In every community district along the proposed Nostrand Avenue bus rapid transit corridor, fewer Brooklynites are driving to work compared to the beginning of the last decade...

Brooklyn commuters — already some of the biggest transit riders in the country — are opting for transit at ever higher rates. New numbers from the Center for the Study of Brooklyn at Brooklyn College, first highlighted by City Limits’ Brooklyn Bureau, crunch Census data to reveal the evolving commuting patterns in the borough’s 18 community board districts. (To see the citywide breakdown of these numbers by state legislative district, check out Streetsblog’s prior coverage.)

Given the weight that community boards exert over street designs like new bus lanes or bike lanes, the figures are a valuable resource as Brooklyn neighborhoods consider projects to improve surface transit and street safety.

Take plans for Select Bus Service along Nostrand Avenue, set to launch this year. Though the improved bus service will speed up the commute for the B44′s 41,000 daily riders with dedicated bus lanes, off-board fare payment, and bus bulbs, at least one community board along the route has voted against the proposal. “Why would you even take the bus?” one Community Board 15 member asked.

At debates like those, marshaling facts about the district that the community board is supposed to represent can be valuable. Of all the community boards along Nostrand, CB 15 represents the fewest transit riders, the Brooklyn College data shows. But even there, more commuters take transit than drive, and the gap is growing. Between 2007 and 2009, 47.8 percent of CB 15 residents rode transit to work; during the same period, only 38.7 percent drove. In 2000, 46.1 percent took transit while 44.3 percent took their car.

The story is the same up and down Nostrand Avenue. In every community district, driving is down (below 17 percent of commuters in both Greenpoint/Williamsburg and Crown Heights). In all but one, transit is on the rise, and in every district, more commuters use transit than any other mode.

When the Nostrand SBS launches this summer, there’s sure to be a fresh round of griping about lost parking spaces and less space for private car travel. When that happens, this Census data should serve as a valuable reality check.

...while transit use is up everywhere except community district 9.

The Bronx's second Select Bus Service route is planned for Webster Avenue, marked as #1 on this map of high-priority routes for bus improvements. Image: NYC DOT/MTA

A new crop of bus routes is moving into the pipeline for implementation as Select Bus Service. The MTA and NYC DOT are in the initial stages of bringing SBS to the Bronx’s Webster Avenue, where the most unreliable bus in the borough runs, and to Brooklyn’s Utica Avenue, the second-busiest bus route in the city.

The innovations of SBS — pre-paid boarding, dedicated bus lanes, priority at traffic signals — have sped buses and attracted new riders on Fordham Road, First and Second Avenues, and 34th Street. And they can work on bus lines all over the city. So as the first round of SBS implementation comes to a close (lines on Nostrand Avenue and Hylan Boulevard are scheduled for completion in the next year or two), the development of new routes is a welcome signal that the MTA and NYC DOT are committed to bringing bus improvements to more New Yorkers.

The city’s first Select Bus Service line launched on Fordham Road in the Bronx in 2008, and it’s been a smashing success. Bus speeds increased by 20 percent and ridership by 30 percent. So expanding SBS to more routes in the borough is a no-brainer. The choice of the Bx41 for the upgrade was first reported in the Daily News yesterday.

“There was a lot of support in the Bronx for doing a route along Webster Avenue,” an MTA spokesperson told Streetsblog. “This would be a full-fledged SBS route with all the features offered by the Bx12 and the M15.”

Running down Webster, the Bx41 has relatively high ridership — 7.6 million annual riders — but was ranked the most unreliable bus in the borough this year by the Straphangers Campaign. Perhaps in part because of all that bus bunching, ridership on the route has been in free fall. The Bx41 saw one million fewer trips in 2010 than in 2009, according to the MTA.

There’s no roll-out date for the Bx41 yet, according to the MTA, and any eventual route will need to go through a public review process.

Though there’s no mention of Webster Avenue on the joint NYC DOT/MTA website dedicated to SBS, there is a new page on that site marking the start of planning for bus improvements along Brooklyn’s Utica Avenue.

Both Webster and Utica Avenues were identified as targets for bus improvements in a 2009 joint DOT/MTA study mapping out potential routs for the second phase of Select Bus Service. Each was considered an “underserved area”: a corridor that was far from the subway yet densely developed.

Along Utica, it’s not yet clear what shape the bus improvements would take. DOT started conducting a study on both transit and traffic safety conditions this October — in addition to carrying 16 million annual bus riders, Utica is also one of Brooklyn’s most dangerous streets — and the study will be complete this spring, according to the website. The study only covers a stretch of Utica a bit longer than a mile, however, between St. John’s Place and Church Avenue. Once the study is complete, DOT will develop a menu of options to improve safety and transit service and present them to the public.

An 80-year-old man was killed while walking in Sheepshead Bay on Tuesday.

According to NYPD and online reports, Aron Dudkin was crossing East 7th Street at Avenue T at 6:45 a.m. when he was hit by the driver of a Nissan. Dudkin was taken to Coney Island Hospital, where he died from his injuries.

The driver, a 21-year-old male, remained at the scene. “There is no criminality,” an NYPD spokesperson told Streetsblog. No further information was available.

The crossing where Dudkin was hit is a signalized intersection. Was he crossing with the light? Was the driver proceeding through the intersection on Avenue T, or turning from East 7th? Judging by video from the scene, it looks as if the victim was knocked out of his shoes. Was speed a factor? Unfortunately, these crucial details are kept off-limits by NYPD. As far the general public is concerned, in all likelihood this case is closed.

The crash that killed Aron Dudkin occurred in the 61st Precinct. The commanding officer there is Deputy Inspector Georgios Mastrokostas. To voice your concerns about neighborhood traffic safety directly to Deputy Inspector Mastrokostas or other precinct higher-ups, drop in on the next community council meeting. The 61st Precinct council meets on the second Wednesday of each month at 3093 Ocean Avenue at 7:30 p.m. Call ahead (718-627-6847) to confirm meeting dates and times.

Brooklyn's Fourth Avenue is all kinds of pedestrian-unfriendly, but a task force set up by Borough President Marty Markowitz is aiming to fix that.

Right now, Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue is known for its speedway design and anti-urban architecture. But Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz hopes to turn the road into a grand “Brooklyn Boulevard” and in August, he established a task force charged with planning the street’s future. This Monday, the task force’s transportation and traffic committee will hold its first meeting, charting a course going forward.

Markowitz chief of staff (and potential successor) Carlo Scissura is the task force’s chair. In an interview with Patch last month, Scissura said that he wants to see the street made safer and livelier. Trees and public seating might be added to the sidewalks and plazas, while in the street, Scissura proposed removing left turn lanes and widening the medians.

The task force has support from four City Council members and three Congresspeople in addition to the borough president. Any changes it develops will probably have significant political backing — and possibly significant access to funds. Go and make your voice heard: This is a moment when people are listening.

The transportation and traffic committee meeting is the first opportunity to share ideas about how the street should function. It will be held at Brooklyn Borough Hall (209 Joralemon Street) at 6:00 p.m., on Monday, November 14. The following night, the full task force will meet at 6:00 p.m. at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, 249 9th Street (at Fourth Avenue).

Bus bulbs will improve bus service and the pedestrian experience along Nostrand Avenue as part of the new SBS service. Image: NYC DOT/MTA.

With Select Bus Service speeding trips and boosting ridership on Fordham Road and First and Second Avenue, the next route slated for an upgrade is Brooklyn’s Nostrand Avenue. The B44 bus runs over nine miles from the Williamsburg Bridge to Sheepshead Bay. It attracts 41,000 riders a day, making it the seventh busiest route in the city, despite running at an average speed or seven or eight miles per hour and having the least reliable service in the borough. Last night, the Department of Transportation and MTA held an open house to present an updated design for the corridor [PDF], one of the final revisions before construction begins next year.

Nostrand Avenue SBS will, as in the Bronx and Manhattan, create dedicated bus lanes enforced by automated cameras and use high-capacity buses and off-board fare payment. With fewer stops, the bus will also spend more time in motion and less time starting and stopping.

The Nostrand project will add another new feature: bus bulbs. By extending the sidewalk out to the street, bus bulbs mean that drivers don’t have to pull to the curb and back into the lane, resulting in a smoother and speedier ride. A raised curb means more level boarding onto the bus, advantageous for the elderly and the mobility-impaired. The extra space also means that the bus stop won’t crowd the sidewalk.

DOT and the MTA made a few revisions to the plan under the new design. A station was added at Avenue D/Newkirk Avenue in response to community requests. Bus lanes were removed on Bedford Avenue between Fulton and DeKalb — the agencies said bus speeds were already high there but the bus lane would have interfered with the bike lane — but lanes were added to a congested section of Nostrand between Farragut Road and Avenue I.

In order to preserve the same number of motor vehicle lanes during rush hour, where a bus lane is being installed DOT proposes turning the left parking lane into a through lane during the morning and evening peaks. This shouldn’t have too much of an impact on local merchants. At Nostrand and Empire Boulevard, only 14 percent of shoppers had driven to the area (and not all had parked on Nostrand). Further south, at Glenwood Road, only 13 percent of shoppers had arrived in a car.

Moreover, there’s a lot of room to add parking in other ways. On much of Nostrand and its cross streets, parking is currently free. The installation of meters will encourage drivers to move on once done shopping, freeing up space for others. The use of Muni-Meters will also allow more vehicles to park in the same area. Finally, loading zones and delivery windows will ensure that trucks have space at the curb rather than being forced to resort to double-parking. DOT’s presentation didn’t do the math, but it’s possible the neighborhood could actually gain parking capacity despite the rush hour restrictions.

Community boards will continue to weigh in through next week. If the plan goes forward, Select Bus Service will be up and operating on Nostrand Avenue next fall.

The city's first pop-up café, in the Financial District, is heavily used and good for local business. Photo: Ian Dutton

Brooklyn’s only proposed pop-up café won the approval of Community Board 2 last night in an 18-10-1 vote, allowing the city to replace on-street parking with public seating. This pop-up is sponsored by the Ecopolis Café on Smith Street, which will pay the cost of building the temporary public space.

The Ecopolis pop-up had received unanimous approval from the board’s transportation committee, according to member Mike Epstein. At the full board meeting, however, Epstein said that just about every comment or question on the topic came from opponents of the proposal. Most were concerned about parking. Some were assuaged by the fact that DOT has allowed community boards to have complete veto power over pop-up cafés in their neighborhoods, Epstein reported, meaning that the board could ensure that there would never be more than one on a given block.

In Lower Manhattan, the city’s first pop-up café increased business at the two sponsoring restaurants by 14 percent. Even so, vocal opposition from Sean Sweeney and his SoHo Alliance led the local community board to turn down six of seven proposed pop-ups for SoHo and Greenwich Village last month.

The Park Slope Patch (an AOL publication, for what it’s worth) did a few word-on-the-street interviews on Prospect Park West, asking passersby what they think about the bike lane. Not everyone they talked to thinks the lane is needed — it’s about 50-50, giving critics a disproportionate say relative to their numbers. But note that even the guy who calls the lane “stupid” thinks the NBBL-conjured safety criticism is hogwash.

Moisha's Discount Supermarket is set to expand with city assistance, but it'll be building more parking than supermarket. Image: Google Street View.

Wondering why the city is subsidizing 18,000 square feet of parking for a project that’s supposed to make fresh food more accessible to low-income New Yorkers? Political favors seem to have something to do with it.

Moisha’s Discount Supermarket is receiving $2 million in tax incentives to expand its operations and build parking for 45 cars under the FRESH program, intended to bring fruits and vegetables into underserved neighborhoods. But according to a report in the Daily News, there are 10 markets within five blocks of Moisha’s and all of them sell fresh produce. The News points to $41,690 in donations from Moisha’s owners to local politicians as an alternative explanation for Moisha’s tax breaks.

An article in City Hall News, which has been taken off their website (we’re looking into why), suggests more direct impropriety. They report that the district manager of Brooklyn Community Board 12 testified to the city’s Industrial Development Agency that his board was completely behind the Moisha’s expansion. But a member of CB12 said the board had never discussed the issue. The district manager and Moisha’s owners are reported to have close ties to Assembly member and local power broker Dov Hikind.

Assembly Member Dov Hikind speaking against pedestrian refuges on Fort Hamilton Parkway at a CB12 meeting last November.

All too often, political patronage is what determines how much parking New York City decides to build. From the city’s decision to give more parking to the Yankees in return for a luxury suite in left field to the Finance Department’s overruling of rank-and-file assessors to grant a politically-connected Jamaica parking operator non-profit status and millions in tax exemptions, too much of the city’s mushrooming parking supply is built and subsidized because of sweetheart deals.

Even when political favors aren’t at work, however, it’s usually still politics that determines how much parking gets built, not any kind of thinking about transportation policy. Parking is routinely thrown in as a “sweetener” for new development, something that a developer or the city can offer a neighborhood to accept growth.

It’s exceedingly rare for parking decisions to be made on the grounds of how much more traffic a garage will induce or how much air pollution it will add. No wonder the city keeps building acre after acre of it.

Moisha's Discount Supermarket is set to expand with city assistance, but it'll be building more parking than supermarket. Image: Google Street View.

Thanks to New York City’s Economic Development Corporation, the residents of Midwood are about to enjoy a wider selection of produce and kosher foods. Under the FRESH program, Moisha’s Discount Supermarket is slated to receive just under $2 million in tax breaks to double its size and provide more grocery options to the underserved community [PDF]. Along with 15,000 square feet of supermarket, however, the neighborhood will be receiving 18,000 square feet of parking.

According to Moisha’s application for city support, most of that parking will be built on the roof of the new store. According to the city Industrial Development Agency’s notice of public hearing, however, it will be regular surface parking taking up half of the 36,000 square foot lot. Either way, that much parking is overkill for Moisha’s.

The supermarket’s environmental assessment, for example, estimates that 18,000 square feet is enough space for 45 cars, but that a maximum of 40 vehicular trips could be generated by the store in any given hour. In other words, by the store’s own calculation, unless most customers are spending hours at a time shopping, it’s providing more parking than it would at any point have driving customers. Other options abound: In addition to plain old walking, Moisha’s is located around four blocks from the F train at Avenue N, and the store’s website advertises its delivery service.

Perhaps more importantly, the entire purpose of the FRESH program is to make high-quality and affordable groceries available to residents who don’t have access to them. People who drive to the supermarket aren’t so constrained by what’s available in the neighborhood. That’s why the U.S. Department of Agriculture defines households as living in a food desert if they’re more than a mile from the nearest grocery store and they don’t have a car. FRESH-supported supermarkets are in that sense supposed to cater to those on foot, on bike, or on the bus.

To the city’s credit, the FRESH program makes important nods toward the inconsistency of large parking lots in its supermarkets. In addition to providing tax incentives, FRESH also cuts parking minimums for participating stores: The first 15,000 or 40,000 square feet of the store, depending on the location, don’t require any parking under FRESH.

Taking those guidelines into account, it appears Moisha’s is probably providing all that excess parking — which is sure to induce more driving in the neighborhood — of its own accord, rather than because of any city-mandated minimums.

Even so, Moisha’s is a perfect example of how when it comes to parking, EDC needs to do better. EDC calculates, for example, that helping Moisha’s expand will create around $3.7 million in new tax revenues over 25 years, but the agency doesn’t break down how they reach that figure.

That leaves important questions unanswered. For instance: Would the Moisha’s project provide more economic benefit if, instead of devoting so much space to car storage, EDC helped them build housing or additional retail space? EDC did not respond to Streetsblog’s request for that information.

I’m not one for conspiracy theories.  9/11 was not an inside job, Oswald acted alone, the Moon landing was real, and Elvis is still dead.

When it comes to all of the bike lane hate that seems to be spewing forth from various corners of this city, and Brooklyn in particular, I feel the same way.  Norman Steisel probably has a better chance of getting calls to Marty Markowitz returned than you or I, but I wouldn’t begin to suggest that Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes is in communication with Marty’s office on matters of strategy.  If they were, I think their war plan would at least appear to be coherent.

To wit, see if you can follow this logic:

• There are two sets of data: the DOT’s and NBBL’s.
• On the same day the DOT counted 863 cyclists using the Prospect Park West bike lane, Neighbors For Better Bike Lanes collected video surveillance showing only 470 bikes, a difference of about 54%.
• Such a huge discrepancy is beyond the realm of statistical variation.
• Therefore, the DOT is making up bike counts out of thin air.
• If the DOT makes up bike count numbers, then none of their data can be trusted.
• The NBBL data can be trusted.

This is somewhat reasonable, especially if you’re inclined to not trust the DOT.  But just when it seems like it all makes sense, along comes Marty Markowitz with his own logic:

• There are two sets of data: the DOT’s and NBBL’s.
• Marty Markowitz claims that on the day DOT did their bike counts, the department tipped off cycling advocates, resulting in a 54% difference between their count and NBBL’s.
• Such a huge discrepancy can only be explained by cycling advocates who flooded the bike lane with extra trips beyond what one would find on a typical weekday.
• Therefore, the DOT is inflating bike counts by tipping off cyclists.
• If the DOT tips off cyclists, none of their data can be trusted.
• The NBBL data can be trusted.

Marty, you’re messing things up for NBBL!  Either the DOT inflated their numbers by counting imaginary cyclists who were not present or they tipped off real cyclists to ride the lane in big numbers.  Your head might explode if you start thinking of ways in which both statements can be true.

In the first case, the difference has already been explained by Ryan Russo at the DOT.  According to the Park Slope Patch, Russo’s explanation was that “Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes had monitored a different section of Prospect Park West, a section with less bike traffic.” I’m a bigger fan of Occam’s Razor than I am of conspiracy theories, and this explanation is as simple as it is true.

Marty’s claim in the second case makes things really complicated for Norman Steisel, Iris Weinshall, Louise Hainline, Lois Carswell and the other NBBLers.  If they claim that their numbers can be trusted over the DOT’s, how can they explain that on a day when the bike lane was teeming with riders, NBBL failed to count 393 cyclists?  Either their collection methods didn’t work, which I’m guessing they will not admit, or 54% of the participants in this vast bike-wing conspiracy stopped riding before reaching President Street. This failure to ride the length of the bike lane seems especially curious since Grand Army Plaza was the gathering point for cyclists and advocates for safe streets at the October 21, 2010 rally.

There is no conspiracy, just abject paranoia coming from Marty Markowitz.  We’ve now reached the latest–and hopefully last–phase of anti-bike-lane strategy: throwing claim after claim against the wall and seeing what sticks.  I don’t even know if you can call that a strategy, much less a conspiracy.

Rabbi Mosha Adler

An 83-year-old Israeli rabbi was struck and killed by a driver in Brooklyn yesterday.

Voz Iz Neias reports that Rabbi Mosha Adler, from Jerusalem, was hit on Avenue J and East 10th Street in Midwood, and died at Lutheran Medical Center.

An NYPD spokesperson confirmed a Wednesday collision at that location, and said the victim was declared “not likely to survive,” having suffered lacerations to the head. Queries to DCPI and Brooklyn’s 66th Precinct, which we were told handled the call, yielded no further details.

The location where Rabbi Adler was mortally wounded lies in David Greenfield’s City Council district and is represented by Dov Hikind in the state Assembly. We await their video statements expressing outrage over this tragedy and the continuing loss of life on Brooklyn streets.

Suggestion: To avoid cycling enforcement based on windshield perspective, assign bike cops to bike enforcement detail. Photo: Joe Shlabotnick/Flickr

We’ve written here before that from a public safety perspective, more cyclist enforcement only makes sense as one piece in a broader effort to police traffic safety, especially by targeting the most dangerous behavior on the street, like motorist speeding and failure-to-yield.

But it looks like the orders from One Police Plaza are just about cycling infractions. As outrageous as it is to see NYPD devote more resources to bike enforcement when kids are getting critically injured by hit-and-run drivers, there’s still a helpful way to do it and an ineffective, counterproductive way to do it. The question now is whether officers will recognize the difference.

Police could enforce norms that make sense — no wrong-way riding, no riding through crosswalks when pedestrians have the right of way, no biking on crowded sidewalks. Or they could catch people in dragnets, ticket every cyclist who treats a red light as a stop sign, no matter how cautiously, and otherwise harass people without actually encouraging safer behavior. What’s it going to be?

If you want police to, at the very least, enforce cycling rules with some common sense, I recommend attending your local precinct community council meeting. Each precinct holds one every month — a public forum to convey your concerns to the officers who police your neighborhood (find out when and where). The best thing you can do to get NYPD to pay attention to the lawless driving that’s really endangering people’s lives is to tell them about it.

To reduce double-parking, DOT is adding dedicated loading zones in the morning along much of this Church Avenue strip. Image: NYC DOT

The fight for scarce street space is always fierce in New York City, and as DOT’s efforts to install bike and bus lanes across the city have revealed, the most contested zone of all is probably the curbside. On commercial streets, drivers can’t get enough of the underpriced on-street parking while businesses want curbside access to load and unload deliveries. The result is rampant double-parking, cruising, and ultimately congestion — slowing down buses and creating more dangerous conditions for pedestrians and cyclists. In some cases, local displeasure about curbside dysfunction manifests itself as opposition to seemingly unrelated livable streets improvements, like the Fifth Avenue bike lane in Park Slope.

Image: NYC DOT

With a new program on Brooklyn’s Church Avenue, DOT is trying to solve at least one part of the puzzle. Starting in mid-January, 40 parking spaces on Church Avenue will be dedicated exclusively for deliveries from 7 a.m. to noon on weekdays. On the block between 18th and 19th Streets, truck loading will be available until 3:00 p.m.

With 65 percent of all deliveries to the neighborhood already taking place before noon, according to DOT, the idea is to give trucks the space they need at times when they’re just going to take it anyway. If successful, all the area’s deliveries could be made in the dedicated spaces within the time window. Theoretically, no trucks would double-park, morning or afternoon.

One group that should be particularly excited: the 38,000 weekday riders on the B35 bus, the sixth busiest route in the city. They’re paying the price for the fact that at least one Church Avenue lane — and there’s only one in each direction — is blocked by double-parkers for a quarter of the day, according to DOT.

The program has strong backing from local businesses. According to Community Board 14 chair Alvin Berk, a few years ago, the Church Avenue BID came to the community board with a proposal to bring ParkSmart to the stretch, raising meter rates during peak demand hours. “At the time, its utility hadn’t been demonstrated,” said Berk (the program has since been shown to cut traffic and increase the number of cars that are able to park), so the board proposed an alternative.

First, two-hour metered spaces were reduced to one-hour, with the intention of increasing turnover. The new delivery zones are the final part of that plan. “We’re very optimistic about it,” said Berk, who added that ParkSmart could be back on the table if this program doesn’t show results after a year or so. The BID has also endorsed the plan.

Plans to create a "temporary" 1,100 space surface parking lot, shown here in the lower left, are at issue in the latest fight over Atlantic Yards. Image: Jonathan Barkey and the Municipal Art Society.

The latest round of the knock-down drag-out fight over the Atlantic Yards project is underway, and it’s all about parking. At issue is a potential 1,100-space surface parking lot that would be located between Pacific and Dean Streets, just west of Vanderbilt Avenue. That lot has been portrayed as temporary, “interim” parking by the Empire State Development Corporation and project developer Forest City Ratner, but could sit there generating traffic for up to 25 years. Last week several groups filed a motion to halt construction until the environmental impacts of the project are studied more fully.

The basic question is whether the environmental review for Atlantic Yards needs reworking in light of the fact that development could take up to 25 years, rather than the ten-year construction schedule originally put forward by ESDC and Ratner. (Be sure to check out the invaluable Norman Oder for all the details.) If construction is really going to take an extra fifteen years, the argument goes, the true impacts on things like traffic, noise, and air quality weren’t ever disclosed, in violation of environmental law. That argument got a boost in the courts a few weeks ago, and the legal battle now hinges on whether or not to halt construction.

For the BrooklynSpeaks coalition, the 1,100 space “interim” parking lot is at the heart of the issue. As Oder reports, their lawyer suggested that construction on the Barclays Center basketball arena might be allowed to continue “but all other work, including any attempt to convert Block 1129 to a parking lot, should be absolutely enjoined unless and until there is full compliance with SEQRA.”

“They were supposed to put the parking underground,” BrooklynSpeaks member Jo Anne Simon explained. A quarter-century of surface parking wasn’t part of the deal.

Though Simon said that BrooklynSpeaks has tried not to debate suitable uses for the Atlantic Yards site, she did suggest that surface parking wasn’t an acceptable option. “Something that’s an amenity for the community,” she suggested, “maybe some interim open space.” Simon also added that some additional demolition would still be required to pave over the block, “and that we’d like to see not happen.”

Security camera footage shows Sunday's deadly hit-and-run in Bensonhurst, in which a New York City firefighter is under suspicion but has yet to face charges. Image: NY1.

Four pedestrians have lost their lives on New York City streets since Thursday. Two of the crashes were hit-and-runs and a third killed a four-year-old child. A cyclist is also in critical condition after a man who wasn’t licensed to operate the tractor trailer he was driving struck her on a Bushwick street Friday morning.

At 12:30 a.m. Sunday, Manuel Tzajguachiac was crossing 65th Street at 20th Avenue in Bensonhurst, according to the Post. As he crossed the street, the driver of a BMW SUV struck and killed him. The impact sent the victim flying through the air but the driver never even stopped, the Post reported. Tzajguachiac moved to the United States six months ago from Guatemala, where his wife and son still live.

The SUV is known to belong to firefighter Pat Quagliariello, whose brother is an NYPD detective. Though Quagliariello told the police that the car was his a few hours after the crash, he isn’t saying whether he was driving the vehicle. Police released Quagliariello because they couldn’t prove he was the driver, according to the Daily News. He has been suspended pending the results of the investigation.

Later that morning, a delivery truck driver hit and killed a pedestrian on Morton Street near West Street, in the West Village. The police said that they have not identified the victim, though the Wall Street Journal reports that he was Dario Digiano, a 21-year-old from Belleville, New Jersey. The driver fled the scene and police are still trying to find him.

At around 2:00 a.m. this morning, a Duane Reade truck driver hit and and killed a pedestrian as he crossed Eighth Avenue at 56th Street.

The man, whose name is being withheld by police pending notification of his relatives, was a taxi driver going for a cup of coffee during his break, according to DNAinfo. Police say they “suspect no criminality” in the deadly crash.

On Thursday, four-year-old Evan Svirsky was hit and killed by a B49 bus driver. According to a report in the Post, Evan ran into the intersection of Oriental Boulevard and Falmouth Street. His mother tried to run after him and was also hit, suffering head trauma from the bus’s sideview mirror. She is in the hospital, in stable condition.

The Post quotes a local resident tying the crash to rampant speeding in the neighborhood: “It’s a 30mph zone but nobody does 30, it’s so scary.”

And on Friday, a 21-year-old woman was hospitalized in critical condition after the driver of a tractor trailer turned across her path on Johnson Street in Bushwick at around 9:30 a.m. Gothamist reports that the driver was charged for driving the truck without the proper license.

Southern Brooklyn's bus riders want the option of safe cycling. Image: Murray Lantner

Southern Brooklyn isn’t necessarily known as the epicenter of New York City cycling. Car-ownership rates are some of the highest in the city, and elected officials from the area tend to be particularly vocal livable streets opponents. But a recent, admittedly unscientific, survey shows that there’s a hunger for bike infrastructure from Sheepshead Bay to Mill Basin.

Murray Lantner, a livable streets activist who lives and grew up in Mill Basin, conducted the survey last fall, asking bus riders how they felt about bike lanes. About two-thirds of those who responded said that they’d like to see more bike lanes in their neighborhood. “Safety was a big concern,” said Lantner, “for them, or often for their kids.”

In these neighborhoods, relatively distant from the city’s job centers, cycling is more likely to link up with the subway system than serve as a stand-alone commute mode. Half the respondents said that if there was a network of safe bike lanes leading up to the King’s Highway B/Q station, along with bike parking, they’d start cycling to the subway rather than wait for the bus.

The survey has a small sample size and the data isn’t from a truly random group of bus riders — respondents were told the survey was about cycling. (You can see the whole thing, along with a letter Lantner wrote to the local community boards and elected officials in this PDF.) Even so, it shows that there’s a sizable pool of would-be cyclists in the area. And their voices aren’t being heard.

Instead, the elected and appointed representatives of these neighborhoods dominate the conversation and are uniformly anti-bike. A Courier-Life article from September noted that community board opposition to bike lanes has sprung up in Manhattan Beach, Gerritsen Beach, and Canarsie in recent months.

I spoke to Community Board 18 District Manager Dorothy Turano at the time, and she told me that “bike lanes create hazardous conditions in our board area” and that she wouldn’t support putting them anywhere in the district. She lambasted DOT’s efforts to build a bike lane network, saying that “the crooks took over the sheriff’s job.” (CB 18 was in the news recently for the $7 million city subsidy lavished on its fancy new headquarters, a quid pro quo secured by Turano’s boyfriend and predecessor as district manager, State Senator Carl Kruger.)

It’s not just the community boards fighting against stripes on the street. When DOT tried to install the Canarsie bike lanes over CB18′s objection, Council Member Lew Fidler stepped in, threatening DOT with legislation mandating additional requirements for public input. “They shouldn’t put down any bike lanes without coming back to the community for relevant input,” argued Fidler at the time. DOT backed down.

Southern Brooklyn neighborhoods are always going to have an organized bloc of drivers. In Fidler’s district, for example, a majority of workers commute by car [PDF]. But Lantner’s survey reveals that many residents would love to speed up their trip to the subway or have a new option for running errands. They shouldn’t be shut out of the debate.

Up until this summer, speeding was the norm on Brooklyn’s Prospect Park West. With three wide lanes inviting motorists to hit the accelerator, it was a street monopolized by car traffic. That changed in a big way in June, when NYC DOT converted one vehicle lane to a two-way bikeway separated from traffic by the parking lane. Physically separated bike lanes are making New York safer for cyclists and pedestrians wherever they’re installed, and this one is no exception.

The new lane feels safe and comfortable to ride on, no matter how much experience you may have as a cyclist, and it’s attracting riders of all ages. For everyone walking to and from Prospect Park, the street re-design means slower cars — compliance with the speed limit is up by a factor of five, according to a study by Park Slope Neighbors — and safer crossings at intersections.

The transformation has been dramatic, and like any major change to the street, this one has attracted some vocal critics — most notably Borough President Marty Markowitz.  While some opponents contend that the lane has been installed without public input, the truth is that community groups have been calling for traffic calming and safer biking on this street for years. Watch and see how the new Prospect Park West has made good on those demands.

CB 15 member Mitchell Shpelfogel questions why pedestrian refuges should be installed to make streets safer for seniors to cross, instead of dedicated left-turn signals.

But that didn't stop the members of CB 15 from proving that real authority should be kept far, far away from the appointees who serve indefinite tenures on community boards. After the Q&A on Select Bus Service, they sank their teeth into a DOT presentation about a Safe Streets for Seniors project which promises to deliver safety enhancements like longer crossing times, sidewalk extensions, and pedestrian refuges to several intersections with histories of injury-causing crashes. Below are a few typical concerns raised by board members after each presentation.

You might think some, if not all, of these objections to safer streets and better transit were offered in a spirit of jest. I honestly can't tell whether that's the case. Read on and judge for yourself -- sincere NIMBYism, or one community board's idea of a cruel joke?

From the Q&A on Select Bus Service:

• Sure, SBS is successful and popular in the Bronx, but you can't compare the Bronx to Brooklyn. 
• "With Mayor Bloomberg aiming to go green," said one participant, "the thought of hundreds of thousands of paper receipts worries me."
• "Why would you even take the bus?" (Editor's note: 42,000 people ride the B44 every weekday.)
  

From the Q&A on DOT's Safe Streets for Seniors project:

• Pedestrian refuges with tree pits are bad because "trees make about 100,000 people in New York sneeze." Also, when the trees shed their leaves in the fall, the refuges will be rendered virtually invisible to unsuspecting motorists.
  
• "People who drive cars are idiots," so just forget about traffic calming devices like pedestrian refuges, which might get in the way of the idiots who drive cars.
  
• An elderly gentleman complained that when he's driving and turns his car, pedestrians in the crosswalk are sometimes in his way. When asked to elaborate, he said, "They're confused, I'm confused. I just pray they're aware of what's happening around them."
  
• A refuge that's already been constructed at Coney Island Avenue and Brighton Beach Avenue has been a disaster, according to CB member Mitchell Shpelfogel. "Maybe there's a sense of seniors feeling more comfortable," he said, "but the damage to cars has increased."
  

Image: NYCDOT [PDF]

DOT is aiming to implement the new bike path in July, and Brooklyn greenway project manager Ted Wright told CB 2 members to get ready for more greenway planning in the meantime. The agency is holding a series of public workshops, starting next week, for the full 14-mile length of the proposed greenway, part of a master planning process that officials expect to run through 2012. The first workshop, open to anyone who wants to come, will take place at Brooklyn Borough Hall on March 25. (You can RSVP with the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, which is sponsoring the workshops with RPA.)

The Flushing Avenue project would construct a two-way bike path from Williamsburg Street West to Navy Street, separated from traffic by a nine-foot planted median. Vehicle traffic would travel in one westbound lane, between two lanes of parking. Only three curb cuts providing vehicle access to the Brooklyn Navy Yard would interrupt the bike path along the length of the project. Passengers on the B69 and B57 would disembark at bus bulbs constructed in the center median, with eastbound bus routes diverted to Park Avenue.

Despite the current tendency of motorists to speed on Flushing, the high volume of trucks, and the absence of a bike lane, more than 300 cyclists ride there on summer weekdays, according to DOT counts. "People are already using it for recreation and commuting purposes," said DOT Bicycle Program Coordinator Josh Benson. With the recent completion of the Sands Street bike path and the Kent Avenue path, the attraction of Flushing as a bike route to the Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge Park is expected to grow substantially.

Committee member Mike Epstein said the plan provides "a top-notch protected bikeway" on a street in desperate need of safety improvements. "It's important to look at this as a traffic-calming project" that will benefit pedestrians too, he said.

Epstein also requested better bicycle connections from Vanderbilt Avenue, where the bike lane terminates south of Fort Greene, and Bedford Avenue, where the erasure of a 14-block bike lane segment has left cyclists without a continuous route to the Williamsburg Bridge.

Benson said DOT would look into both ideas, but that adding a connection from Bedford would be hindered by ongoing construction work on Flushing Avenue. The segment of Flushing between Bedford and Williamsburg Street is still being reconstructed, he said, because the Department of Design and Contruction encountered an underground stream.

After the presentation and the unanimous vote in favor, I caught up with Milton Puryear, head of the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative. Following last year's drawn out fight over the Kent Avenue bike lane, this early vote on the greenway precursor for Flushing Avenue was a friction-less affair. He was smiling almost the whole time we talked.

The New Domino development will reshape the waterfront and the streets just north of the Williamsburg Bridge. Image: The New Domino.

The New Domino's 2,200 residences would transform 11.2 acres just north of the Williamsburg Bridge, at a former sugar refinery about three-quarters of a mile from the two nearest subway stations. It fronts the Kent Avenue bike lane and the future path of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway. At a site so large and so integral to the city's bike network, but with mediocre transit access, the developer's transportation decisions are critically important. 

Determining how much parking to construct is one such transportation decision, and on that score the New Domino abandons good planning.

The development's 1,694 off-street parking spaces would bring a flood of new motorists to Williamsburg. This is, in a way, intentional. The developer is attempting to match current car ownership rates in the area, according to Martin Hopp, who's overseeing the project design for Rafael Viñoly Architects. "We felt that it was important to accommodate the anticipated parking need on-site," said Hopp, "rather than to substantially increase vehicles circling the neighborhood for the already limited on-street spaces."

Building so many parking spaces will induce New Domino residents to drive. Research indicates that free parking spaces at home encourage New Yorkers to commute by car. "The amount of parking infrastructure to provide should be based on the neighborhood's and the city's street capacity, the city's goals in terms of carbon reduction, traffic flow, pedestrian safety and so forth," said UPenn professor Rachel Weinberger, co-author of the study "Guaranteed Parking -- Guaranteed Driving" [PDF]. "Deciding how many parking spaces to provide on the basis of what is profitable and/or on the rate of car ownership in the surrounding area is completely inappropriate and represents the city's abdication of its responsibility to protect the public health and welfare."

The expense of building underground parking will probably cost the developer between $30,000 and $50,000 per space, according to Columbia planning professor David King. That means reducing parking would free up quite a lot of money, which could be spent instead on transit improvements. King recommended that New Domino provide shuttle buses to the subway, a practice that he said is common in Riverdale and some nearby suburbs, and that the developer construct less parking. "It's certainly worrisome that all this parking is being supplied," said King. "That's 1,700 cars and it's going to really overwhelm the community; there's no doubt about that."

Usually developers face pressure from local residents to provide parking for new arrivals, but in this case, some locals oppose the addition of so much storage for vehicles in their neighborhood. "It's interesting because they say they're going for LEED certification, they're going for green roofs," said Lacey Tauber of Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, a local advocacy group which has criticized parts of the New Domino plan. Her organization is calling for the developer to pare down the number of parking spaces to the city's required minimum -- 1,042 spots -- and to work with the MTA on providing more transit options. 

The developer's rendering of Kent Avenue prominently features bike lanes and ground floor retail. Car traffic is noticeably absent. Image: The New Domino.

Tauber credits the developer for including significant ground-floor retail in its plans. Between the retail and the waterfront access, she said, "it will be very pedestrian friendly once the construction is done." Tauber also sees the New Domino's bike infrastructure as sufficient, noting that "they're pretty supportive" of local cyclists. Those improvements will include public bike racks outside and bike storage and changing rooms inside.

The developers of New Domino want to make their 11 acres an attractive place to walk and bike. But they also want to build nearly 1,700 parking spaces that will generate traffic and encroach upon pedestrians and cyclists. It's a contradiction that could be resolved if the city aligns its parking policy with urban design and sustainability goals. "For most U.S. cities simply doing away with parking minimums is a good first step in parking reform," said Weinberger. "For NYC it's imperative that the city think about parking maximums."