Streetsblog New York City

While former Bogota Mayor Enrique Peñalosa and DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall got most of the attention for their keynote speeches at last week's transportation policy conference, much of the day's real intellectual ferment took place in the five separate breakout sessions that convened before lunch. The groups were organized as follows:

• Subways and Commuter Rail moderated by Gene Russianoff
• Cars and Buses with Bruce Schaller
• Underutilized Modes with Paul Steely White
• Pedestrians and Sidewalks with Ethel Sheffer
• Comprehensive Planning and Policy with Ernest Tollerson and Bob Yaro

The goal of each workshop, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said, was to generate lists of specific short-term and long-term priorities. After lunch, the moderators returned to the stage to present each workshop's findings.

Interestingly, a few key issues bubbled up in all five groups, regardless of the specific topic:

• The five groups all expressed a deep and strongly-felt desire for a better quality of life on Manhattan's sidewalks, streets and non-park public spaces.
• All called for a greater ability for people on the neighborhood-level to test new ideas on their own streets and share urban design best practices with other civic groups.
• Each group called for better collaboration within city government and said that there needs to be improvement in the way that city officials work together across agency lines.

That last point emerged as the day's elephant-in-the-room. Tollerson and Yaro put the question this way: Can city agencies each working "in their own separate silos" nurture the flexible, collaborative processes necessary to create the needed change in New York City's transportation and public space policy? There were some serious heavy-hitters in the Planning and Policy workshop including Buz Paaswell, Director of CUNY's Transportation Research Center, and the general feeling in that breakout group was, "No." It is time for the post-Word War II structure of agencies and authorities responsible for New York City's vast transportation and public space infrastructure to be re-thought and reformed.

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I'm up at Columbia University covering Borough President Stringer's Transportation Policy Conference, live:

10:40 am:

Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia is the keynote speaker. In only one three-year term as Mayor, Penalosa revolutionized the transportation system and public spaces of his city of 7 million (Mayors only get one term in office in Bogota so he had to work fast). This was a big speech for Peñalosa. He even said that he was a little bit nervous about it. The crowd here is large -- 600 people -- and all of New York City's major transportation policy players are in the room.

Here's a bit of what Peñalosa said (insert mellifluous Colombian accent on your own):

"Today, we aren't just talking about transportation. What we are really talking about is: What kind of city do we want? There has to be a collective decision about how do we want to organize our lives. NYC along time ago, explicitly or implicitly decided that much of the city's space would be dedicated to cars. This was a decision. It's not some sort of natural law. Tomorrow we can change this. This is something that we have to decide. Transportation is not a technical matter. It is a political matter."

Applause line: "How about if we took away curbside parking and made sidewalks bigger? I speak in cities around the world and present New York City's sidewalks as the best, most lively sidewalks in the world. Still, they should be bigger. We did this in Bogota and it worked. New York City sidewalks, they could be much better."

"Manhattan could be one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world. Applause (Editors note: Wow on the applause. This is not a room full of TransAlt and Times Up members, folks. This is a pretty staid crowd). In Bogota we closed the city's streets to cars. I dream of Manhattan making a Broadway closure for pedestrians permanent. In Bogota we have the Sunday Ciclovía. We close the street on Sundays for bikes and joggers. I dream of this for Broadway for a few hours on Sundays."

"Bicycles are an amazing machine. If we are a democratic society then everyone has a right to safe mobility. But not everyone has access to a car. We have to think of a bike not as something that is cute or nice but a right. Safety for cyclists is a right. In a developing country cycling is a matter of democracy. Bike lanes are important, 20% for bike safety and 80% because it's a symbol that a citizen on a $25 bicycle is just as important as one in a $30,000 car." Applause.

"Bogota had 30,000 individual bus owners. So we created the TransMilenio Bus Rapid Transit system. The stations are in the middle of the street. When the bus comes four doors open and the bus floor is level with the covered platform. One hundred people can get in and out of the bus in seconds. Two dedicated lanes are going each wa. The system is moving more passengers per km/hour than most transit systems in the world. (Peñalosa shows a slide of automobile traffic completely jammed up next to a freely flowing bus lane). We called it TransMilenio to make it sound sexy. Buses have a bad name. The system is moving more than 1.4 million passengers a day. To pay for it we established a gasoline surcharge and 25% of the gas taxes goes towards financing TransMilenio." (More applause. What? Is this room filled with Communists!?)

"Why not a BRT while we wait for the Second Avenue subway to built? Make a bus that goes much faster than cars! Now Manhattan has beautiful buses but they move to slow. In our old, historic downtown people said the roads are too narrow for buses. We said, "You are totally right. So, now cars can not go downtown anymore." This is done in lots of cities -- parts of town where only buses and bicycles can go.

"Forty-second Street as a pedestrian promenade. I think that would be beautiful. Applause.

"What are we working towards? What is our goal? A city where a child can go anywhere safely on a bicycle." (Standing Ovation).

10:00 am:

Six hundred people registered for the conference and this auditorium is packed. Scott Stringer just finished his talk. Guess what: Congestion pricing is an applause line now. Stringer: "Cities around the world have shown us what a transportation policy can be. London's congestion pricing.... Copenhagen's bike and bus lanes.... Solutions are within our grasp. We are now poised for that change. People will make adjustments if we give them a reason to do so. Congestion pricing and Bus Rapid Transit should be part of this discussion." BIG APPLAUSE

9:47 am:

DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall just finished her introductory speech. Thanks to a police investigation nixing subway service over the Manhattan Bridge I missed the first half of it. But I got here in time to hear Weinshall announce one piece of significant news: DOT has agreed to close the Times Square "bow tie" making way for big pedestrian space increases in Midtown's congested heart. The "bow tie" is the segment of roadway between 42nd and 47th Streets that allows traffic to merge between 7th Avenue and Broadway. After the closure, cars traveling down 7th Avenue will be forced to continue down Broadway. Vehicles traveling down 7th Avenue will have to continue down Broadway. This entire middle section of Times Square will be given over to pedestrians. Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance has long sought this change. It will make traffic flow less complicated and creates a lot more pedestrian space within Times Square. Only a year ago powerful people within DOT were stymying the idea of closing the Times Square bow-tie. Today DOT's Commissioner is touting the change. The Times, they are a-changing

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is holding a day-long forum on Manhattan's transportation future. Enrique Peñalosa, former Mayor of Bogota, Colombia, will be the keynote speaker. This should be a great event. Peñalosa is the inspiring and visionary politician who transformed his city of 7 million into a model for sustainable urban transportation.

In recent months Peñalosa has held at least two private meetings with New York City Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff and has become increasingly involved in the New York City Streets Renaissance Campaign.

If you are interested in the issues that Streetsblog covers or have transportation and public space concerns in your own neighborhood, I'd urge you to attend -- even if you don't live in Manhattan. Here are the details: 

Manhattan on the Move: A Transportation Agenda for a Growing City
Thursday, October 12, 8 am to 3:30 pm.
Columbia University, Alfred Lerner Hall (115th Street and Broadway)
Find a more detailed agenda here.
RSVP here: conference@manhattanbp.org.

What is at stake and why are these issues so important right now?

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