Streetsblog New York City

The corner of Smith Street and Sackett Street in Brooklyn had a problem. Drivers approaching the intersection from Sackett couldn’t get a clear view of Smith because of the parked cars blocking their line of sight. Crashes kept happening and local residents started pushing for safety improvements. After experimenting with a few options, NYC DOT arrived at this innovative response: New York’s first on-street bike parking facility.

By installing eight bike racks, DOT created a “daylighting” effect, improving visibility at the intersection. The bike parking is much less intrusive than parked cars and helps everyone at the intersection see everyone else. Oh yeah, and now there are a dozen new places to park bikes without taking away any space from Smith Street’s busy sidewalks.

For another look at on-street bike parking, check out Streetfilms’ 2008 tour of Portland, Oregon’s bike corrals.

Between 1950 and 1964, Robert Moses gouged a path across two boroughs to build the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. In Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens, the BQE slices through the urban fabric in the form of a below-grade trench, which has given many residents of those neighborhoods hope of covering that section of highway. As more people have moved to the west side of the ditch, the pressure to do something has mounted, but the BQE trench won't get capped any time soon.

The damage inflicted by the highway on residents' ears and lungs, however, could still be lessened, and some of the lost street connections can be restored. Right now, locals put up with traffic noise as high as 76 decibels -- at 80, you're subject to long-term hearing loss -- and dangerously elevated levels of asthma-causing particulate pollution. Their neighborhood is effectively split in two. A study sponsored by Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, who secured $300,000 in federal funds, offers a few partial solutions to "fix the ditch."

The project team developing the study held its first community planning session last week, and the Brooklyn Eagle reports that improved bike-ped connections across the highway, noise-reducing walls, and environmental remediation measures are the favored changes. (This is a separate project from the reconstruction of the BQE in downtown Brooklyn, which could have major implications for the local and regional transportation system.)

The NYC Economic Development Corporation is leading the study, in partnership with NYCDOT and a host of consulting firms. The goal for now is to produce a plan that can be shopped around for additional funding. After two more community meetings, the lead planners will put out a conceptual design and engineering report in July. In the fall, they'll issue three alternative plans for the trench. The money isn't in place yet for the redesign itself. 

Neither is funding available for capping the trench, which could create new real estate for public space or private development. Seattle famously decked over part of I-5 to create Freeway Park, and Los Angeles is considering doing something similar where the 101 Freeway divides downtown. Though the Eagle reported that many residents near the BQE trench still hold out hope for such a bold scenario, planners don't expect to have access to the kind of money needed for more than incremental changes.

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The most telling answers at Transportation Alternatives' District 33 City Council candidates forum came after an audience member asked point blank for the debaters' stance on congestion pricing. "I can’t support a candidate who’ll support congestion pricing," said the questioner, Dave Reina. "I think it's punitive, and there are more creative solutions out there. Who’ll stand up against it?"

It was an opportunity for the candidates to show how well they understand the most critical transportation problems facing New York City by rebutting Reina with a well-reasoned argument. Traffic generated by the free price on Brooklyn's three East River bridges overruns the 33rd District, which includes parts of Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Park Slope. Congestion pricing, supported by outgoing rep David Yassky, should be as much a no-brainer here as it is in Lower Manhattan.

Only one candidate, Doug Biviano, a former campaign staffer for Kucinich 2008, came close to giving Reina what he asked for. "I'm not against congestion pricing," he said, "but I think we have to be careful about unintended consequences. Do we want to hit people with that toll? In this climate, I don’t think we want to. That would kill contractors."

Biviano was followed by Evan Thies, who played an active role in last year's campaign to pass congestion pricing as a consultant for Environment Defense and the Pratt Center. "I do absolutely support congestion pricing," he said to some applause. "Neighborhoods like this are disproportionately affected by the traffic that’s created by the lack of congestion pricing. Contractors in the outer boroughs supported congestion pricing, because instead of spending time in traffic, they’d be spending more time working for clients." Thies later named congestion pricing his top transportation priority and noted that the next City Council will need to take it up again in 2010 to fund the MTA Capital Plan.

Jo Anne Simon, an attorney who serves as Democratic district leader in the 52nd Assembly District, gave another strong statement in support of pricing. "The gratuitous traffic that comes over the bridges is just that, gratuitous," she said. "We’re a doormat. It’s costing us in infrastructure; it’s costing us in health. The challenge for us as policy makers is to convince people in the outer boroughs that congestion pricing benefits them too. It’s not just for Manhattan."

Ken Diamondstone and Ken Baer, the other two candidates at the forum, also endorsed congestion pricing. Baer took the more enthusiastic stance, noting that pricing revenues can help plug the MTA Capital Plan's $10 billion hole. Diamondstone said he "believes strongly" in the policy but thinks exceptions must be made for people with disabilities and, in a novel carve-out suggestion, musicians.

By this point in the debate, candidate Isaac Abraham was long gone.

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A bit more background on the generous neckdown at Smith and Bergen spotlighted earlier today: This pedestrian amenity never would have been built without the long-term organizing for the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project. Street protests and advocacy campaigns stretching back more than a dozen years are bearing fruit now.

And advocates are still on their game, pushing for more. This slideshow comes from Dave "Paco" Abraham, a volunteer with Transportation Alternatives' Brooklyn Committee who's had his eye on the corner of Smith and Bergen in particular. "I always thought that intersection needed something," he said. Thousands of commuters pass through the subway entrances on these corners every day. You've got students walking to schools on Bergen and customers heading to the restaurant row on Smith. They're all contending with traffic that tends to accelerate on the excessively wide Bergen as drivers try to make the light at Court Street.

When Abraham heard the city was moving on a big slate of downtown Brooklyn traffic calming measures, he drew up a letter urging the maximum possible sidewalk extension and the addition of bike parking at the northwest corner of the intersection. He met with more than a dozen merchants in the immediate vicinity and asked them to sign on. "I don’t think there was a place I went to that said no," he says. "It was tremendous." He also garnered support from local civic groups and the two nearest schools -- the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School and the Mary McDowell Learning Center.

It's hard to say precisely what effect Abraham's campaign had on the final outcome at this intersection. But there's a lot more sidewalk real estate here than at your typical curb extension, and, at the very least, DOT knew there was widespread local support for something ambitious, thanks to his organizing. DOT is considering the addition of bike parking, a spokesman told Streetsblog earlier this week.

If you're interested in putting together a similar campaign for a specific intersection, Abraham has a whole tutorial about building momentum for a "bike parking swap" posted on the Livable Streets Community site.

A pair of Ikea buses clog Clinton St. in Cobble Hill.

A tipster sends along a disturbing Red Hook Ikea traffic update.

The residents of Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens are going nuts about the Ikea buses that have decided against Hicks and gone with Clinton as a route. The buses, every hour on the hour, seem to be trying to beat out Bonneville Salt Flats-type speed records, and [Tuesday] morning, due to construction, there was even an Ikea bus jam.

Streetsblog followed up with Ikea, but the rep we spoke with could only say that the shuttle buses are free, and that they originate from Fourth Avenue at 9th Street and the Court St.-Borough Hall station. Ridership numbers were not available.

Considering the impact on Red Hook and surrounding neighborhoods from its shuttle buses and ocean of on-site parking, it seems the flat-pack retailer could use some assistance in the public relations department. Our tipster wonders if the shuttles might be available for general use, which could be a start.

State Assembly Member Joan Millman's Downtown and brownstone Brooklyn district includes some of the most politically progressive, environmentally-conscious and traffic-choked neighborhoods of New York City -- neighborhoods that have been clamoring for traffic relief for years. Yet, Millman is, for now, opposed to Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan. In a letter sent to constituents who contacted her office Millman cites five concerns, summed up as follows:

• The mayor's congestion pricing plan will create "undue hardships for many New Yorkers." 
• The transit system is inadequate "to accommodate many of the New York City residents who currently commute to Manhattan by car," particularly the elderly and disabled.
  
• The majority of traffic into Manhattan is created by commuters from outside New York City so they should pay more.
• "Because a congestion pricing proposal of this magnitude has the potential to become a bureaucratic catastrophe, the details of administration and reinvestment must be carefully worked out well before the plan is approved."
• "While several large corporations are in support of the Mayor's plan," Millman has "not yet heard the same positive feedback from small, locally owned businesses."
  

Here is the complete text of Millman's letter:

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