chick's "Chicklet" is happy to take public transit.

One of our favorite recent discoveries on the national transpo blogging scene is Carla Saulter, a third-generation Seattleite who documents her transit-going life in a blog called Bus Chick for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

A lot of people who do without cars before they become parents think that once they do have a kid, life without a vehicle is no longer possible. Not Carla, who recently wrote a post about what she's learned in her first year as a "bus parent." Here's some of what she has to say:

Planning is essential. The single biggest difference between being a bus parent and being a car parent is the amount of mental energy that's required to make it through the day efficiently, productively, and free of stress.

Comfort is key. As a childless bus chick, I advocated shoes that were comfortable and cute. Today, I say: Cute, schmute! When I'm traveling with Chicklet, it's all about comfort.

Crying is not an option. If you take a cranky baby on a car trip, you're the only one who has to endure the howling. Cranky babies on buses, on the other hand, share their howling with dozens of innocent bystanders. Because of this, I consider it my responsibility to keep Chicklet content and well-behaved for the duration of every ride.

On the plus side: Car free is gear free. (or, Who needs a baby travel system?)

Busing means bonding. Attachment parents--listen up: Unlike car moms, who have to strap their kids into car seats, I get to ride face to face with my chicklet. We read, talk, cuddle, make new friends, and watch the world together.

Bus moms are buff moms. A year after waddling to the hospital to deliver, I'm back at my pre-pregnancy weight (after gaining a wee bit--OK, a lot--more than my doctor recommended), and I haven't counted a single calorie or even considered visiting a gym. …Believe me, my life as a bus parent is exercise enough.

I've made plenty of adjustments this year, but then, what new parent doesn't make adjustments? The good news is, Chicklet has not been deprived of any advantage or experience that is available to the children of car-owning parents, yet she's been enriched and educated in many ways that car kids have not. I can honestly say that the benefits (to my family and to the planet) of my first year bus parenting far outweigh any challenges. Bring on the next 17!

Jan Gehl and Enrique Penalosa often talk about the important role that public space plays in a healthy, functioning democracy. I was reminded of that last night as joyous Brooklynites took to the streets for spontaneous celebration following Barack Obama's election victory. This was the scene at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Union Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn last night around 1:15 a.m.

By that time I'm guessing there were about 350 people out there chanting "O-BA-MA" and "Yes We Can!" People were cheering and high-fiving the drivers of horn-honking taxis and garbage trucks. Things were festive, conflict-free and traffic was managing to squeeze its way through the intersection without any real problem. Until....

...the NYPD showed up. In their apparently never-ending quest to keep the city safe for vehicular throughput, the cops seemed intent on turning a peaceful, Park Slopey neighborhood celebration into a mini-riot (likewise, over in Williamsburg). If the goal was to keep the streets clear for traffic, the genius officer, above right, didn't help matters when he stopped a limo driver in the middle of the street and wrote him a summons. Another officer cranked up his most obnoxious siren and slowly drove his cruiser into the throng in an apparent attempt to push people back on to the sidewalk. This had the effect of dispersing people into the middle of the intersection and putting an angry edge on the crowd. 

Finally, someone at the precinct used his brain and decided to just cork the four intersections around Fifth and Union, diverting the small amount of late night motor traffic around what had become a kind of spontaneous town square. By 1:30 a.m. the neighborhood's outpouring of democratic fervor was spent and the intersection was once again safe for gypsy cabs and private carting trucks.

Transportation Alternatives' CrashStat 2.0 is now out of beta, with improvements in performance and functionality.

The most obvious change is that the data loads a lot faster, and the icons are cleaner. There are more data points, too: the map now features stats by borough as well as community district. And there are icons indicating community facilities like schools and hospitals.

Originally launched in 2004, CrashStat allows users to access official data on city pedestrian- and cyclist-involved crashes from 1995 to 2005.

Stats are now viewable by community district.

What makes the report notable are the numbers it contains. It's jam-packed with quantifiable benefits that would result from increased investment in infrastructure that encourages and supports pedestrians and cyclists.

For instance, the report's authors write:

• Increasing the bicycle and pedestrian share of trips of one mile or less from its current 31 percent, to 40 percent under a Modest Scenario, or to 70 percent under a Substantial Scenario, would result in 28 billion or 49 billion reduction in miles driven, respectively.
• Modest increases in bicycling and walking for short trips could provide enough exercise for 50 million inactive Americans to meet recommended activity levels, erasing a sizeable chunk of America’s activity deficit.
  
• For the price of a single mile of a four-lane urban highway, approximately $50 million, hundreds of miles of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure can be built, an investment that could complete an entire network of active transportation facilities for a mid-sized city.
• The financial value of improved mobility, fuel savings, greenhouse gas reductions, and health care savings amounts to more than $10 billion annually under our Modest Scenario. For the Substantial Scenario, benefits would add up to more than $65 billion every year. These benefits dwarf historic spending for bicycling and walking, which was $453 million per year for 2005–2007 under SAFETEA-LU, and a mere $4.5 billion cumulative federal investment in these modes since 1992, when bicycling and walking first received documentable federal funding.
  
  

Local residents turned out to give their opinions on the renovation of the malls early last summer.

Residents of the Lower East Side and Chinatown have been fighting for improvements to the Allen and Pike Street pedestrian malls for more than a decade. Now, with the city's Parks Department set to begin a $5.4 million renovation of the malls below East Broadway, their wait for meaningful action might be nearing an end.

The Hester Street Collaborative has just released a final report on the community's visioning process (download the full study), which was coordinated by United Neighbors to Revitalize Allen and Pike (UNRAP) and will be used to inform the upcoming work.

The malls, which run along the center of Pike and Allen Streets from the East River to Houston Street, have long been in a state of disrepair. The pavement is cracked and uneven. There's little vegetation. The roar of traffic is ever-present. "There's a tremendous need for more viable open space here," says Annie Frederick, executive director of the Hester Street Collaborative. "This neighborhood has one of the lowest rates of public space in the city."

This April, a "demonstration mall" was completed on the block between Broome and Delancey, with new planter beds, benches, and sculptures. This summer, UNRAP invited neighborhood residents and organizers to a series of "Take Back Your Park" events to provide feedback and suggest improvements to the project -- like raised planters to better buffer traffic noise, and a meandering path instead of a straight one.

The new report incorporates comments and suggestions from those events, as well as the ideas of students from the New Design High School who studied the malls as part of an intensive summer program.

Among the priorities that emerged were green space, improved buffers from street noise and traffic, connection to the East River waterfront, and events and art exhibits that highlight and preserve the cultural history of the area. Known as "Avenue of the Immigrants," Allen Street is at the heart of an area that is rapidly changing due to gentrification (the malls themselves, constructed in the wake of slum clearance, occupy space where tenements once stood).

Support also emerged for traffic-calming measures and a bike lane that would connect to Manhattan Bridge access. The city DOT has said it is looking for funds from the state DOT to implement that type of improvement.

"What we're hearing over and over again is that Allen Street is over-engineered as a road," said Frederick. "It's not safe." She added that her experience working with the current DOT makes her optimistic about changes, although budgetary constraints will be a factor. "I'm very hopeful," she said. "There has been a real sense of inter-agency collaboration and willingness to listen to the local community. There's been a shift in culture."

Photos: Hester Street Collaborative

San Francisco held its inaugural car-free "Sunday Streets" event last weekend. New Yorker Jen Petersen was there and files this report.

Whatever the weather, San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf doesn’t suffer from a shortage of dollar-shelling, strolling tourists on weekends, and so clearing street space for more people-powered mobility on a sunny morning had instant takers.  As was the case at New York’s Summer Streets, more than a few participants simply stumbled upon the event.  And since Civic Center and Fort Mason was hosting the U.S.’s first Slow Food Nation, a foodie-drawing tribute to regional, small-scale food producers, there was an even greater influx of slow and deliberate pilgrims on this particular weekend. There wasn’t a chance that the northern part of the route would go un-used, though I wondered how many San Franciscans actually ventured that way. But save for the artisan street vendors set up as usual at Market Street and Embarcadero, the weekend-shuttered financial district was still a tourist no-go zone. 

South of the Ferry Terminal Building (itself a regional foods marketplace), however, cyclists, walkers, rollerbladers, and runners transitioned to the physical activity-promoting leg of the route. And so rounding the bay’s curve to South Beach, where the SF Giants’ AT&T Park was open for base running, and the China Basin inlet, where Cheryl Burke Dance Studio offered Tribal Belly, Afro-Colombian, Salsa, and East Coast swing dance classes all morning, the re-appropriative potential of the street came to life. I maintain: there is no higher social use of street space than dancing!

And while the dance stage set up in front of Pier 48 was a lively space, the China Basin/Mission Bay stretch of the route felt fashioned by a place-marketing tour agency. Freshly-constructed condos and little else lined the street’s west side, while barbed wire fencing barred bay access for most of the route.  But oh how that unobstructed sapphire bay view beckoned! I found myself daydreaming about a waterfront Sunday Streets with free kayaks and canoes on offer.   

Pedaling beyond condo-led redevelopment’s reach, my thoughts turned to residents of the route’s immediately adjacent, currently park-poor neighborhoods. Did they know about the street closure, and had they toured this ribbon of their city on car-free streets, taken in a free dance class, or at least breathed in an unusually quiet view of the Bay Bridge, Alcatraz, and the Golden Gate? Or was this Wharf-to-Bayview route more effective for place marketing to the economically mobile, who might now add the yet-to-be-named, still comparably industrial waterfront south of Mission Bay to their "possible purchase" map?

Regardless, there were many smiling faces, and much inter-modal cooperation. For a city that has a hard time holding on to families with children, San Francisco (or the wider Bay Area) certainly has plenty who will show up with bikes, provided they can safely reach the designated route. Family bike gangs were more numerous than spandex and logo-covered road rider packs, Critical Massers (away at Burning Man, perhaps?), or fixie-fixated hipsters. The traffic current was slow, there were no lane markers for different modes and paces, and riders helped to point out perilous streetcar tracks for their fellow riders. And movers of all speeds even dismounted and unlaced rollerblades to dance together, still helmeted, in front of Pier 48. Maybe this is the most incisive indicator of a successful Ciclovía-style event after all. 

Photos 1 & 3 by Jen Petersen; Photo 2 by pecanpieguy/Flickr

The Dutch call it a woonerf -- a “livable street” resplendent with wide sidewalks, ample retail, greenery and minimal automobile traffic. It’s designed to boost quality of life for citizenry, the till for retailers and property values for landowners. Perhaps you've noticed that New York City doesn’t have many woonerfs amid its warren of streets, which make up one-fourth of the city's land area.

But what if it did?

Retail sales and property values would jump; pollution and noise would drop; and contentment among those lucky enough to live near or on a livable street would abound.

The full report promises to raise a lot of good questions. One leaps to mind already: Given the rewards to be reaped from more pedestrian-oriented streets and less traffic, will the city continue to enable car-dependent projects in the pursuit of its goals for housing and economic development? 

Graphic courtesy of the Observer; click through for full version.

Mark September 19 on your calendars. That's when Park(ing) Day returns to New York. Last year, neighborhood groups all over the city got into the street reclamation groove, converting 25 parking spots into temporary parks. Park(ing) Day 2008 figures to be even more visible. Fifty spots will be set aside to show how public street space can be put to better use than storing cars.

If you want to get in on the action, the Park(ing) Day organizers have set up a handy website where you can apply for a space. The deadline to apply is August 8, and mini-grants are available for materials and supplies. Call me a Park(ing) Day traditionalist, but I'm partial to the spots that roll out some nice, cushy sod.

Streetfilms newcomer Robin Urban Smith brings us this romp through a new play street in Jackson Heights. Located in a neighborhood with little access to park space, the 78th Street Play Street effectively extends Travers Park out past the curb every Sunday for 20 weeks.

Neighborhood groups Jackson Heights Green and Friends of Travers Park put a lot of time and effort into getting the play street off the ground. "This is the only play street I know of that's organized by grassroots groups," said Elena Madison, one of the volunteers behind it (the events are usually organized through the Police Athletic League).

This Sunday will be the third time 78th Street turns into a play street, with Williamsburg Walks and Montague Summer Space rounding out the weekend's car-free action.

"If only this street were completely jam-packed, I'd be having so much fun!!!"

It's too soon to evaluate this year's Summer Streets events, but I've noticed that the recent car-free days on Montague Street and Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn have been catching a bit of flack on Curbed and various other blogs for "not packing them in." On Saturday, the Brooklyn 11211 blog wrote that Williamsburg's main drag "lacked that manic aspect that Bedford often gets on the weekends." Curbed seemed to interpret that as failure. Last week, a Brooklyn Heights blogger snapped a photo of Montague Street around 3 pm with a light rain falling (on July 4th weekend, with the half of the neighborhood out of town) and sarcastically headlined the item, "Crowds Throng Montague." Brownstoner picked up on the photo and spread news of the "underwhelming" event.

Forgetting the fact that photos taken earlier in the day on Montague showed a pretty lovely and well-attended scene, what's with this idea that for a Summer Streets event to be considered successful, it needs to attract a "throng?" Jamming large crowds into small spaces has never been a big challenge in this town. The whole idea of Summer Streets, as I understand it, is to give New Yorkers a bit of room to breathe and space to walk, bike, play or simply sit down and relax. You want a throng? Try Midtown.

Here's a modest proposal for evaluating the success of a Summer Streets event...

Measure the amount of time kids are able to run and play without their parents having to worry about them being hit by a car, the number of friends you bump into and new people you meet, the pounds of automobile exhaust and carbon that are not spewed into the hot summer air, the volume of horn-honking, engine-revving and boom stereos you're not hearing, and whether local merchants are happy about the event and making more money than they usually do on a slow summer weekend.

And if there's a "throng" or the event is "packing them in" -- that's probably a sign of over-success. It means that it's time to expand your Summer Street by a few blocks, a few hours or another day.

Photo: Bedford Avenue last Saturday by Brooklyn 11211

Tom, whose book, I believe, most Streetsbloggers will find to be a must-read, took the time to write the following answer and to pose a question of his own...

This is a good and complicated question -- it's also an enduring one. Bad behavior was present the year I was born (1968, when Congress was holding hearings on violence on the road), but it really almost seemed built into the invention of the car -- the town of Chatham, New Jersey, for example, installed speed bumps in the early 20^th century to combat what were then known as "scorchers," or speeders. Actually, though, it predates the car. There's a great painting, by the 18^th century French artist Claude Gillot, called "The Scene of the Two Carriages," that shows two carriage drivers yelling at each at an intersection as they "contest for the way," as it used to be known. It's almost as if there's something about being inside a vehicle of any kind, removed from the normal pace and experience of walking -- the only thing we were actually born to do, after all -- that evokes its own special behaviors, its own convulsive social physics, and problems -- traffic fatalities, it should be noted, were ranked as the leading cause of fatalities in London in the early 18^th century.

Another inherent problem, I believe, is conflicting modes, at least psychologically. The New York Times, circa the late 19^th century, was filled with all sorts of hue and cry about the arrival of the bicycle. It was banned from parks, pedestrians hated it, horse-drivers thought it spooked their horses. People thought it could give you special ailments.

The only people who didn't seem to hate it were bicyclists themselves. We just seem resistant to seeing the world beyond our reference point, be that windshield or handlebars -- it's what Aaron Naparstek has aptly called "modal bias." Whatever you're in at the moment just seems the reigning mode of transport. Humans in general have trouble looking outside ourselves, we fall victim to something call the "actor-observer effect." When we see someone else do something, we might attribute their action to something about their personality or nature. When we do something, we attribute it to "situational" factors -- we had to do it because of something external. This has been shown in studies -- car drivers think "bikers" do something because they're, well, "bikers," whereas they as car drivers are merely reacting to events, being affected by others. "You fell, I was pushed," is how it's been described. How many times have you seen someone honk at someone who was waiting for pedestrians to cross while making a turn; they'll call them an "idiot" as if there wasn't a perfectly normal reason they were waiting to make the turn. George Carlin got at this a bit when he said anyone moving faster than you was a maniac and anyone slower was an idiot. We have ignition interlocks now in cars, so it won't start if you've been boozing it up -- I'd like to see a "blood flow to the brain" interlock, where the car shuts down if it detects you've actually stopped cogitating, as so often seems the case.

There's all sorts of other things underlying bad road behavior. Anonymity is a huge issue -- I compare traffic to being online. You can act nastily, veiled behind a pseudonym, then leave in a hurry, with no consequences; you'll do things you'd never do in a normal social setting. Your commenter is right -- studies have shown less aggressive behavior from people in convertibles with the top down versus convertibles with the top up. The thought is they're less protected, less anonymous, more "human." It could also just be they're in a better mood because they've got the top down. All kinds of psychological studies have shown how one's chances of gaining cooperation increase when we can make eye contact. We only get this occasionally in traffic, when we look at someone to try to get "waved in" -- unless we're getting what Seinfeld called the "stare ahead." One of your commenters mentioned frustrated speed as a cause of hostility, and I think that's right; most times we're in transport it's because we want to get somewhere after all, and in any mode we can get annoyed at delay -- we've probably all seen the nasty altercations on the Brooklyn Bridge between cyclists who get really annoyed when they have to slow for wayward tourists who don't observe the rule/norm. But speed is linked as well to anonymity, nowhere more so in a car; the faster you go, the more divorced you become, in a sensorial and practical way, from the environment around you. It doesn't help that we tend to engineer our roads to seem as if they were designed for nothing more than the fast movement of vehicles.

Another reason people might be acting like criminals on the road is that they might actually be criminals on the road. Studies in the U.K. that looked at a pool of driving records found that people who committed non-motoring offenses were much more likely to commit motoring offenses. Then there's the issue of driver's actual grasp of the traffic law. Police in Chicago recently posed as pedestrians to nab drivers acting badly in intersections. In many cases drivers, and sometimes pedestrians, seemed clueless as to the actual right of way laws. Studies by David Ragland and Meghan Mitman at UC-Berkeley have confirmed this, and the implications of their studies were that pedestrians, in many cases, were better off in unmarked than marked crosswalks because there was less certainty over who had right of way, and thus more caution.

That's sort of the unfortunate aspect of clinging to traffic laws as a way to try assure good behavior -- we're not even sure who's aware of the laws, perhaps not a surprise given how complex the traffic environment can be. We need, in the end, to rely more on just basic precepts of polite behavior and social cooperation -- there's so many things that can't be readily enforced, so many roads where police can't be present. I really have no clue how to get there, though -- any suggestions?