Streetsblog New York City

Between Chris Christie’s decision to wind down construction on the ARC tunnel and the fare-hiking aftereffects of Albany’s political malevolence/incompetence, it was a rough week for sustainable transportation in the New York City region. Governors and legislatures may call a lot of the shots when it comes to transportation policy, but thankfully not all of them. Case in point: All the great changes in New York documented by the fine team at Embarq in this stunning video, the first in a series called “Cities in Focus” which will also showcase innovations from Curitiba, Istanbul, Mumbai, Los Angeles and Mexico City.

Watch this installment and see Michael Bloomberg, Janette Sadik-Khan, and Streetsblog originator Aaron Naparstek all appear within a few seconds of each other. And check out City Fix blogger Jonna McKone’s report on the video premiere earlier this week. (NYC DOT Senior Policy Adviser Jon Orcutt dropped a few intriguing bits of info about how the city is developing bike-share plans.)

We’ll see more results of NYC innovation this Sunday, when Select Bus Service and the re-designed First and Second Avenues officially debut.

With spring in the air (kinda) and Bike Month underway, this week's issue of Time Out New York is chock-a-block with city cycling material. A bike insert has maps of four great New York rides (with authors including TA's Paul Steely White, DOT's Dani Simons and Bike Snob NYC), as well as articles on where to buy gear (and what gear to buy) for upcoming events. Dating columnist Julia Allison even gets in on it, cruising for guys through Central Park on a tandem (in pink skirt and platforms). And there's a piece on how city cyclists have been targeted by aggressive drivers since the days of the horse and buggy.

Those who prefer to get around on foot weren't left out: the cover story features seven walking tours.

Photo of Julia Allison: Time Out New York

Bike-share programs are a very hot topic at the Bike Summit. Everyone is aware of how Velib has led to a huge spike in bike ridership in Paris, and they're wondering which U.S. city will be the first to replicate that success. Based on the Q&A session at one panel, "Bicycling in Great American Cities," it seems like Portland is the best bet to get something up and running first.

An audience member asked representatives of DOTs in Boston, Portland, and New York if they're looking into bike-share programs. Boston's Nicole Freedman, who has basically been building a bike program from scratch, answered first: "Absolutely. Everything I've researched says that bike-share is transformative." The two stumbling blocks are liability, which Freedman said can be overcome, and funding. No system has been profitable yet, she noted, so Boston is looking at models that could be profitable.

Roger Geller, Portland's bicycle coordinator, said his city is looking to launch a vendor-operated bike-share system and has put out a request for proposals.

Dani Simons of NYCDOT said bike-share might be on the table once the infrastructure for a safer bike system is in place. Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives, who moderated the panel, said he'd like to see a pilot program in the East Village, but that Governors Island was the most likely place to get something set up first. "Nothing has grown cycling as fast as bike-share," he said. "We need to get one off the ground here."

Photo: quosquos/Flickr 

DOT's Dani Simons and City Hall's Director of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, Rohit Aggarwala, at a joint hearing of Manhattan Community Boards 4, 5 and 6 on July 9; one of many public hearings where Bloomberg Administration officials have met with communities to discuss congestion pricing. Tonight, Brooklyn Community Board 6 hosts a similar public forum.

Here is the fourth and final installment of Streetsblog's congestion pricing Q&A with Rohit Aggarwala, New York City's Director of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. Click these links to find Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. Add your questions to the comments section and we'll see if we can get Aggarwala or someone else in city government to try and answer them for you.

Aaron Naparstek: Should the mayor's congestion pricing plan be submitted to an Environmental Impact Statement process?

Rohit Aggarwala: I don't think so. And the reason is simply that an EIS would be no more valuable for the decision of whether or not to go forward with congestion pricing, and what to do to mitigate its impacts, than the analysis that we've already done, and the analysis that the commission will be doing. The problem with traffic congestion is that it is so difficult to model.

That's why we've proposed a three year pilot. The pilot itself effectively will be the Environmental Impact Statement. Keep in mind congestion pricing is very different from building something you can't tear down. We can turn this system off whenever we want. If it turns out that the environmental impacts are negative, then by all means we'll want to turn it off. We're pretty convinced that the impacts will be wildly positive, and any specific impacts that might take place that are negative are things that we would be able to adjust.

AN: What exemptions do you foresee or would you like to have or not have?

RA: The mayor's plan has a few exemptions. First of all, yellow cabs and radio cars. Second, handicapped license plates. Third, mass transit and emergency vehicles. The reason for the third is kind of obvious, As for the handicapped, although we have Access-a-Ride, if you have a disability but you can still drive, there are large parts of the transit system that don't really work that well for you.

The reason for yellow cabs and radio cars is that we believe those pretty much function as an extension of the transit system. If you take a subway into Manhattan and you're going to the far west side, you may want to take a taxi or you may want to have the option to take a taxi home at the end of the night if you work late or something like that. Similarly, because it can be difficult to find a yellow cab, particularly parts of the outer boroughs, we want to keep the ability for people to use radio cars. I don't think we want to force people out of taxi cabs. A taxi is actually very efficient use of the street. It never circles for parking and, particularly at rush hour, you have very high utilization of taxis, as we all know since it's hard to find one that's unoccupied.

Black cars and limousines would be charged in the mayor's plan. Frankly, those are corporate trips that, number one, can bear the cost, and number two, we want those people to think, "Well, couldn't I just take the subway it would be faster and cheaper?"

Dani Simons, Transportation Alternatives' Director of Communications will be joining Bruce Schaller, Jon Orcutt and Andy Wiley-Schwartz at New York City's Dept. of Transportation. She starts next week. No word yet on what her title will be but rumor has it that she will be helping DOT launch some sort of new blog.

Bring it on, Simons.