Streetsblog New York City

Since 2009, the Department of Transportation has been engaged in a major study of Jackson Heights’ streets and sidewalks. At the request of community groups and with federal funding from Rep. Joe Crowley, DOT has been developing a plan to make the neighborhood safer, less congested, and more transit-accessible. After two years of research and community engagement, DOT will be presenting its first recommendations next Saturday, February 12.

In preparation for the release of those plans, DOT has also launched a first-of-its-kind data portal collecting all the information about the Jackson Heights Transportation Study. (The portal was developed by a division of OpenPlans, Streetsblog’s parent organization.) Everything from community board presentations to raw, block-by-block data about parking occupancy is in one place.

The portal includes a new interactive map of Jackson Heights. Presenting information like vehicle speeds, pedestrian volumes, traffic crashes and parking occupancy, the map helps visualize what happens on the neighborhood’s streets. You can see, for example, how rampant double-parking blocks buses along Broadway: On one block, there are an average of 32 percent more cars parked than there are spaces. According to DOT, even more features should be available after next Saturday.

What’s presented on the 12th could also be extremely exciting. At presentations to Community Boards 3 and 4 last June, DOT proposed classifying all neighborhood streets into four categories laid out in the department’s Street Design Manual.

• Through streets would be redesigned to move vehicular traffic more efficiently, without causing speeding.
• Transit streets would have bus lanes, curb extensions at bus stops and lights coordinated with the buses. 74th and 75th Streets are likely candidates.
• Slow streets would calm traffic with re-timed signals and traffic-calming treatments like neckdowns.
• Some streets could be pedestrianized, with furniture and greenery creating new public spaces.

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While Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz is out to tear up pedestrian refuges on a dangerous stretch of Fort Hamilton Parkway, over in Queens, local street safety experts are improvising their own traffic-calming measures. Streetfilms’ Clarence Eckerson took these pictures of crossing guards using cones as makeshift safety improvements outside two Jackson Heights schools.

The cones alert drivers and force them to take turns slower, functioning much like a neckdown or bulb-out at the street corner. The crossing guards break out the cones after school get dismissed, a tactic Clarence says he never saw until moving to Queens. He reports that the guards have their traffic-calming technique down to a science:

I’ve talked to two of the crossing guards. One told me, “We are not technically allowed to do it, but we do anyway because it really helps protect the kids and slow down the cars when they come down the street.”

I asked how she knows where to put it, and she said, “I’ve been doing this long enough to know how cars cut that corner really fast, without looking for kids. I look to see if there are any tire skid marks on the road or gravel and I always put the cone down outside any of those.”

Living on this block, it is amazing to see the difference this cone makes on turning speeds when it is out there for half an hour.

More pictures after the jump.

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Back in 2008, Jackson Heights residents banded together to win car-free Sundays on 78th Street, creating a new, temporary public space for children and families in one of NYC’s most park-starved neighborhoods. This year neighborhood activists aimed much higher: They wanted to make the street car-free 24-7 for the entire months of July and August.

As you’ll see, thanks to committed volunteers and strong leadership from District 25 Council Member Daniel Dromm, they overcame initial hesitation from the local community board’s transportation committee — which voted the idea down — to make it happen.

The fight was worth it, Dromm told us. “It was recognized just about two weeks ago in The Queens Tribune as being one of the best things about Queens – this play street,” he said. “So imagine if we hadn’t done it?” Indeed. We hope other electeds are in tune with their neighborhoods as much as Council Member Dromm.

All summer long, 78th Street was filled with a warm, family atmosphere, sometimes well after sundown. As for next year, there’s talk of possibly giving this car-free street even greater permanence.  Stay tuned.

The first 2010 installment of Summer Streets is tomorrow, and I can't think of a better way to get in the mood than to check in on this inspiring grassroots victory for livable streets in New York City.

These are pictures Clarence took last Friday at the 78th Street Play Street in Jackson Heights. The play street started out as a car-free experiment on summer Sundays in 2008, giving kids and families some more space to play and socialize in one of New York's most park-starved neighborhoods. As a candidate for City Council, Dan Dromm supported the play street, and in office he joined hundreds of constituents on a march to the local Community Board, helping to win a vote for making the street car-free seven days a week, all summer long.

This summer, the street has gradually gained popularity as a public space, and now it attracts up to 200 people at a time, according to Dudley Stewart, president of the Jackson Heights Green Alliance. High school students who help supervise activities for younger kids throughout the week estimate that over the course of a busy day, several hundred people come over and enjoy the street.

"In the evenings you can have 100 people," said Stewart. "People are there well after eight." Even after the play equipment is put away, he said, people will linger on the benches, toddlers will play on the astroturf, and kids will ride bikes up and down the street.

Have a look at more of Clarence's pictures after the jump. Wouldn't it be great if kids had free reign on the street all year round, and traffic never invaded this space again?

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Last week, Jackson Heights residents won a summer-long car-free street, and it turns out that local activists have many more initiatives for a greener, more livable neighborhood in their sights.

The Jackson Heights Green Agenda [PDF] -- the product of a community planning process that drew on the expertise of hundreds of residents -- sets an ambitious, bottom-up roadmap for making New York's most diverse neighborhood more sustainable.

The goals outlined in the Green Agenda range from increased open space and green buildings to creating a hiring hall for day laborers in the neighborhood. It's also full of livable streets initiatives. The recommendations include turning streets and parking lots into pedestrian spaces, plazas, and parks. To reduce congestion, the plan calls for adding more Muni-meters to commercial streets and pricing them to increase turnover. To serve a neighborhood where 60 percent of households don't own a car, it envisions bike lanes on Roosevelt Avenue and better transit service.

The Green Agenda emerged from a year-long planning process led by Queens Community House, a set of community centers in the settlement house tradition; the Jackson Heights Beautification Group, and the Pratt Center for Community Development; along with a few other local organizations. Funding for the plan came from a state environmental justice grant.

The coalition held three half-day workshops, starting last November, each of which drew more than 100 people, where residents discussed the strengths and weaknesses of their neighborhood. "Portable workshops" brought the process to churches, adult education classes, and other groups already meeting. The outreach was multi-lingual, an absolute must in a neighborhood where many residents don't speak fluent English.

"We've all been really happy with the process," said Anna Dioguardi, the director of community organizing and development for Queens Community House. "It was definitely challenging to get the conversation started, especially when in many communities, even the word 'green' doesn't mean the same thing it does in English."

Local activists were encouraged by the extent of participation. Len Maniace, a volunteer with the Jackson Heights Beautification Group, praised the campaign's ability to fully include Spanish and Bengali-speakers. He feels a palpable change in the neighborhood. Instead of feeling resigned to living with the way the neighborhood looks and feels now, he said, residents now ask, "Why shouldn't I have a really nice looking neighborhood?"

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Nearly 200 Jackson Heights residents marched on their community board last Thursday night to support the expansion of car-free public space in their neighborhood. That feat of organizing helped win the approval of Queens Community Board 3 for a summer-long 78th Street Play Street, reversing the stance of the board's transportation committee.

The play street debuted in the summer of 2008, but up until this year, it's only been in effect on Sundays. Now the street will be free from traffic for the entire months of July and August.

The play street occupies the block of 78th between Northern Boulevard and 34th Avenue, functioning as an extension of the heavily-used Travers Playground, which many parents in the neighborhood say is overcrowded during hot summer months. "We've got to find creative ways to increase the green space in the neighborhood," said Dudley Stewart of the Jackson Heights Green Alliance. "We're second to last in city districts as far as green space is concerned." Jackson Heights residents have used the play street for activities from chalk painting and ball games to learning to ride a bike.

Extending the play street to last through the summer was one of the planks in Daniel Dromm's campaign for City Council last fall. "Without him, it would have been almost impossible to have this happen," said Stewart. Since taking office, Dromm has leafletted neighbors and commissioned a traffic study on the play street. The summer-long extension also enjoyed support from City Council Member Julissa Ferreras, Assembly Member Michael DenDekker, Senator Jose Peralta, and U.S. Congressman and Queens Democratic Party Chair Joe Crowley.

Even so, the transportation committee of Community Board 3 voted against extending the duration of the play street, claiming that it would bring crime and noise to the neighborhood after dark, eliminate parking spaces, and block emergency vehicle access. 

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At the Transportation Alternatives City Council candidate debate last night, the three Democrats competing in District 25 sat down to tackle concerns about traffic, public space, and street safety. An overflow crowd of about 50 people packed the second floor office of the Queens Diversity Center to see them.

The starkest differences between the candidates centered around how to allocate street space and improve safety. Challenger Daniel Dromm, a school teacher, was the only one to speak unreservedly in favor of design and engineering improvements. "We need to have more bike lanes installed," he said. "We may need to have lighting systems that give pedestrians more time to cross the street."

Incumbent Helen Sears took a different view of cyclist safety. While Dromm had called for better education of both drivers and cyclists, Sears got more specific. "I think every company that makes bikes should have to produce a video that will absolutely show the cyclist exactly what the rules of the road are," she suggested.

Businessman Stanley Kalathara at first insisted that "providing a special route in the street" for bike lanes is "impossible," but later modified the claim, saying that 34th Avenue and 35th Avenue might have the necessary space. (Note: 34th Avenue already has a bike lane.)

Dromm was also the only candidate to express much support for congestion pricing. "I do support some form of road pricing that would help to alleviate the burden on the MTA," he said, adding that he would also support higher gas taxes or bridge tolls to fund transit. "The majority of people in this neighborhood probably do not have cars, and that’s why I make that such a high priority."

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Tomorrow night, Transportation Alternatives will host the second of its three City Council candidate forums, this one for the District 25 race in Queens. Encompassing parts of Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, and Corona, it's an intriguing district.

Both Queens Boulevard, still one of the city's most dangerous streets, and Northern Boulevard, another heavily trafficked feeder to the free 59th Street Bridge, run through the 25th. Only five percent of workers in the district commute by car to the Manhattan CBD, while 39 percent rely on transit [PDF]. Livable streets activism is strong here: Residents helped launch the 78th Street Play Street last year as a temporary corrective to the district's cramped sidewalks and lack of public spaces. Calls for a protected bike lane and traffic calming on Queens Boulevard have been continuous since the death of Asif Rahman last February.

Two-term incumbent Helen Sears sided against congestion pricing in last year's City Council vote, declined to join Eric Gioia and John Liu in urging safety improvements for Queens Boulevard, and responded to the district's sidewalk crunch by proposing a ban on food vendors in 2006. Democratic primary challenger Daniel Dromm, a teacher at PS199, also answered TA's candidate questionnaire, while a third Democratic candidate, Stanley Kalathara, has confirmed he will attend the debate. Republican Mujib Rahman has yet to confirm.

For a preview of tomorrow night's action, here's what Dromm and Sears told TA when asked their opinion of road pricing as a traffic reduction tool:

• Daniel Dromm
  Daniel Dromm does believe that road pricing will alter New Yorkers' travel choices. Dromm is a strong advocate for reducing motor vehicle congestion and expanding mass transit access and funding. Road pricing may be an effective way to reduce traffic but its implementation and design must not alienate or appear to unfairly burden different sections of the City. The major concern is that road pricing, as twice recently proposed, is not politically viable at the moment. Dromm advocates for vastly increasing street parking fees, improving parking management, and initiating a residential parking program. Dromm is a firm believer that neighborhoods surrounding high-traffic roadways will benefit from reduced vehicular congestion.
• Helen Sears
  Helen Sears: I believe that congestion is a serious problem in NYC for many reasons, including health (emissions contribute to high asthma rates and other issues) and the environment (it is critical that we reduce our carbon footprint). I look forward to working on this issue in the future, and will advocate for a plan that equitably distributes any burdens equally among the five boroughs.

The forum gets underway tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Diversity Center of Queens, 76-11 37th Avenue (between 76th Street and 77th Street).

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.

Streetfilms newcomer Robin Urban Smith brings us this romp through a new play street in Jackson Heights. Located in a neighborhood with little access to park space, the 78th Street Play Street effectively extends Travers Park out past the curb every Sunday for 20 weeks.

Neighborhood groups Jackson Heights Green and Friends of Travers Park put a lot of time and effort into getting the play street off the ground. "This is the only play street I know of that's organized by grassroots groups," said Elena Madison, one of the volunteers behind it (the events are usually organized through the Police Athletic League).

This Sunday will be the third time 78th Street turns into a play street, with Williamsburg Walks and Montague Summer Space rounding out the weekend's car-free action.