Streetsblog New York City

Photo: @PSteely

Looks like protected bike infrastructure is growing on Chuck Schumer. High-powered backchannel NIMBY assault notwithstanding, New York’s senior senator apparently does enjoy riding the bike lane in his front yard, as you can see in this Sunday morning photo courtesy of fellow PPW resident Paul Steely White.

So, when will the rest of Streetsblog’s 2011 April Fools Day post come true?

Caption submissions welcome in the comments. Winner will be selected and posted tomorrow.

The transportation committee of CB 11 voted again to bring the complete street design for First Avenue, shown here in the East Village, to East Harlem. Photo: NYC DOT

Protected bike lanes once again won big support in East Harlem. After Community Board 11 first endorsed protected lanes for First Avenue and Second Avenue by a vote of 47-3, then rescinded that support in the face of business opposition, the board’s transportation committee has put the complete street redesign back on the path to construction with a 7-0 vote of support, with one abstention.

“We’re certainly much more confident now with the project that we were in the past,” said committee chair Peggy Morales.

Two committee members who had been skeptical of the protected bike lanes said they’d been persuaded by two meetings of a working group convened at the suggestion of Borough President Scott Stringer. Supporters and opponents of the lanes sat down together with seven different city agencies to walk through exactly what protected bike lanes will mean for the neighborhood.

Frances Mastrota said that she’d been worried that the bike lanes would eliminate parking spaces and hurt local businesses, but was persuaded by Department of Health officials explaining that promoting walking, through pedestrian refuge islands, and cycling, would improve public health in a neighborhood that struggles with asthma and diabetes. Judith Febrarro, who still had a few concerns, voted for the lanes, reassured by the Fire Department that its trucks could use the lanes in an emergency and by the Sanitation Department that snow plowing would work with a floating parking lane.

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Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito rallied for the completion of the First and Second Avenue bike lanes in November of 2010. Photo: Noah Kazis

Tomorrow night, protected bike lanes and pedestrian refuges for First and Second Avenue bike lanes are again on the agenda of East Harlem’s Community Board 11.

The board, along with City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito and State Senator José Serrano, had called for protected bike lanes in their neighborhood since 2010, and voted 47-3 in favor of them as recently as last September. After local restaurant owners Frank Brija and Erik Mayor protested the lanes, however, the board rescinded its vote of support, deciding to review the issue.

After months of intensive discussion, including consistent advocacy by Mark-Viverito and a December public meeting where a sizable majority of attendees spoke out in support of protected bike lanes, the issue is ready for another vote from CB 11′s transportation committee tomorrow night, said Assistant District Manager Angel Mescain.

Before voting, the committee will hear recommendations from a working group convened by Borough President Scott Stringer. A similar group Stringer assembled for the Columbus Avenue bike lane proposed some tweaks to the parking regulations on Columbus and helped defuse the conflict over the lane.

On First and Second Avenues, where both supporters and opponents of the bike lanes have seized on the neighborhood’s asthma epidemic to support their position, the working group will recommend that the city compare air pollution before and after the installation of the lanes, said Mescain. Representatives of the New York Academy of Medicine and the NYC Department of Health have testified that the bike lanes should improve public health.

The public will be allowed to speak, Mescain said, but hearing testimony won’t be the committee’s focus tomorrow night.

The meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. tomorrow night, March 6, at the board’s offices at 1664 Park Avenue. between 117th Street and 118th Street.

Former deputy mayor Norman Steisel, former DOT commissioner Iris Weinshall, and former Brooklyn College dean Louise Hainline have won Streetsblog's coveted NIMBY of the Year award two years running and are making an early bid to threepeat.

Like a reanimated corpse, the PPW bike lane lawsuit is stumbling on a little while longer, as NBBL appeals Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Bert Bunyan’s dismissal of the case. The surreal part of the spectacle this time around is that bike lane opponents are basically repeating what they said last year, even though their own correspondence has since revealed that they knew claims in the lawsuit had no merit. Who needs merit when you just want to wage a political attack against DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan?

If you’ll recall, NBBL has to argue that the bike lane was a “trial” when DOT installed it in June of 2010, or else their March, 2011 lawsuit was filed too late to have any standing. Here’s Gibson Dunn attorney Georgia Winston (apparently Jim Walden couldn’t be troubled) in a NBBL press release yesterday:

“The lawsuit clock started running only after the Department of Transportation made a final decision to permanently install the lane, in January 2011. Before that—throughout the summer and fall of 2010—the lane was repeatedly described as a ‘trial,’ including by the lane’s most fervent supporters.”

Not only is this the same argument that Judge Bunyan rejected last August, but Streetsblog reported in October that NBBL leaders knew better all along. Here’s NBBL member Jessica Schumer in a July 1, 2010 email to bike lane opponents:

“The NY court’s are very strict in their applicaiton of statute of limitations in Article 78 proceedings. We need a lawyer to start drafting the motion ASAP.”

And here’s NBBL leader Louise Hainline in an August, 2010 email to Marty Markowitz’s chief of staff, Carlo Scissura:

“Can you fill me in on what was said or not said by DOT about the matter of this installation being a trial? I’ve look at everything I can find Sadik-Khan or her people have said about this bike lane and can’t find anything that indicates they publically said the installation was only a trial.”

If you’d managed to put this whole sordid affair out of your mind and forgotten the byzantine sequence of events, here’s the handy timeline to help orient yourself:

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The Green Lane Project will provide financial and technical assistance for cities to develop physically protected cycling infrastructure. The six to-be-determined cities will then serve as models for other American cities looking to incorporate street designs that make cycling appealing to residents of all ages.

A few major cities including New York and Washington DC have implemented protected bike lanes, but the designs are still “When a city is out on the front like this and they have a problem, it’s not always clear where they go. We’re trying to help those cities figure it out,” said Green Lane Project Director Martha Roskowski. “So they don’t have to go to Copenhagen to see how these things work.”

Bikes Belong is looking for cities that have political support for creating world-class bike infrastructure, as well as a plan in place. The organization also wants to include three “emerging cities” outside the superstars like New York and Portland, Roskowski said.

“We’re looking for six cities where they have elected officials that are on board with this,” said said. “They’ve gone through some type of a planning process. They get it. They want to do these things.”

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A rendering of what Lafayette Avenue might look like with a protected bike lane. Image: jacob-uptown

Hilda Cohen, Ali Loxton and 1,600 petition-signers are asking for a painted bike lane and a road diet on Brooklyn’s Lafayette Avenue: They’re hoping to calm traffic and improve the area’s bike network by turning one traffic lane into a bike lane, and they helped persuade Brooklyn Community Board 2 to ask NYC DOT to revisit the idea.

Streetsblog reader jacob-uptown asks: What if you reallocated that space to build a parking-protected bike lane and pedestrian refuges?

By flipping the bike lane and the parking lane, he suggests, cycling and crossing the street would be that much safer. He Photoshopped the image to demonstrate what a protected bike lane might look like on Lafayette (current conditions are below).

Like what you see?

Dwayne Marshall, an East Harlem elementary school student, was one of many neighborhood residents who stood up in support of protected bike lanes last night. Photo: Concrete Safaris

At a long and at points contentious public hearing last night, a clear majority of speakers came out in support of protected bike lanes on First and Second Avenues in East Harlem. In addition to local residents, the public health community came out in force to demolish the opposition’s claim that installing bike lanes could worsen the neighborhood’s asthma rates.

Community Board 11 had previously voted overwhelmingly in favor of the lanes, then rescinded its vote in the face of business opposition. Last night’s testimony sets the stage for another vote on the project, perhaps in January.

More than 30 people spoke in support of the bike lanes, while only seven spoke against. The larger audience, a packed room of over one hundred, seemed to have a similar proportion of supporters to opponents. Local activist James Garcia also brought a petition with 850 signatures in support of the bike lanes, an amount he said only took seven hours to gather.

The community’s elected leadership continued their sustained fight to bring safer streets to East Harlem.

“Our public roadways are a public amenity that belong to every single individual who lives in our community,” said Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, who stayed for the full three-hour hearing. She argued that building complete streets not only protects people who already bike but also helps seniors cross the street and lets parents feel comfortable having their kids get on bikes. “I believe very strongly that this is a social justice issue. Our community doesn’t deserve any less than any other community, and our children don’t deserve any less.”

“As cycling becomes more popular among city dwellers,” State Senator José Serrano said in a prepared statement read by an aide, bike riders “deserve to have safe travel like pedestrians or drivers.”

The bike lanes had two strong bases of support in the neighborhood’s student population and in the public health community. Speaking first last night in order to be able to make it home for bedtime were seven elementary school students from the Concrete Safaris afterschool program. “Biking is good because you don’t get diabetes and pollute the air,” said a girl named Abigail. “I think East Harlem should have bike lanes. You get a ticket if you ride on the sidewalk and it’s extra-scary when you have to ride in a car lane,” argued Dwayne Marshall.

Three students from the Coalition School for Social Change, a high school located on First Avenue, also spoke in favor of the lane. They had participated in a DOT-led visioning process for the street and saw the bike lanes as part of a larger project to enliven the street and improve safety. “We would love them,” said one student. “Please approve them so that we can ride our green wheels safely to schools.”

Last night’s speakers also debated the public health implications of installing protected bike lanes. East Harlem suffers from elevated rates of asthma, diabetes and obesity, so health is a top concern for most families there. Erik Mayor, the owner of local business Milk Burger, again appealed to those concerns in arguing against the bike lanes. “The traffic conditions will get worse. It’s common sense,” he claimed. “Greater congestion creates greater emissions from vehicles.”

However, a parade of experts each testified that the lanes would, in fact, improve public health. “There is no evidence to suggest that bike lanes increase asthma rates,” said Joanne Eichel of the New York Academy of Medicine. “On the contrary, we know that riding a bike has extraordinary health benefits.”

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A protected bike lane and pedestrian refuges could tame the dangerously wide First Avenue in East Harlem. Photo: James Garcia

Next Tuesday, Manhattan Community Board 11 will take up the extension of protected bike lanes on First and Second Avenue up to 125th Street in East Harlem. This is the critical safety project that the owners of Patsy’s Pizzeria and Milk Burger tried to derail at a recent CB 11 meeting by claiming that it would make asthma rates worse.

The protected bike lane proposal has a long history at CB 11. After the city backed off its initial promise to extend the East Side bike lanes to 125th Street in 2010, residents came out to a community board meeting and demanded to know why DOT wasn’t giving them the same safety improvements that downtown neighborhoods received. Supporters of the project persisted, delivering thousands of handwritten letters to City Hall laying out why protected bike lanes and pedestrian refuges will benefit East Harlem. When DOT came back to the community board this year with plans to build the project next spring, the proposal passed 47-3.

Taming the dangerously wide avenues didn’t sit well with the owners of Patsy’s and Milk Burger — Frank Brija and Erik Mayor. Both men sit on the community board and were able to engineer a vote to rescind the earlier approval of the lane. Brija and Mayor claimed, among other things, that devoting more space to biking would lead to worse asthma rates in the neighborhood.

Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito strongly backs the project, as does CB 11 chair Matthew Washington, and residents who worked hard to bring safer streets to their neighborhood aren’t giving up.

If you would like to speak up about why reclaiming space from traffic on extra-wide streets is healthy for East Harlem, here’s where to go:

Tuesday, December 6 at 6 p.m.
Taino Towers, 240 E. 123rd Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues)
Red Carpet Theatre, 1st floor

Double parking and worn out markings plague the Hudson Street bike lane.

The full board of Manhattan Community Board 2 voted unanimously last Thursday night to endorse a community-generated plan to convert the buffered bike lane on Hudson Street to a parking-protected lane.

The new protected lane would extend the protected Eighth Avenue bike lane down to Canal Street and the Ninth Avenue bike lane to Bleecker Street.

The Hudson Street bike lane is one of the oldest buffered bike lanes in the city, and its faded stripes are often blocked by double-parked vehicles. The lane is wide enough that it could be upgraded to a protected bikeway without removing a travel lane. Parking would only need to be eliminated to install pedestrian refuge islands, popular among local residents, and mixing zones at intersections.

The resolution asks DOT to return to the community board with a plan to upgrade the lane.

“This is a common-sense conversion — it’s low-hanging fruit for DOT,” said Ian Dutton, one of two community board members who developed the proposal. “Because the buffered lane is already there, though it’s worn-away to the point of being almost invisible, there will be hardly any consequences for drivers — only shorter crossings for pedestrians, a greener and narrower-appearing street to calm traffic, and a far safer and comfortable cycling experience, maximizing the west-side bicycle corridors on Eighth and Ninth Avenues.”

Patsy's Pizza owner Frank Brija, right, claimed at a CB 11 meeting that protected bike lanes in East Harlem would make asthma rates worse. Photo: Jeff Mays/DNAinfo

After a misinformation campaign by two local business owners, East Harlem’s Community Board 11 rescinded its vote in support of plans for protected bike lanes along First and Second Avenue Tuesday night. The board will soon vote again on the project, which has the backing of local Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito.

Community Board 11 has already voiced its support for the protected bike lanes twice. In 2010, the community board expressed outrage over being first promised a protected lane, then having the Bloomberg administration recant. Then, this September they voted 47-3 to support the construction of the protected lanes, setting the stage for construction as soon as the spring.

But, as DNAinfo first reported, after restaurant owners Frank Brija and Erik Mayor organized against the project, the board voted to take back its most recent endorsement. The community board will vote again on the bike lanes after considering the businessmen’s arguments and hearing a new presentation from the Department of Transportation.

“They’re ready to do Occupy Milk Burger.”

Community leaders, including Mark-Viverito and CB 11 chair Matthew Washington, support the bike lanes and promised to ensure that the board has accurate information about the project.

Brija and Mayor, the owners of Patsy’s Pizza and Milk Burger, respectively, gathered signatures from 61 business owners in East Harlem. Mayor claimed that the businesses had not been contacted about the project, though DNAinfo’s Jeff Mays reports that DOT Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione said her office contacted every business along First and Second Avenues, as did the board’s district manager and transportation committee chair.

The East Side project would bring protected bike lanes and new pedestrian refuges to a neighborhood with some of the most dangerous streets and severe asthma problems in the city. Mayor and Brija threw the kitchen sink at the proposal. In addition to arguing that the lanes would remove parking spaces and be underused, Mayor and Brija claimed that the bike lanes would increase congestion and actually worsen asthma rates in the neighborhood.

“There was a lot of confusion and misinformation provided that night,” Mark-Viverito said of Tuesday’s vote. She added that she’d personally be working with the board leadership to make sure that CB members get the best information possible about the effect of bike lanes.

“I don’t see this as any sort of slowing down of the process to get the protected bike lanes we want and need in East Harlem,” she said. “The vote was not to say no to the bike lanes.”

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