Streetsblog New York City

Addressing a plaza full of reporters at Madison Square this afternoon, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan announced that the city is entering the next phase of its initiative to launch a public bike system stretching from the Upper West Side to Bedford Stuyvesant. The system will be run by Alta Bike Share and consist of about 600 stations with 10,000 bicycles, creating a network of comparable size and density to bike-share systems in cities like London and Paris.

Station density is perhaps the single greatest key to success in a modern bike-share system. The less searching you have to do for a station, and the closer you are to your destination when you dock your bike, the better. As Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak told Streetfilms earlier this year, the underlying principle is “go big or go home.” With this announcement, NYC DOT and Alta have clearly signaled that they are going big. Once bike-share launches, it will change the way New Yorkers get around the city, extending the range of the transit system and adding point-to-point convenience for short trips.

Sadik-Khan said the selection of the bike-share operator also marks the beginning of an extensive public outreach campaign, which will seek ideas from local residents, community boards, and civic leaders to determine where bike-share stations should go. “This is just the start,” she said. “We really want your help in planning the system.” Public workshops will be held throughout the fall, and the bike-share system is on track to launch in 2012, potentially by the summer.

Leaders from NYC’s business community and progressive political landscape hailed the bike-share program as a way to give New Yorkers more transportation options and attract a skilled workforce. Both Kathy Wylde, the CEO of the city’s biggest business lobbying group, the Partnership for NYC, and Dan Cantor, leader of the labor-affiliated Working Families Party, were on hand to back the initiative. Wylde called bike-share “an important contribution to the next generation of what will make New York attractive to talent,” and Cantor said it is “one of those things that we’re going to look back at in a few years and say, ‘What took so long?’”

Asked specifically why cycling and bike-share is progressive, Cantor said: “This is so obvious. This is good for human beings. It’s good for the planet. It reduces greenhouse gas emissions. It burns calories. It makes you a happy person when you ride a bike.”

Three City Council members who represent districts within the bike-share service area also endorsed the plan: Gale Brewer, Brad Lander, and Tish James. The precise borders of the service area have yet to be finalized, but its general contours will run from the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side to Bed Stuy and Greenpoint. The city is considering ways to expand service to other areas after the first phase of the system is up and running, said Sadik-Khan.

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Streetsblog caught up with council members Tish James and Brad Lander for a few minutes at Saturday’s “Building Bridges Bike Day” in Grand Army Plaza. James and Lander represent districts with some of the highest bicycling rates in the city, and they’re getting some mileage out of the local bike infrastructure themselves: Lander arrived via bike, and James told us about one of her first ventures cycling the streets of her district.

James said she wanted to put on the event to promote Recycle-a-Bicycle’s work to provide bikes “to those who don’t have the benefit of a bike,” and to talk about street safety. The death last year of Jasmine Herron, who was killed after a driver doored her on Atlantic Avenue, has heightened the awareness of the need for safer streets in the district. “Given all of these ghost bikes,” James said, “they’re a constant reminder about safety.”

The pending release of NYPD data on the locations and causes of traffic injuries — the result of the Saving Lives Through Better Information Act — had Lander buzzing about the possibilities. “I think we’re at a moment when we have an opportunity to make substantial strides on street safety,” he said. The new crash data will provide “the ability to work with precincts… to think about how enforcement can result in fewer crashes, injuries, and deaths.”

James’s staffer Jonathan Perez told us last week that the council member recently started using a bike, so before I left I had to ask what streets she’s been riding on. One of her first bike trips took her from her home in Clinton Hill to see a concert by the East River waterfront in Williamsburg. James started on Washington Avenue and ended on Kent Avenue, taking advantage of the protected bike lane that runs along the route of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway. Kent was great. Washington, she said, has a lot of room for improvement.

Brooklyn Council Member Letitia James wants cyclists and pedestrians to get along. This Saturday, she’s hosting what she hopes will be the first annual “Building Bridges Bike Day” at Grand Army Plaza.

Council members James, Steve Levin and Brad Lander will all be on hand Saturday, along with representatives from Transportation Alternatives and Recycle-A-Bicycle, to foster conversation about walking and cycling, and to hand out safety information and bike maps.

James started cycling herself this summer. If you’re curious where she’s been riding and what she’s learned from the experience, you should be able to ask her on Saturday, said Jonathan Perez, the staffer who set up the event.

The goal of the day is “to build an alliance for bicycle and pedestrian awareness,” said Perez, and to serve as a neighborhood “celebration of the healthy lifestyle choice that bikes offer.” One message he wants to make sure gets across, based on the concerns he’s heard from constituents, is that biking in Brooklyn is calm and safe.

The location is meant to be symbolic, taking place at a confluence of streets that includes some of Brooklyn’s most prominent bikeways and walkways. In a addition to a slate of bike-ped improvements currently under construction, Grand Army Plaza is also slated to get new bike parking spaces from the Parks Department, according to Perez, making it an even more bike-accessible location.

Before today’s proceedings in Brooklyn Supreme Court, Council Member Brad Lander led a rally in support of the Prospect Park bike lane out in front of the court building, explaining the lengthy public process that preceded the installation of the redesign. Streetfilms’ Robin Smith brings us the highlights.

Every day in court is an opportunity for NBBL attorney Jim Walden to fling wild accusations at NYC DOT for installing a bike lane that was requested and approved by the local community board. The amicus briefs filed by Lander and former Brooklyn Community Board 6 chair Richard Bashner are a dose of reality for anyone who’s just tuning in to this story: They lay out all the public meetings that identified the need for traffic calming and better biking conditions on PPW, all the hearings where DOT’s redesign was presented to the public, all the votes in favor of the bike lane and the adjustments DOT has pursued since striping it, and all the opinion data showing broad public support for the project.

“There’s no losers here,” said CB 6 member Gary Reilly at today’s rally. “Even those who oppose the bike lane will benefit from the shorter crossings, slower traffic, and the safety this project represents.”

City Council Member Brad Lander and Brooklyn Community Board 6 member Richard Bashner have filed an amicus brief in support of the Prospect Park West redesign carried out by NYC DOT. The brief recounts the extensive public process that preceded the installation of the bike lane in 2010 and DOT’s ongoing engagement with the community board as the agency has refined the project and measured its impact. The next hearing on the PPW lawsuit is scheduled for June 22.

In a statement, Lander, who served on CB6 when the board first discussed and voted on the redesign, and Bashner, who chaired the board at that time, rebut the central argument made by Gibson Dunn attorney Jim Walden on behalf of the bike lane opponents suing the city: that DOT’s installation of the PPW redesign was “arbitrary and capricious.” Citing public workshops going back to 2007, Lander and Bashner puncture the plaintiffs’ contention that the PPW project was imposed by DOT without broad community support.

“The process surrounding the installation of the Prospect Park West bike path has been inclusive, transparent, collaborative, and democratic,” said Lander. “The vast majority of Park Slope residents support the path, believe it makes the community safer, and want it to remain.”

Bashner joined the brief as a private citizen, not as a representative of CB6. He provided the following statement:

I am proud of the extensive democratic process that took place here. Community Board 6, heeding the calls of the community, requested traffic calming on Prospect Park West to eliminate dangerous speeding.  At our specific request, DOT studied the question of whether a two-way protected bicycle path could be installed on Prospect Park West, and developed a plan for implementation.  We approved the concept, provided extensive opportunities for residents to make their opinions heard at many public meetings, suggested changes to the design, and worked with DOT on modifications before and after its implementation.  DOT should be lauded for its collaborative community process, rather than being accused of making an ‘arbitrary and capricious’ decision. Thanks to this process, Prospect Park West – the street where I live – is much safer today.  Traffic is now much closer to the 30 mph legal speed limit, bicycles and cars are separated, and pedestrians have an easier time crossing the street because they now have to cross only two lanes of car traffic instead of three.

After the jump, read the full timeline of the Prospect Park West public process that Lander and Bashner compiled:

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Via Andy Shen at NYVelocity, here’s the video of this week’s press conference and rally at City Hall, where Council Members Ydanis Rodriguez and Brad Lander kicked off the push to set traffic signals in Central Park and Prospect Park to flashing yellow during car-free hours. It’s encouraging to hear some clear thinking from Council members about traffic enforcement, and great to see the big crowd that turned out on a cold, rainy Wednesday for this event.

The NYPD has handed out 230 tickets to cyclists for running red lights in Central Park so far this year. And while police have apologized for most of the “speeding” citations they hit cyclists with earlier this week, Central Park precinct commander Philip Wishnia has given no indication that the red light tickets will stop.

Rodriguez introduced the bill on Wednesday, and word is that you’ll see it pick up more co-sponsors starting next week.

Video: Kevin Scott

City Council Member Brad Lander and supporters of the Prospect Park West bike lane rallied on the steps of City Hall this afternoon in response to yesterday’s lawsuit, filed by a group of well-connected Park Slope residents who want to rip the lane out.

“A small group of opponents have chosen to bring a baseless lawsuit in an effort to block further safety improvements, to eradicate the lane, to go back to three lanes of traffic on Prospect Park West, the speedway that it was before, and essentially to impose their will on the community through a lawsuit,” said Lander.

The council member, who represents much of Park Slope, called the bike lane “an enormous success” and noted that it not only has been proven to reduce speeding and enhance safety, but also has the strong support of most of the local community. In a survey sponsored by Lander and Council Member Stephen Levin’s offices, which received 3,000 responses, 78 percent of Brooklynites and 71 percent of Park Slope residents said they supported the new design. According to Lander, the idea for such a survey actually came from opponents of the bike lane, who expected the results to go the other way.

The two-way, separated bike lane was the result of a multi-year community process and numerous votes by Community Board 6. “I don’t see how you could have a more extensive process than we had here,” said Lander.

Lander was joined by several Park Slope community leaders, including Park Slope Civic Council president Michael Cairl, Park Slope Neighbors co-founder Eric McClure, and Gary Reilly, the chair of CB 6′s environmental protection committee. After the 73-year-old Gene Aronowitz explained how the Prospect Park West bike lane has enabled him to stay active, Lander quipped, “We have seniors for safety and neighbors for better bike lanes right here at the press conference.”

This dispatch from last night’s meeting of Brooklyn Community Board 6 comes to us from reader Doug Gordon. You can follow Doug at his blog, Brooklyn Spoke.

Despite broad public support and studies demonstrating the benefits of the redesigned Prospect Park West, there remains one group who would rather ignore the facts: the so-called “Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes,” who want to do away with the PPW re-design. Members of NBBL and a few like-minded bike lane opponents sounded off at last night’s Community Board 6 meeting, where City Council Member Brad Lander presented the findings of his widely publicized community survey regarding the new PPW.

Lander quickly laid his own biases on the table. “I was on the community board when the bike lane was first proposed and voted in favor of it,” he said. He insisted that he would not speak to the DOT studies which have revealed reduced speeding, but that the agency would be back in early 2011 to present its findings.

He handed the presentation off to policy director Michael Freedman-Schnapp, who highlighted the survey’s methodology and findings, none of which are surprising to anyone who has been following the story.

During the Q&A session that followed, opponents questioned the survey’s methodology, and offered up some findings of their own. Lois Carswell, who has been active in the fight against the PPW redesign, testified that her group collected “verifiable emails” proving that car accidents have “skyrocketed” since the bike lane was installed.

Lander handled this with aplomb. “You can’t self report,” he said politely, stressing that any measure of the redesign that excluded before and after studies was an “apples to oranges” comparison. In his only reference to DOT findings, he said, “The data is clear: a pedestrian fatality is substantially less likely now.”

Still, many preferred their own observations. One woman claimed that it took her 20 minutes to travel from Grand Army Plaza to Bartel Pritchard Square — a pace that works out to about three miles per hour. (DOT has timed the average travel time in a car down the new PPW at under three minutes.) Another said that her group installed a surveillance camera in a home overlooking the bike lane, counting “only” 500 cyclists using the lane, not the 1,131 cyclists counted by the DOT in their study.

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The results are in from Brad Lander and Steve Levin’s survey about the Prospect Park West bike lane, and the data depict widespread support for the re-designed street among Park Slope residents and Brooklynites in general. Of the nearly 3,000 submissions from Brooklyn residents, 78 percent expressed support for the current two-way bike path configuration (54 percent said it’s fine as is and 24 percent want to keep it while making some changes), with only 22 percent saying they want to revert to the previous design with three lanes of vehicle traffic.

The epicenter of the opposition has always been PPW itself, but among residents there the survey reveals an even split between people who want to keep the new configuration and those who want to get rid of it. Add the residents who live on PPW side streets, and support for keeping the re-design came in at 57 percent in the immediate neighborhood.

Big majorities said the project had advanced DOT’s stated goals: 85 percent feel that the re-design has had some effect on reducing speeding (a perception backed up by before-and-after data), and 91 percent said that biking is safer as a result of the project (reflected in a big jump in bike counts after the project was completed). Most respondents also perceived a noticeable improvement in the pedestrian experience, with 70 percent saying the project had made it easier to cross the street.

About a third of the respondents who support the new configuration want to see some adjustments going forward, like reducing the confusion and conflict between cyclists and pedestrians, improving the aesthetics of the street, and keeping cars out of the pedestrian zones separating the bikeway from traffic lanes. The report from the Council members suggests a few ways to modify the design and enforcement of the street to achieve those goals.

“There are deep and passionate feelings about the changes to Prospect Park West – but this survey of more than 3,000 residents reveals strong overall support from community residents,” said Lander in a statement. “Thanks to the extensive response, we have a clearer sense of the concerns, and a set of potential modifications that address them.”

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Last week a group of 12 City Council members announced that they're forming a new bloc, called the progressive caucus, "dedicated to creating a more just and equal New York City." The Times notes that the caucus signifies an unusual development, in that the members came together around shared ideology, not racial or sexual identity.

Streetsblog readers will notice that the caucus is led by two members who've been enthusiastic supporters of sustainable transportation initiatives that promise to improve life for New York's transit-dependent majority, many of whom cannot afford to own a car. Melissa Mark-Viverito and Brad Lander have both taken vocal stands in favor of congestion pricing and Bus Rapid Transit, citing the numerous benefits of better transit for poor and middle class New Yorkers.

It remains to be seen how the bloc as a whole, which includes members from all five boroughs, will address transportation. The caucus is still working out the details of its policy agenda. "I certainly anticipate that in the weeks and months to come they’ll be forming subcommittees related to specific issues," said Rachel Goodman, Lander's chief of staff.

For now, there is a broadly worded plank in the caucus's statement of principles [PDF] that links transportation to sustainability and environmental justice. It calls for "a more sustainable and environmentally just city, that takes the lead in preserving the environment for generations to come, improving the health of current residents, insuring a sound transportation system, and working toward a more equitable distribution of burdens and benefits." Viverito also told the Times that the caucus thinks Mayor Bloomberg has performed well on environmental initiatives.

The other ten members of the caucus are Margaret Chin, Daniel Dromm, Julissa Ferreras, Letitia James, Rosie Mendez, Annabel Palma, Ydanis Rodriguez, Deborah Rose, Jimmy Van Bramer, and Jumaane Williams. All together they control nearly a quarter of the 51 votes on the council.

With transit funding and better bus service on the line in Albany these days, it will be interesting to see whether the caucus takes positions on issues that play out at the state level. "I’m sure there will be situations where they choose to weigh in," Goodman told Streetsblog. "That said, I think they’ll be pretty focused on the legislative matters before the city."