Hunter's Point South will have good bike infrastructure, as shown here. But will it be transit-accessible or swamped by parking? Image: NYC Mayor's Office via Flickr.

This morning, the Bloomberg Administration announced the developer for the first phase of Hunter’s Point South, a Long Island City project the city is billing as the largest middle-class housing project since Co-Op City and Starrett City went up in the 1970s. A team led by the Related Companies will be developing the first 900 units at what will eventually be a 5,000-unit complex along the East River.

Whether Hunter’s Point South turns out to be the most recent in a line of auto-oriented projects along New York City’s deindustrialized waterfront, or a project in line with the city’s sustainability goals, will depend on whether developers choose to build all the parking they are entitled to, whether the MTA extends bus service into the complex, and whether the city’s attempts to foster ferry transit across the East River are successful.

The nearest subway station to Hunter’s Point South is the Vernon-Jackson Ave stop on the 7. The northeastern corner of the site is only two blocks away from the station. Those are long blocks, however, making the walk about three-tenths of a mile. That’s not right on top of the subway, but it is walkable. The far end of the 30 acre site, however, will be 0.6 or 0.7 miles from the subway, more than the half-mile rule of thumb for transit-oriented development.

Over the course of the project, the city has been in talks with the MTA to extend bus service, most likely the Q103, into Hunter’s Point South. There is no concrete promise to provide transit to the heart of the project, however, nor have funds to pay for more buses been publicly identified.

But the city’s new subsidized ferry service will stop at the site. Midtown will be only one stop and $3 away, though downtown will be a longer and more expensive ride. If ferry service is popular, many Hunter’s Point residents could use it to get to work. However, since the ferries will cost more than transit, leave only every 20 minutes during rush hour, and shut down after 8 p.m., it remains to be seen how popular they will be. The costly ferry program could even be canceled before Hunter’s Point South is completed.

Hunter’s Point South is planned to include laudable bike and pedestrian infrastructure. The city’s RFP calls for a two-way bike lane protected by a landscaped median to run the length of both 2nd Street and Center Boulevard, the two main north-south corridors through the project. In addition, bike lanes are planned for a pair of cross streets. The RFP also calls for bulb-outs at Borden Avenue and 2nd street to ease crossings.

As with so much of the recent waterfront development in New York City, large amounts of parking could push Hunter’s Point South residents to drive. According to the RFP, the project has no parking minimums, but developers are allowed to build a space for up to 40 percent of the residential units. The project’s environmental impact statement puts that number at 2,660 parking spaces — and therefore 2,660 more cars — if built to the maximum.

The waterfront plan sets out six goals to balance: providing access to the waterfront, supporting economic development on the working waterfront, protecting wetlands and water quality, enhancing on-water experiences including transportation and recreation, building the city’s resilience to the effects of climate change, and enhancing the efficiency of waterfront operations.

“The document itself is a quantum leap forward,” said Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance President Roland Lewis, who said it will help “break the barrier between land and water.” The city’s current waterfront plan was passed in 1992 and quite a lot has changed along the city’s shores since then.

One exciting promise laid out in the draft plan is a massive expansion of greenways across the city. The city should “seek to establish and extend borough-wide Waterfront Greenways in all five boroughs wherever feasible,” says the plan. It also suggests improving wayfinding from upland areas to the greenway network.

Rob Pirani, director of environmental programs at the Regional Plan Association and the head of an informal coalition in support of greenways, suggested that such a commitment is an important step forward for the city. “Instead of it being one-off projects, what’s being proposed is that the city would be forwarding these waterfront greenways throughout the city.”

Of course, added Pirani, a general commitment isn’t enough to develop a full greenway system. “Part of it is money,” he explained, “but it’s also guidance from the Mayor’s Office to get DOT, Parks, in some cases EDC, and City Planning for the private properties, to work together on a specific vision.” After that, the difficult work of block-by-block siting also needs to occur.

When it comes to waterfront transportation, many in the city have long had interest in expanding New York’s ferry system. This plan, however, remains largely silent on waterborne transport, choosing to wait and follow the NYC Economic Development Corporation’s forthcoming report on the issue. “That’s a criticism right now,” said Lewis, who said that at public meetings in each of the five boroughs, ferry service emerged as a top request.

The draft plan does, however, suggest weaving ferries into an intermodal network, such as by integrating them with MetroCards, and encouraging development near ferry stations to create ridership. Recently, some ferry lines have had to cut off service, unable to operate continuously without substantial subsidies.

One aspect of the city’s draft plan that has drawn criticism is the treatment of heavy industrial uses. The plan suggests a variety of ways to use the waterfront to support industry, but according to Eddie Bautista, the executive director of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, it isn’t revising a policy that has overburdened certain low-income communities with disproportionate pollution and truck traffic.

Under current policy, in the city’s six Significant Maritime and Industrial Areas development applications are subjected to much less strict regulations, he explained, leading to clusters of heavy industry, not all of it water-related, in these neighborhoods. The draft plan offers to review each SMIA individually, but Bautista is hoping for a full-scale policy change. “There’s an overarching policy that has driven these uses to a handful of communities,” he said.

DCP’s draft plan also has site-specific recommendations for the length of the waterfront. Here’s some of the more notable transportation-oriented ones:

• On Manhattan’s East Side, study a swap that would allow the greenway to continue past the United Nations.
• On the West Side, improve pedestrian and bike paths along the Midtown cruise terminals.
• On the Upper West Side, add more connections between Riverside Park and the waterfront.
• In the Northwest Bronx, reopen the High Bridge and improve pedestrian access over the Major Deegan.
• In the South Bronx, support the implementation of the South Bronx Greenway plan.
• Along the Bronx River, “Identify improvements to waterfront access and open space connections along the Bronx River in conjunction with the State’s Bruckner-Sheridan Interchange project access and open space connections along the Bronx River.” Helpful hint: this would be far easier without the Sheridan Expressway in the way.
• In the East Bronx, possibly build a bike path from Co-Op City to Pelham Bay Park.
• In Queens, continue implementation of the Queens East River and North Shore Greenway.
• In Southeast Queens, demap the unbuilt Nassau Expressway through Idlewild Park.
• In Brooklyn Heights, explore mass transit options to Brooklyn Bridge Park.
• In Red Hook, seek to minimize traffic conflicts between trucks and pedestrians and cyclists.
• Along Staten Island’s North Shore, redesign the length of Richmond Terrace ot have wider sidewalks, bike lanes, and turn lanes.
• At Fresh Kills Park, consider ferry, light rail, or BRT service to expand access.
• Over the Bayonne Bridge, incorporate a transitway, bikeway, and walkway into the new design.

Local activists gave the plans for their neighborhoods mixed reviews. “Overall, it’s headed in the right direction,” said Miquela Craytor, the executive director of Sustainable South Bronx. While she was encouraged that the plan supports the South Bronx Greenway, she was disappointed with the silence on her neighborhood’s working waterfront. On the one hand, she didn’t see enough that would “ensure the opportunities for business and economic development along that waterfront,” while on the other hand, she said that not enough was done to mitigate truck traffic driven by existing waterfront industry. “The South Bronx has plenty of those, and some of the highest asthma rates in the country,” she said.

With regards to the East Side Greenway, Upper Green Side president Michael Auerbach suggested that the draft plan didn’t offer anything new; the city having laid out its hopes for the greenway at a town hall meeting in June. “Without dedicated funding to make the project happen,” he said, “it will remain as a recommendation on every waterfront plan from here to eternity.”

The plan remains just a draft for now, of course. To give feedback, you can attend a public hearing scheduled for October 12. The final report is expected at some point this year.

The drawings released by Extell Development don't draw attention to the blank walls and curb cuts that would disrupt the sidewalk at Riverside Center.

A hearing on the Riverside Center mega-development yesterday revealed a popular hunger for a more walkable West Side and perhaps some interest from the City Planning Commission in the same. Extell Development is looking to build a housing and retail complex, including 1,800 parking spaces, on this waterfront site equivalent in size to two Manhattan blocks. Public testimony called for a slew of urban design improvements to their plan, including reducing the amount of off-street parking, integrating the site with the surrounding streetscape, and working towards burying the elevated Miller Highway.

As chair Amanda Burden and the other commissioners now deliberate over the approvals the project needs, they have the power to determine whether this block on Manhattan’s West Side will be dominated by the automobile or develop into a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, in line with the goals of PlaNYC.

Efforts to better integrate Riverside Center with the surrounding neighborhood and streetscape got the most play yesterday. In Extell’s plans for the project, retail faces the inside of the development and passersby would see largely blank walls rising from the sidewalk, with the streets sloping down to the waterfront and the buildings stationed on an elevated platform. That wall would be interrupted by a slew of curb cuts to enter Extell’s proposed 1,800-space parking garage and auto showroom and service center.

“The development turns its back on the street,” said Brian Cook, the land use director for Borough President Scott Stringer. “It systematically ignores the rich context of the area,” explained Community Board 7 chair Mel Wymore.

The City Planning Commission appeared receptive to this critique. “Does one see an auto showroom as something that enlivens the edge of the project?” Burden asked Extell president Gary Barnett after he testified. “What is going to energize the sidewalk and the street life at the front of this project?”

Other commissioners pressed the developers and architects about the effect of driveways, retail, stairways, and platforms on the pedestrian environment. The developer, in turn, outlined a few minor steps to address the issue, such as changing a staircase to 59th Street into a slope.

But one underlying cause of the streetlife-deadening platform is the excessive amount of parking that Extell is seeking to build, according to Ethel Sheffer, a CB 7 member and former president of the New York American Planning Association chapter. The platform “is there in large part because it satisfies an extensive request of 1,800 parking spaces on two levels,” she said.

The second level of Extell's proposed 1,800 space garage covers the entire four-block site. Image: Extell Development

Those 1,800 spaces, which require special permits from the commission, would create a development dominated by the automobile, perhaps to a degree unmatched by any project in the Clean Air Act zone below 60th Street. The community board and borough president each recommended against allowing 1,800 spaces at Riverside Center.

Parking received some attention from the commission at the very start of yesterday’s hearing. Commissioner Richard Eaddy cited the community board’s request for a smaller lot and asked Barnett why he didn’t agree with the board.

“We’re actually cutting out parking from the area,” said Barnett, arriving at that claim by adding the surface parking currently on the site to the number of spaces he thinks his tenants will demand. “We’re going to be down 800 or 1,000 spaces,” said Barnett.

CB 7 member Ken Coughlin laid out just how inflated Extell’s demands are. If the commission simply used the same calculations in effect at the nearby Hudson Yards project, he said, only 768 spaces would be built. “Should we be creating additional incentives to drive in an already congested and polluted urban environment?” he asked.

The commission has written that one of its goals for Hudson Yards was to “limit the amount of off-street parking… consistent with the objective of creating an area with a transit- and pedestrian-oriented neighborhood character.” Riverside Center could be the first large-scale development near Hudson Yards where the commission proves it is truly committed to that goal.

The elevated Miller Highway running in front of Riverside South. Photo: Riverside South Planning Corp.

Other testimony focused on ensuring that the project furthers efforts to bury the elevated Miller Highway between 59th and 72nd Streets. According to architect Daniel Gutman, who helped design the original plan for the Riverside South complex, the 1991 agreement required that the developer build the northbound tube for a tunnel while the state would build the southbound tube. Some of that construction has already taken place. Actually burying the road, however, would require additional funding that isn’t available yet — the highway was renovated only 15 years ago.

Even so, many urged the commission to do what it takes to move the plan forward, whether by extracting more funds from Extell or simply not obstructing the current slow progress toward a tunnel. “The space is still marred and made dangerous and oppressed by the highway,” said former Municipal Art Society president Kent Barwick.

“The vision that drove that compromise was the relocation of the overhead road,” said Barbara Fife, a former Deputy Mayor for Policy and Planning under David Dinkins. She urged that the Commission require the developer to complete part of the southbound tunnel in order to gain approval.

Burden showed some attention to the potential of a buried Miller Highway, at one point asking Extell’s landscape architect how her plans would change if the highway were moved underground.

In addition to requests for design and planning improvements, testifiers made strong demands yesterday for Extell to build a new school and provide more affordable housing. To the extent that negotiations pit competing priorities against each other, the commission will need to fight that much harder to make Riverside Center a walkable place and not let sustainability fall by the wayside.

Add a whole lot more cars and some shuttle buses to this picture, and you've got the approved plan for the New Domino. Image: The New Domino

In terms of transportation, the developer has now promised to provide shuttle buses to nearby subway stations. With room for 1,428 cars, the project is far from a model of sustainable planning, but with the fight over New Domino now at a close, it's worth remembering that livable streets advocates won some real improvements during the land use review process: the shuttle buses and last month's reduction in off-street parking.

The bottom line remains, however, that with 1,428 parking spaces, this is an auto-oriented development. "The transportation plan hinges on bringing more cars into the neighborhood," said Ryan Kuonen, an organizer with Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, a local community organization. Still, she said, "It could have been worse -- the plan used to be worse."

With both Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn strongly supporting the project, final approval was all but guaranteed. "This thing was going to get passed," said Kuonen. The only question was how the New Domino would change on the way to approval, and the adjustments that unfolded were almost uniformly towards more livable streets.

The changes were "pretty much as good as you were going to get on these issues," said Rachel Weinberger, a parking expert and professor of transportation planning at UPenn. "If this is what we get when the system is working how it's supposed to, we need to rethink the system."

The shuttle buses, if implemented well, could help make transit the mode of choice for a few more New Domino residents -- and will certainly improve their trips. The project is located about three-quarters of a mile from the closest subway stations. That's walkable, but hardly appealing in miserable weather. A shuttle will give the significant number of people who'll be taking the subway a quicker, more pleasant commute. "It's the right idea," said Weinberger, noting that the implementation will matter a lot. According to Council Member Stephen Levin's office, the routes haven't been determined yet.

The inclusion of shuttle buses at the New Domino also sets an important precedent. "It expands the envelope of what types of transportation improvements developers are responsible for," said David King, a planning professor at Columbia who had previously called for including shuttle buses at Domino. "In most cases developers are only responsible for parking," he continued, explaining that buses are very rarely a condition for approval. If it becomes widespread practice to require large-scale developments to improve residents' access to transit, not just give them space for cars, that's a tangible shift. 

Shuttle buses can only do so much, however. First, they'll be targeted only at New Domino residents. "It's really solving a problem for the people moving there," said Kuonen, "not the people who are already living there." One easy way to ensure that these shuttles are a community benefit, not just a resident perk, might be to run them all the way to Union Square; many Williamsburg residents were more concerned about adding even more commuters to the overstuffed L train than they were about added congestion on the roads.

More importantly, shuttle buses will do little to counter the car use induced by all that parking. "They will serve the people who don't have a parking space," said Weinberger. "It's not going to be of huge relevance to those who have a car," she continued, citing research she just completed showing that in New York City, residents with parking are likely to drive to work, even if they live near good transit options. The congestion-busting impact of the shuttle buses, therefore, will be limited. 

So about all that parking. Here too, livable streets activists won a small victory. Local organizing convinced Borough President Marty Markowitz to request a 266-space reduction in the amount of parking at New Domino, which the City Planning Commission agreed to enact -- a rare case of the review process yielding a less car-centric outcome than the initial proposal. 

Of course, the amount of parking originally proposed was so enormous that the New Domino will still add a flood of cars to the neighborhood, congesting the free Williamsburg Bridge just feet away, guzzling gas and exposing pedestrians and cyclists to greater danger. The policy that larded Domino with parking in the first place -- attempting to build enough off-street automobile storage to match the car-ownership rates of the surrounding area -- needs to be discarded as too disconnected from broad transportation goals. 

Moreover, while the shuttle buses could quite easily disappear after a few years, these parking spaces are forever. That's why it rankled when the mayor promised a comprehensive traffic and transit study for the area as one piece of yesterday's deal. The city has already made a huge, and permanent, transportation decision. If, years from now, that comprehensive study finds that the inclusion of so much parking was a bad decision for the neighborhood, the horse is already out of the barn. The only way to align this project with the goals of PlaNYC, significantly reducing the amount of parking, won't be an option.

Photo via NYCEDC

East of 9th Avenue the five blocks between W. 202nd Street and W. 206th Street fall into the river. It is here that the Parks Department has built small pockets of green space with access to the river, barbecues and benches.

"The idea is to develop a feature that connects them," Alejandro Baquero-Cifuentes, EDC vice president for development told the Community Board 12 Parks and Recreation Committee Tuesday night.

[The project], if it ever becomes a reality, represents a significant amount of new public space in Northern Manhattan, where potentially someone could walk half the length of Inwood from Swindler Cove Park via a pedestrian trail and then the esplanade to the [University Heights] bridge.

Though a funding source for the project has yet to be identified, this weekend NYCEDC will hold a public workshop on the esplanade master plan. Details follow the jump.

WHAT: Public Workshop, Sherman Creek Waterfront Esplanade Master Plan
WHEN: Saturday, March 20, 2 - 5 p.m.
WHERE: Manhattan Christian Academy, 3816 Ninth Ave between W. 204-205th St.
RSVP: Barbara Patrick, 212-312-3673 or via email. Space is limited.

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."

Nighttime visibility on the Hudson River Greenway north of W. 102nd Street has not improved since Jacob-uptown took this photo a year ago.

Due to the absence of lighting, once clocks are rolled back for daylight-saving time the Greenway between W. 102 and W. 125 Streets is plunged into darkness during the evening rush. Making matters worse is the glare of headlights from the Henry Hudson Parkway. Writes Upper Manhattan commuter Brad Conover:

The combination of no lights on the path and oncoming headlights of southbound traffic makes it impossible to see the bike path. There should be three new lines painted marking north and southbound biking lanes, not just one line separating bikers from pedestrians with no indication as to N/S-bound bikers, and there should be lights on the path and/or hedges to block the lights of oncoming traffic. I am sure someone is going to get seriously hurt on that path through no fault of their own.

Jacob-uptown, who sent in photographs of the area last year, was informed in a January 2009 letter that DOT would be recommending that the Parks Department include Cherry Walk lighting in its next round of capital construction contracts (though Parks previously indicated to Streetsblog that such a project would fall under the purview of DOT). Aside from some new shrubbery that "only helps a bit," Jacob reports that no changes have been made since last fall.

Last week, DOT told Streetsblog that defective highway lights along the Cherry Walk stretch would be replaced, but said there are no plans to install lighting on the Greenway itself.

We've got a few more details about another local ped-bike project getting a lift from stimulus cash. The street improvements announced for Hunts Point and Port Morris in the Bronx will fund the first three sections of the South Bronx Greenway. This project has been years in the works. When complete, it will bring 11 miles of pedestrian and bicycle paths to neighborhoods where places to play and bike are scarce, and where childhood asthma and obesity rates run high.

"This is extremely helpful moving these projects forward in a time of fiscal crisis," said Miquela Craytor, director of Sustainable South Bronx, which has been instrumental in shaping the project and shepherding its progress. "It's a big win for South Bronx communities that have been underserved for so long."

The three segments include Lafayette Avenue, a connection to Randall's Island, and access to Hunts Point Landing. The Sustainable South Bronx web site has a handy map of the full project [PDF].

Streetsblogger Jacob-uptown: "You can see many of the street lamps on Henry Hudson Parkway are burned out. This makes the greenway completely unlit, except for oncoming car headlights."

Last December, Washington Heights resident Lars Klove alerted us to night-time conditions on a segment of the Hudson River Greenway known as Cherry Walk, which lies roughly between W. 102 and W. 125 Streets. Wrote Lars:

It is unlit and, if riding northbound, into the blinding headlights of southbound traffic, it is impossible to see the bicycle path even with a bike headlamp. The Greenway itself has one semi-reflective line marking the pedestrian lane from the bicycle lane. There is not a line marking the outside edges of the lane or a couple of grassy islands along the way. Its easy to find yourself suddenly off the roadway and in the grass or trees.

As illustrated by these photos from Streetsblog photo contributor Jacob-uptown, captioned with his comments, Greenway users are still in the dark nearly a year later. A press officer with Parks said the department is "aware of this issue," and told us that DOT should be in the process of addressing it. We have a message in with DOT and are awaiting word.

"This is the same view as [the photo above], except with the flash turned on. If you look closely, you can see that the path splits right ahead of you, and if you go straight, you will run into a tree."

More photos after the jump.

"If you look very very closely, you can see the faint green line painted on the ground that shows the path turning left. That is what my eyes are fixed on when I ride through this section of the path."

"This is the same view as [above], except with the flash turned on. Now you can clearly see that the path turns left."

New York's Sheridan Expressway, which traverses 1.25 miles of Bronx River waterfront (right), comes in at number two. Thanks to the advocacy of the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance, the state DOT is considering a proposal to replace the lightly-traveled, Moses-era Sheridan with housing and parks. As the Tri-State Transportation Campaign reported last month, preserving it is becoming harder and harder to justify.

Here's the full "Freeways Without Futures" list, issued as part of a joint venture between CNU and the Center for Neighborhood Technology called the Highways to Boulevards Initiative:

1. Alaskan Way Viaduct, Seattle, WA
2. Sheridan Expressway, New York, NY
   
3. The Skyway and Route 5, Buffalo, NY
   
4. Route 34, New Haven, CT
   
5. Claiborne Expressway, New Orleans, LA
6. Interstate 81, Syracuse, NY
7. Interstate 64, Louisville, KY
8. Route 29, Trenton, NJ
9. Gardiner Expressway, Toronto, ON
10. 11th Street Bridges and the Southeast Freeway, Washington D.C.

Previous highway-to-boulevard conversions have succeeded in cities from New York to San Francisco to Seoul, often in the face of opposition from carmaggedon-predicting doomsayers. More from CNU President John Norquist on why freeway removal makes sense, after the jump.

CNU President and CEO John Norquist says that compared to the prospect of completely rebuilding aging freeways -- something that’s inevitable after 40 or 50 years -- highways-to-boulevards projects are real money savers. "There’s a whole generation of elevated highways in cities that are at the end of their design life. Instead of rebuilding them at enormous expense, cities have an opportunity to undo what proved to be major urban planning blunders," said Norquist, Mayor of Milwaukee when it replaced the Park East Freeway with McKinley Boulevard in 2002. "The Federal Highway Fund just received a short-term bailout. The money that does exist can be invested much more efficiently in surface streets and transit. The development that results is walkable and close to jobs and city life. It helps residents keep a lot of money in their wallets that they’d otherwise spend driving."

"Fifty years ago, when there was flight from cities, industrialized waterfronts seemed like a convenient place to run freeways," Norquist said. "The result for the neighborhoods has been blight. Cities like San Francisco that have removed freeways and reclaimed waterfronts have turned them into magnets for people and investment."

Before the four "New York City Waterfalls" began gushing along the East River this June, DOT marked a bike route passing by each installation and released a guide to go with it. In this Streetfilm Elizabeth Press shows us a recent bike tour of the falls, led by DOT commish Janette Sadik-Khan. Special bonus feature: commentary from "Waterfalls" artist Olafur Eliasson about his work.

Next Thursday, artist Olaf Eliasson's much-anticipated "New York City Waterfalls" installation will debut along the East River. The project, as elegantly described in this week's New Yorker, "features four tall, widely separated, openwork steel towers housing powerful pumps that will pull river water up to a high basin and send it cascading down again, continuously, from seven in the morning until ten at night, through mid-October."

There will be one waterfall each near the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, one off the Brooklyn Heights promenade, and one off Governors Island. If you want to see all four by bike, DOT has you covered with its "Bike the Falls" guide, featuring a map to viewing points along with written directions to lanes and paths along the route. Road markings will also be in place. Check it out.

Last time we checked in on the Columbia Street section of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, construction was in full swing. Now, along much of the path in Carroll Gardens and Red Hook, the orange barrels are gone and new plantings are taking root. Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson snapped these shots last week, noting that about 40 new trees have been planted on Columbia between Atlantic Avenue and Degraw Street. The paths and plantings have completely changed the feel of the street, he tells us.

This section of the greenway is a "temporary" path that may be widened in the future. The current right-of-way varies between 13 and 20 feet and may expand to 30 feet, pending negotiations with the Port Authority, says Milton Puryear of the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative. We have a request in to DOT to find out when this phase of construction is slated to wrap up officially. For now, enjoy more of Clarence's pics.

The view south from Atlantic Avenue. The white stripe demarcates a parking lane.

New street trees have been planted on the other side of Columbia, too.

During an epic bike tour of the city yesterday that stretched from the Bronx to Brooklyn, StreetFilms' Clarence Eckerson, Jr. took these shots of the future site of Brooklyn Bridge Park. The Brooklyn Greenway, which received a vote of confidence from Community Board 1 on Tuesday, will run through the park along the edge of the pier. The demolished structures on the right were still standing when Clarence shot this video last year, documenting a tour of the Greenway's path.

Says Clarence: "Made me realize with all the sadness of congestion pricing failing, there IS plenty of great stuff going on in the city."

A tighter shot comes after the jump.

Mary Beth Kelly's story is as inspirational as they come.

In June 2006, she and her husband Dr. Carl Henry Nacht were bicycling home from dinner on the Hudson River Greenway in Chelsea when an NYPD tow truck turned sharply into the bike lane at 38th Street and 12th Avenue. Despite signs telling drivers to yield to pedestrians and cyclists, the tow truck did not slow down as it headed toward a riverfront tow pound. The truck struck Carl , injuring him severely. He died four days later.

Bicycling was an integral part of Carl and Mary Beth's lives. Their first date was done on bikes and they often took their bikes on vacation. A physician at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, Carl regularly used his bike to commute to the work and to make in-home visits to sick patients.

Rather than forsaking cycling after Carl's death, Mary Beth and her children Zoe and Asher got right back on their bicycles. Perhaps most important, Mary Beth has emerged as an outspoken  and eloquent advocate for New York City cyclists. She now serves on the advisory council for Transportation Alternatives where she is working to create and pass comprehensive complete streets legislation in honor of her husband.

As Transportation Alternatives recently noted in an essay for Streetsblog, more than a year after the death of Eric Ng, the alphabet soup of government agencies responsible for the Hudson River Greenway, have done almost nothing to fix glaring safety  problems along New York City's most important bike route.

Photographer and bike commuter Lars Klove encountered one of the worst of these problems Tuesday evening when a Lexus sedan accelerated past him just yards away from where Carl Nacht, a 56-year-old doctor was killed by an NYPD tow truck in 2006.

Klove sends along the following note describing the incident and photos showing how little is being done to warn motorists not to hang a right on to the Greenway as they exit the Tow Pound.

Yesterday evening, around 5 pm, I was riding northbound on the Hudson River Greenway when I encountered a white Lexus driving southbound. I started waving and yelling at the guy to stop and the driver accelerated and continued southbound. The car then pulled into the lot at 34th Street and exited onto the Westside Highway.

The car had made a right turn out of the NYPD Tow Yard on a red light.

This morning I stopped by the yard to see what kind of signs there were to identify the Greenway to motorists coming out of the Tow Yard. There are none. There is only a cold little orange cone, where the pedestrian lane has a large iron mooring hitch.

This piece was written by Transportation Alternatives:

On December 1, 2006, Eric Ng was riding his bike up the Hudson River Greenway. He was on his way to meet friends. He never made it, because a drunk driver named Eugenio Cidron took his life. After leaving a party at Chelsea Piers, Cidron got behind the wheel of his car and drove it on to the Greenway. Eugenio Cidron sped down the Greenway, a car-free path, for a mile at 60 miles per hour, before crashing into Eric Ng and killing him.

A little over a year ago, the government agencies that have something to say or do with the Hudson River Greenway, along with Transportation Alternatives, convened a task force to develop improvements that will reduce conflicts between drivers and Greenway users, but today little has changed on the ground. The Hudson River Greenway was never designed to have high volumes of cars and trucks crossing it. Regardless of whether or not government knew this when the biking and walking path was built, it knows it now and is often guilty of aiding and abetting the increase on driving across the path.

There are over a dozen City, State and Federal government agencies that have some say in what goes on along the Hudson River between Battery Park and 59^th Street, but no one has taken charge. On the Greenway itself, it's a jurisdictional nightmare. The State DOT designed and built the Greenway and continues to be responsible for path redesigns. The City DOT maintains and times the traffic signals along the Greenway. The Hudson River Park Trust maintains the Greenway path. The NYC Parks Department tries to ensure design consistency between this Greenway and the ones it builds and maintains around the boroughs. There are myriad groups, including the City Economic Development Corp, the MTA, the Passenger Ship Terminal, Chelsea Piers and private ferry operators (who often drive buses across the path), that weigh in on the need for driveways across the Greenway.

Each day, thousands of people in New York City head to the Hudson River Greenway on bicycle and foot. It's one of few car-free places where people can commute, exercise and feel comfortable away from the risk of traffic and motorists on our streets. The Hudson River Greenway is supposed to be a safe and protected place, yet it is not. And despite fatal crashes like Eric's, little has been done to change this.

There are a host of improvements that will reduce motorist-Greenway user conflicts, including:

• Close unnecessary driveways where motorists cross the Greenway

• Install fixed bollards where streets and driveways cross to keep drivers from driving onto the Greenway

• Narrow driveways crossing the Greenway to slow and control motorist turning movements

• Install curb extensions on streets crossing the Greenway to make pedestrian and cyclist crossing easier and safer

• Install bike lane treatment where streets and driveways cross to make drivers more aware of the Greenway and pay attention to cyclists and pedestrians

• Coordinate signal timing between the bike traffic signals on the Greenway and the motorist traffic signals on Route 9A to avoid turning conflicts

• Lower Greenway traffic signal heads to same height as pedestrian signals

• Install shades on Greenway traffic signal heads to limit motorists' view of them and reduce confusion

• Display safety messages on overhead highway signage along Route 9A warning drivers to drive safely and be aware of cyclists and pedestrians.

In a 2007 survey of bicyclists, pedestrians and drivers along the Hudson River Greenway, more than a third of Greenway users reported cars driving on the Greenway. Transportation Alternatives has identified seven crossings where motor vehicles repeatedly violate the car-free path.

• Warren Street

• Chambers Street

• West Houston Street/Pier 40 driveway

• Christopher Street

• West 17th Street/Chelsea Piers driveway exit

• West 30th Street

• West 40th Street

• West 42rd Street

With the sentence of Eric's killer handed down, the NY State Department of Transportation and NYC Department of Transportation must rededicate themselves to the immediate implementation of safety improvements to ensure this tragedy is never repeated.

Photo: Emmanuel Fuentebella for Transportation Alternatives

The Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, a citizen-driven project that began with a handful of insane visionaries picking up trash and planting flowers beside a BQE off-ramp, is taking shape on Columbia Street.

Notice the space for greenery between the sidewalk and the curb. Plans call for the park to connect Greenpoint to Red Hook.

Photos: Clarence Eckerson

Lars Klove is a professional photographer who lives way uptown and uses the Hudson River Greenway to bike to and from his apartment on 183rd Street just about every day. Now that it is getting dark earlier in the evening, Klove and his wife -- she bikes too -- have noticed that blinding motor vehicle headlights make a section of the Greenway between 102nd and 125th Street virtually unusable. The photo above is what Lars and his wife see at night as they try to ride their bikes home in the evening. Below is Lars' letter to John Herrold at the Parks Department:

I'm wondering if you can help me. My wife and I bicycle commute to and from our home at 183rd St to our jobs in Midtown and Downtown. We ride and love the Greenway. It was a big consideration in our choice in moving to Washington Heights. It has become our favorite part of the day.

Now that it gets dark earlier there is a section of our ride home that is very difficult. The section runs from approximately 102nd Street to 125th (sometimes called the Cherry Walk). It is unlit and, if riding northbound, into the blinding headlights of southbound traffic, it is impossible to see the bicycle path even with a bike headlamp. The Greenway itself has one semi-reflective line marking the pedestrian lane from the bicycle lane. There is not a line marking the outside edges of the lane or a couple of grassy islands along the way. Its easy to find yourself suddenly off the roadway and in the grass or trees.

A simple solution would be to add a reflective line to the outsides of the lane and in the areas of the grassy islands. Is there anything that can be done here?

Thank you for your time,
Lars Klove

The "Cherry Walk" section of the Greenway in daylight.

Sheridan Swap is a new blog covering the Mother of All Livable Streets projects -- the long-running campaign to convert one mile of little-used highway running along the Bronx River into affordable housing, parkland, greenway and economic opportunity for one of the city's most beleaguered neighborhoods. The blog is run by the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance. The state, it seems, is getting ready to weigh in on the merits of the project:

The New York State Department of Transportation announced last month that it will weigh the costs and benefits of its plan to expand the Sheridan Expressway against a Community Vision for the highway's removal and redevelopment.

The Community Vision, which includes decommissioning the Sheridan and replacing it with affordable housing, open space, and new economic development opportunities, will be included in NYSDOT's Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed expansion.

If the analysis finds that the Community Vision makes more economic and environmental sense than the expansion proposal, NYSDOT will be hard pressed to move forward with its plan to stretch the Sheridan south into Hunts Point.

Check back soon for updates on the DEIS process. In the meantime, check out what Wikipedia has to say about Environmental Impact Statements.