Streetsblog New York City

Comptroller William Thompson and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer want the city to enforce a law mandating that sightseeing buses reduce harmful emissions. Meanwhile, a citizen group called "Tour Buses No -- Tourists Yes" also wants the buses off residential streets.

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."

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

Ian Dutton, vice-chair of Manhattan CB2's transportation committee, tells Streetsblog the idea of piloting a variable-rate parking program in Greenwich Village met with approval at last week's DOT-sponsored strategy session. The program, which DOT is calling "Peak Rate Parking," would increase meter prices during peak hours, boosting turnover and reducing traffic caused by cars cruising for spots.

"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

The fence at Washington Square Park: a sign of latent demand for bike-share?

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.

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.

In the weeks since their daughter lost her life on a Lower Manhattan street, Hope Miller's parents have learned to be patient.

On September 25, Miller was on her way to acting class when she was hit by a truck at the corner of Houston Street and Sixth Avenue. According to reports, Roger Smiley, 48, of Brooklyn, was fleeing the scene of a collision at Sixth and Spring Street when he turned right, where Miller and two classmates were crossing Houston. Her friends managed to clear Smiley's path, but Miller didn't make it. Hope died before reaching St. Vincent's Hospital. She was 28.

Initial media coverage said Smiley was charged with resisting arrest, driving under the influence of drugs and leaving the scene, and that he was taken to the hospital with minor injuries. Police at first speculated that he was on cocaine. Barbara Thompson, public information officer with Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office, says Smiley has since put forth a differing account.

"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.

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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."

Jane Jacobs lived at 555 Hudson Street when she wrote "The Death and Life of Great American Cities." I happened to be in the neighborhood yesterday afternoon and I saw this bouquet of flowers and card on the front door. The card reads, "Jane Jacobs, 1916-2006. From this house, in 1961, a housewife changed the world."

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...