Greenwich Avenue: Plenty of commerce-loving cyclists, no bike lane.

Shop owners also protested that bicycle lanes have made deliveries difficult if not impossible. A pizzeria on Greenwich Ave. that used to depend on cabbies stopping at the curb to get a quick slice has lost the trade and is closing shop, someone reported. Thompson agreed that bike lanes have been a nightmare in places like Astoria and in Manhattan, especially on Grand St. in Little Italy.

So Bill Thompson, opponent of East River bridge tolls and pedestrian safety improvements in Chinatown, apparently also thinks bike lanes are a "nightmare." If Thompson is out to establish himself as not-Mike Bloomberg, he's making a lot of headway when it comes to livable streets.

One thing, though: Thompson may want to tour Greenwich Avenue himself. It doesn't have a bike lane.

It could be that the "someone" in the crowd meant Greenwich Street, which does have a lane. Or maybe it was a typo. The larger issue, regardless, is whether current comptroller and mayoral aspirant Thompson really believes that business communities in cyclist- and pedestrian-rich places like Greenwich Village rely on auto traffic for their survival.

We asked Community Board 2's Ian Dutton (his letter to The Villager was already on its way) about the impact of actual bike lanes on business in his home district. Here's what he had to say:

It's no news story that businesses are having a tough time with the current economic state in our neighborhood and around the country, on streets with bike lanes and on streets choked with traffic. I find it hard to believe that the presence of a bike lane scares off customers in cars, upon which Village businesses rarely depend, but embracing a street design that leads to a more pleasant experience for pedestrians and bike riders might just be a jackpot for a business.

Tourists and local residents make up the lion's share of shoppers and diners in our neighborhood and you'd have to work hard to convince me that they'd stop patronizing a business that had a safer, quieter, neighborhood-oriented streetscape. Attributing an individual business' failure on a bike lane, particularly in an economy with shuttered storefronts on every block, is simply passing blame while ignoring reality.

Two Manhattan community boards are meeting Tuesday evening to discuss new bike routes planned by DOT. If you'd like to support the proposals, and perhaps nudge DOT to beef up some of the provisions for cyclists, here are the details.

At 6:15, CB2's Transportation Committee will consider two routes: one linking the south end of the Fifth Avenue bike lane to the Grand Street lane, creating a route from Midtown to the Manhattan Bridge, and another linking the Hudson River Greenway with the crosstown routes on 9th and 10th Streets. A source informs us that parts of the proposals rely heavily on sharrows instead of dedicated space, so you may want to encourage alternatives that afford cyclists greater safety. This one is happening at NYU's Silver Building (32 Waverly Place, Room 411).

At 6:30, DOT will present plans for a buffered bike route on Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard [PDF] to CB10's Transportation and Parks and Recreation committees. Head to the Oberia Dempsey Center (127 W. 127th Street) to learn more and give your feedback.

Also tomorrow night, DOT will present its Broadway pedestrian plan -- officially called "Green Light for Midtown" -- to CB7. The meeting starts at 7:00 at 250 W. 87th St. (at Broadway), on the second floor.

More than two dozen students braved 32-degree cold this Sunday for the launch of NYU's bike-share program. The ride took them down Second Avenue and over the Manhattan Bridge to see some of Brooklyn's new bike lanes.

The NYU system consists of 30 bikes and two stations -- a dorm at 7th street and a bike parking lot behind Tisch Hall. Lindsi Seegmiller, the student who coordinated much of the program, says she got the bikes almost-new from Hub Station, which used them for free rentals during Summer Streets. To borrow one, students or faculty make a reservation online. Then, at the station, they swipe their NYU ID, opening a cabinet that holds the key to a chain lock attached to the bike they reserved.

In May, Seegmiller told Streetsblog that she hopes the program will expand and get the University, which runs its own bus service, to think more about biking.

Count up-and-coming livable streets advocates like Seegmiller as one reason to be thankful this year. What's on your "I'm thankful for/I'd be more thankful if" list? Enjoy the holiday, we'll see you Monday.

In separate letters issued this month to the Department of Environmental Protection, Thompson and Stringer present lists of unanswered questions pertaining to Local Law 41, adopted by the City Council in May 2005. The law required that all tour buses with engines that are at least three years old be retrofitted with best available technologies to reduce diesel particulate levels, and gave companies until January 2007 to either do the retrofits or apply for waivers.

Over three years later, only one company, Gray Line, has brought any of its buses into compliance. According to a DEP report, as of last August just 61 of the 204 tour buses on New York streets meet the law's requirements. The report, Thompson wrote, "shows a very disturbing lack of progress and, in fact, a widespread non-compliance with the law."

According to a 1999 study referenced in a recent New York Post article, a typical Gray Line bus "emit[s] about 25 times more diesel particles than the average bus."

Thompson takes the DEP to task for its tardiness in issuing the first of its required annual reports pertaining to Local Law 41. It was eight months late and, judging by the follow-up questions submitted by Thompson and Stringer, left many issues unaddressed, such as whether DEP is recommending license revocation for companies that aren't obeying the law.

"Tour Buses No -- Tourists Yes" is not only concerned with air pollution, but also noise pollution and physical safety. In September, sight-impaired West Village resident Lloyd Burlingame told NY1:

"I have to depend on my hearing to know when to cross the street and these tour buses, between the racket they make and these guys blathering, I put myself in danger every time they're here and I try to cross the street. So it's a particular problem for people like me."

Also in the NY1 report, City Council Member Alan Gerson said he wants legislation that would regulate tour bus times of operation, routes and frequency. (Enforcement, apparently, is another matter.) And said Villager Milton Polsky: "We have nothing against the tourists, but we'd like to see them walk and enjoy our wonderful sights here."

Photo: Richard Hsu/Flickr

If yesterday's DOT announcement has whetted your appetite for public bikes, the New York Bike-Share Project has just the thing. From today until Monday, free bikes will be available at four locations in the general vicinity of Greenwich Village. To take one for a spin, participants sign a waiver and give their credit card information. There is no charge for the first 30 minutes.

Rather than duplicate the services of a bike rental shop, the goal is to encourage short, commuter-type trips, according to Lisa Chamberlain of the Forum for Urban Design, one of the organizers behind the project. This is the second year the Forum has helped put together a bike-share experiment. "When we did this last year, the idea was to get the attention of the city," says Chamberlain. "This year it's to reinforce the idea and to raise the awareness of the public."

The locations open at 7:30 a.m. and close around 6 p.m., except for the Seventh Avenue South station, which will remain open until 8 p.m. The sites are each stocked with between five and eight bikes that will be re-distributed as needed.

The five-day demonstration will wrap up Monday evening with a reception at City Bakery featuring DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. 

Map of bike stations: New York Bike-Share Project

"All attendees agree that the pilot is worth going ahead with," Dutton said in an email. "We worked through the area that we're going to recommend for the pilot and discussed issues like the meters' effective hours and time limits."

DOT had distributed flyers throughout the neighborhood explaining that the pilot program was contingent on a positive verdict at the meeting. Few people attended despite the outreach, which Dutton interpreted as a sign that opposition to the idea is not strong. "My feeling is that this indicates that residents are not particularly concerned about 'protecting' unreasonably low meter rates and that businesses don't fear changes to the way things are done," he said.

A resolution on the peak parking proposal will be finalized at a CB2 transportation committee meeting on July 8, and will go to the full board on July 24 for a final vote. If implemented, the pilot program is expected to begin in September.

Photo: misplacedparadox/Flickr

New York University may be the enemy of many East and West Villagers over its plans to expand, but its students are finding other ways to cut the school's environmental impacts: A group of undergrads and grads are gearing up for a bike-share program in the fall.

Their plan, which is still being tweaked, aims for a fleet of 30 bikes available at two dorms. One residence, at 40 East 7th Street, was selected because it's slated to become a "green house" with composting and other environmentally friendly features, explained junior Lindsi Seegmiller. They selected the other dorm, on Broome Street near Lafayette, because it has a floor devoted to green living, known as the "eco-Broome."

The team of six undergrads and grad students expects to be awarded $13,000 from Green Grants, a two-year-old program run by NYU's sustainability task force. Their project is one of several Green Grant winners the school plans to announce this week.

The grant will cover a swipe card system that two graduate students from Tisch's Interactive Telecommunications Program are developing. Also provided for: a maintenance program and the actual bikes, which will be rehabbed from abandoned bikes found on campus. The fix-up effort will be coordinated in tandem with a bike maintenance program started last year by NYU student Emily Allen.

"It will get NYU to start thinking more about biking," said Seegmiller, an environmental studies major working on the project. "We're not a campus where you can walk to everything. Yes, we have the buses, but I know the Transportation Committee for Sustainability doesn't like those buses."

To use the bike-share system, students or faculty will first reserve a bike online. Then, at the dorm, they swipe a card, opening a cubby that holds the key for a U-lock attached to the bike they reserved. (Bike-share planners originally wanted a system where the swipe card could automatically unlock the bike, but that was beyond their budget.)

The bike-share will also depend on volunteers who complete Allen's bike maintenance workshop. The student mechanics will be responsible for monthly inspections of the project's bikes. "People who live in Broome have a community service requirement, so we hope they'll volunteer," Seegmiller said. "It's a lofty goal, but it's good to know how to fix a bike and it's a community-building experience."

Riders will be required to take a bike safety workshop before participating. Plus, Seegmiller believes students will feel safe because, "A lot of it, I think, will be friends riding together." Helmets will be included with each bike, along with a waiver about personal responsibility for wearing them.

Though Seegmiller has heard other campus bike-shares have had problems with stolen bicycles, she is hoping to prevent that by having the students sign a waiver and swipe a card -- "kind of like a library card" or one used for "campus cash" -- to unlock the bikes, which will be charged if the students go over the allotted free time. (The share time is to be determined.)

Seegmiller was heartened by the popularity of a weekend bike-share at the Storefront for Art & Architecture last summer. She's hoping NYU's bike-share will eventually expand to other dorms: "It would be amazing to see something similar to Vélib."

Photo: krzysztof.poluchowicz / Flickr

Tonight, Community Board 2's Transportation and Institutions Committees will hold a joint meeting to hear proposals from NYU to reclaim road space for pedestrians in the campus core area.

Details have not been announced, but a tipster tells Streetsblog that possible proposals range from removal of parking spaces to allow for wider sidewalks and other pedestrian amenities to the complete pedestrianization of Washington Place between Broadway and Washington Square Park.

Reviving memories of last year's protest of a Village crosstown bike route, we're told that opposition to whatever emerges is already mounting.

"He made a claim that he passed out, that he suffered a stroke," Thompson says. Smiley missed his initial court appearance because, according to his attorney, he was in the hospital.

As Smiley provides medical records to the authorities, Miller's parents, Ivan and Patricia, continue to wait it out from their home in Appleton, Wisconsin.

"To me it's a little, 'disconcerting' I think would be the term, that it takes so long," says Mr. Miller, speaking with Streetsblog before Thanksgiving. Some six weeks after Hope was killed, the Millers had yet to receive a report from the NYPD, for which they had to mail in $10. Miller says it took almost a month before they learned the results of Smiley's blood test -- negative for drugs and alcohol, according to police. Himself a science teacher, Miller doesn't understand how a relatively simple procedure could take so much time.

But Mr. Miller isn't angry. To the contrary, he goes out of his way to compliment the city agencies working Hope's case. The medical examiner, he says, was quick to inform them of Hope's autopsy results. And Miller clearly doesn't envy the job of New York police detectives, who he says have been very attentive.

"They're busy folks, I know," Miller says. "It wasn't that they weren't trying to help. It's just that whatever the channels are, they're just slow."

As of now, little else is known -- at least publicly -- about where the case is headed.

"What's happening," says Thompson, "is there is an investigation into what was actually happening when this woman was killed."

Once the Police Department concludes its work, the DA's office will decide what charges, if any, to pursue against Smiley.

"Initially it was aggravating," says Mr. Miller. "You wish it was faster, but I'm not in control of that. So that's the way it is.

"For me, it's hard," he adds, his voice breaking, "because I'd like to know."

Streetsblog reader Dave Goldberg sends along a camera phone photo of the freshly striped Bleecker Street bike lane, shot between LaGuardia Place and Mercer Street. Goldberg notes:

I can't say that the striping was universally respected. You can see from the background of the photo that there's a car in the lane. Also, between Mercer and Broadway, there were two vehicles double parked in it. I guess we'll see how well area drivers can adapt.

I guess. Based on the photo, this looks like it could have been a fine spot for a Copenhagen-style physically-protected bike lane. It's a lot harder to double-park in one of those.

Opponents of the Department of Transportation's plan for a new Lower Manhattan crosstown bike route are expected to make a show of force at tonight's Community Board 2 Transportation Committee meeting in an effort to preserve a few dozen on-street parking spaces along Carmine and Bleecker Streets. Bicycling advocates are urging their supporters to show up as well.

Opponents began mobilizing two weeks ago after DOT removed all of the parking meters on Carmine Street and erected "No Standing" signs in preparation for the new bike lane. The loss of parking space angered a small but vocal group of local residents and merchants who managed to put the issue back on tonight's Transportation Committee agenda despite an 8 to 1 commitee vote in favor of DOT's plan and full Community Board approval last April.

Item number six on the agenda for this evening's Community Board meeting is, "Request to keep parking along Carmine St. bet. 7th Ave. and Bleecker St. intact and to put the new bicycle lane to the left of the parked cars." A local activist says to expect "fierce opposition from resident car owners and merchants" at tonight's meeting.

While it seems unlikely that opponents will be successful in overturning last spring's Community Board vote, which took place after many hours of deliberation, Transportation Alternatives is urging local bike lane supporters to show up tonight to support the critical east-west bike network link:

The Carmine Street bike lane will connect the Hudson River Greenway to the eastbound Bleecker Street bike lane. This is the DOT's first attempt to make sure that bike lanes don't simply dead-end, but connect with one another in a neighborhood bike network. This network represents the diligent efforts of Manhattan Community Board 2, and it is essential that the work proceed as originally planned.

Tonight's meeting is at 6:30pm in the NYU Silver Building, 32 Waverly Place, Room 710. ID is required. 

The city's proposal for lanes on Prince and Bleecker -- streets parallel to Houston, rather than Houston itself -- met resistance earlier this year from those who saw the plan as a flawed compromise for a dangerous, auto-centric Houston Street, as well as those who do not want street parking supplanted by "reckless cyclists."

A number of people had left flowers and notes...

Despite the fact that this section of Hudson Street is now, essentially, a three-lane highway, I'm sure Jane would have been pleased with the little bench, the tree, and all of the bikes parked in front of her building. Greenwich Village is still one of the world's great urban neighborhoods thanks to her work...