Streetsblog New York City

Clarence Eckerson sends these shots of DOT street safety improvements taken on a recent ride near the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront. Above is the newly traffic-calmed intersection of Joralemon and Hicks -- part of the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project -- which now sports two sidewalk extensions. (According to the Post, a third corner was slated for a curb extension, but DOT changed plans after residents said they were worried about how fire trucks would negotiate the turn.) Says Clarence: "I am sure the speed reductions will be dramatic, the equivalent of a chicane."

Heading towards Queens, the city's stock of bi-directional, protected bike paths is on the rise. Williamsburg Street West now connects Kent Avenue to Flushing Avenue, allowing cyclists to ride contraflow to Kent safely and legally. This is also a segment along the future Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway.

More pics after the jump.

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The Montague Street Business Improvement District along with DOT's Urban Art Program today unveiled the "69 Meters" public art project. Hand-knitted cozies will adorn all the street's parking meters through mid-June. Says the BID:

69 Meters is a collaboration between [textile artist Magda] Sayeg -– the founder of Knitta Please, the guerilla knitting collective -– and nearly 50 volunteer knitters. Artworks were created by dozens of Brooklyn residents and were also contributed by knitters as far away as San Francisco, Paris, and Santiago, Chile. All of the artists are women. 

BID Photographer Jonathan Hökklo snapped these photos. More after the jump.

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In addition to last summer's blockbuster car-free event, Summer Streets, three New York neighborhoods tried out pedestrian streets on a more intimate scale. Williamsburg Walks, Summer Space in Brooklyn Heights, and the 78th Street Play Street in Jackson Heights gave communities a taste of how streets function as public spaces when cars aren't clogging up the curb or barreling down the road. Get ready for more this year: About ten neighborhoods are applying to put on pedestrian streets in the summer.

Using surveys and other data collected before and after last year's car-free events, Transportation Alternatives sheds some light on the upward trend in their new report, "I Walk in My Street" [PDF]. Here are some of the notable findings reported by TA:

• Before Summer Space, only 42% of respondents said they would visit Montague Street more often if it were closed to auto traffic; during the closure this number jumped to 72%.
• The percentage of respondents who rated the pedestrian experience of Montague Street as “Good” or “Very Good” increased from 79% before the closure to 97% during the events.
• 100% of those surveyed at the 78th Street Play Street felt that the event “enhanced the park and farmers’ market.”
• Pedestrian streets encourage walking: during the Williamsburg Walks event, 47% of those surveyed said that they had walked to the event, a 14% improvement over normal levels.
• Montague Street retailers experienced 26% higher sales during Summer Space than on comparable days in 2007, on average.

"These events are self-propelling," said TA's Wiley Norvell. "It convinces New Yorkers that their streets don't have to be all-car all the time." He attributes the initial skepticism to "30 years of street fairs with funnel cake and wholesale underwear." The new generation of car-free street events, by contrast, springs from efforts firmly rooted in each community.

It takes a lot of preparation to put on a pedestrian street, and TA's report also includes detailed explanations of how each neighborhood pulled it off. You can learn how the organizers went about community outreach, city permitting, volunteer coordination, the whole shebang. While it's too late to apply for a pedestrian street this summer, if you're interested in bringing one to your neighborhood in 2010, it's never too early to get cracking on a game plan.

Before the four "New York City Waterfalls" began gushing along the East River this June, DOT marked a bike route passing by each installation and released a guide to go with it. In this Streetfilm Elizabeth Press shows us a recent bike tour of the falls, led by DOT commish Janette Sadik-Khan. Special bonus feature: commentary from "Waterfalls" artist Olafur Eliasson about his work.

In these shots from tipster Jeff Prant (more after the jump), Brooklyn Heights residents take advantage a car-free Montague Street this past weekend. Though the July 4th holiday, overcast skies, and inadequate publicity are all suspected to have affected turnout on its first week, those who missed out can enjoy Montague "Summer Space" events on Sundays through the rest of the month.

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A tipster sends this shot from earlier today of a newly-painted bike lane on Prince Street.

After the jump, DOT bike program coordinator Josh Benson answers a question from a City Room reader about painted lanes.

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Anyone else seen these signs around town?

Cyclists heading up the Clinton Street bike lane in Brooklyn Heights are getting a nod from the construction crew whose elevator is jutting into their right-of-way. The big orange markers, labeled "Department of Transportation," start a full block ahead of the obstruction at the corner of Montague Street.

No word from DOT as to whether the city is now requiring contractors to post an alert when they block a lane.

Taken in May, the picture below shows a much more disruptive project on the Sixth Avenue bike route, in Manhattan. That monster squatted the lane with no warning at all. (See "Bike Lanes are for Bikes -- Right?")

Filed by Laura Conaway. Photos by Laura Conaway.

The McBrooklyn Blog spots this freshly painted high-visibility bike lane on Henry Street in Brooklyn:

Could be that the NYC Department of Transportation actually listened to groups like Transportation Alternatives, which advocates painting bike lanes a solid color in order to improve visibility and curb blockage by motor vehicles. Bikers have reported that the Tillary Street lane is painted green, and the lane along Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights is also painted.

Looks like it might be working. While a car did drive into the bike lane, it quickly -- "Oops!" -- swerved back out again.

Writing about Google's new Street View feature in this week's Brooklyn Paper, Brooklyn Heights Blog publisher Homer Fink finds out why the New York City Police Department has doled out more parking summonses in Brooklyn Heights this year than in any other precinct in New York City:

The first thing you notice when trolling the virtual streets is that people sure love to double park in our neighborhood. On the days the photos were taken, countless delivery trucks, vans and civilian vehicles congested the area. While it may take days, weeks or months for us to really find something juicy in this vision of Brooklyn Heights preserved in time like a bug in amber, many natives who have since moved out of the area are using Street View as a way to take a virtual trip down memory lane.

City Council Member David Yassky has come out in favor of congestion pricing, with the caveat that "many features of the Mayor's proposal will need to be reworked." Yassky's Brooklyn district, it's worth noting, encompasses three East River bridges, the Battery Tunnel and a seemingly endless number of of honking, spewing, frustrated motorists. Until last week, Yassky had been a long-time fence-sitter on the congestion pricing issue. Why did he finally commit? Last week Mayor Bloomberg announced that New York City's taxi fleet would be converted to all-hybrid vehicles by 2012. The Mayor was notably generous in crediting Yassky (twice, on national television, in the presence of Al Roker, no less) for conceiving of and fighting for the hybrid taxi initiative in City Council. Here's what Yassky wrote in an e-mail announcement to constituents:

I want you to know that I have decided to support the Mayor's congestion pricing proposal. I firmly believe that the ever more pressing danger of climate change, and the immediate threat to the City's economic and respiratory health posed by excessive traffic, require a serious response.

I recognize that many features of the Mayor's proposal will need to be reworked. In particular, the boundaries of the "charge zone" and the pricing of the tunnels need further thought. Fuel-efficient cars and trucks should be exempt from the charge. Most important, I have insisted that our neighborhoods in northwest Brooklyn must be protected by residential parking permits, and that the whole City must see a significant improvement in bus service (through more express bus lines and dedicated bus lanes on major arteries) before any congestion charge goes into effect. But looking at the entire picture, I believe the right thing is to join the Mayor's effort.