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Buried in the pile of uninformed New York Post letters to the editor following Steve Cuozzo’s unhinged rant about the Columbus Avenue bike lane, intrepid readers found a note from Council Member Gale Brewer. “Bike lanes in my district are highly popular and strongly supported by the wider community,” she wrote. “Expanding these benefits is the right thing to do.”

Council Member Gale Brewer thinks it's time to vote in support of the Columbus Avenue bike lane. Photo: NYC.gov

Brewer has long been a booster of street redesigns in principle, but in her testimony before Community Board 7′s transportation committee, she fell short of requesting a vote in support of the specific plan on the table to extend the Columbus Avenue protected bike lane.

That night, a resolution supporting the plan failed to decisively clear the committee after a 5-4-1 deadlock.

Afterward, Brewer said she wanted the full board to take up the issue for more debate at its next meeting on January 3. Brewer now says she would like a vote in support of the plan at that meeting so the process can move forward.

“I hope it will go before the full board and pass,” she told Streetsblog yesterday.

DOT has been reaching out to each business on Columbus Avenue about how the plan can address their parking and loading needs. The agency will share the results of those discussions with the board in the next few weeks, Manhattan Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione told the committee last week.

Brewer, who said she was disappointed with DOT’s outreach on the bike lane’s initial segment and worked with merchants to tweak the lane after it was installed, is more encouraged this time around. ”To be honest with you, it’s a lot of outreach,” she said.

Because that process takes a good deal of time, Brewer said, CB 7 should not wait until it’s complete before giving the project a supportive vote at the next full board meeting.

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In the wake of last week’s setback for efforts to bring more bike racks to the Upper West Side, Manhattan Community Board 7′s transportation committee will hold a key meeting tonight about an issue on which its chairs have failed to take action: protected bike lanes and complete streets.

The Columbus Avenue protected bike lane is currently only 19 blocks long. Photo: DOT

DOT is scheduled to provide an update on the existing Columbus Avenue lane, which runs between 96th and 77th Streets, and discuss plans for bringing more protected bike lanes to the neighborhood.

Council Member Gale Brewer will be at tonight’s meeting. “I’m a supporter of bike lanes, especially protected ones,” she said. The Columbus Avenue lane “isn’t used as much as I would like,” she noted, because “it doesn’t connect to anything.”

Although the neighborhood could use a stronger network of protected bike lanes, Brewer likes what she sees so far. The number of cyclists riding on the sidewalk has gone down, she said, adding that her office has received fewer complaints about the behavior of commercial cyclists.

Brewer, who worked to adjust the bike lane in response to community requests, was disappointed in DOT’s level of outreach when the lane was first installed, but is more satisfied with how the agency is addressing the concerns of businesses this time around.

“I think in this case they’re doing a lot more of that door-to-door,” Brewer said. Asked if she thinks others will be similarly pleased, Brewer was circumspect. ”We’ll find out,” she said.

Key people to watch at tonight’s meeting include long-time committee co-chairs Andrew Albert and Dan Zweig, who have used their positions to slow down street safety progress in the neighborhood. The meeting is open to the public and heavy attendance is expected. It begins at 7:00 p.m. at Congregation Rodeph Sholom, 7 West 83rd Street.

Workers applying bicycle markings on West Drive in the 80s. Photo: Rod Huntress

Last month, Streetsblog reported that the Central Park loop would be getting a new lane configuration to clarify where pedestrians and cyclists belong, similar to changes recently implemented in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Less than 30 days after the announcement, walkers, joggers, and bike riders are all getting some extra room in the park, while the space for cars has been narrowed to one lane, calming vehicular traffic. Reader Rod Huntress sent in these photos from a ride this morning.

Council Member Gale Brewer, who represents the Upper West Side, said the fix has been widely welcomed. ”Everybody seems pleased with the process and the outcome,” she said.

West Drive near the 90th Street entrance is already receiving the new treatment. Photo: Rod Huntress

Good on you, Jimmy. What's next? Photo: DNAinfo

Bravo, James Vacca.

On Wednesday Vacca joined Council Member Gale Brewer in calling attention to the needs of blind and sight-impaired pedestrians, particularly as they apply to new pedestrian plazas.

Brewer has introduced a bill requiring textured pavement around the perimeters of plazas and bike lanes, while other bills would speed up the installation of audible pedestrian signals and mandate accessible online notifications concerning changes to street design. DNAinfo reports:

“This is a serious civil rights issue,” said City Council Transportation Committee Chair James Vacca, who said he first became aware of the challenges of new street designs from his father, who was blind.

Vacca’s assessment is spot on. Being able to navigate your way to the grocery store without fear of being run over is a civil rights issue. As is taking a bike ride through your neighborhood. As is crossing the street with your elderly mother. As is surviving the walk home from school. Especially so when the risk of being hurt or killed in traffic is higher for some New Yorkers than others.

Vacca has spent a lot of time on camera since taking the helm of the transportation committee, and he has yet to call attention to the hundreds of road deaths and thousands of injuries that occur annually. He has yet to credit the new pedestrian spaces, bike lanes, and street redesigns for making New York a safer city.

After a year devoted to nitpicking street safety improvements and targeting those who need them while pandering to parking scofflaws, maybe he and the council will at last turn to the business of safeguarding the rights of everyone who deserves to move about the city safely.

More than 55 percent of pedestrians surveyed on the Upper West Side thought the Columbus Avenue bike lane improved safety. Image: Office of Gale Brewer

The Columbus Avenue bike lane is both safe and popular, according to two assessments released at a meeting of Community Board 7 last night. Representatives from the Department of Transportation presented data showing that the street redesign reduced the number of crashes on the street by 34 percent, while 73 percent of Upper West Siders surveyed by City Council Member Gale Brewer said they think the bike lane and pedestrian refuge islands improved the street.

The bike lane on Columbus was installed last year between 77th Street and 96th Street following a vote of approval from CB 7. When some merchants complained about parking and loading issues after the lane was installed, a task force made up of local elected officials and community leaders put forward a series of tweaks to the design.

Along that mile of the Upper West Side, safety has greatly improved, according to a new evaluation of the redesign’s effects from DOT [PDF]. Crashes have decreased by 34 percent where the bike lane was installed, and total traffic injuries are down 27 percent. On the blocks of Columbus Avenue to the north and south of the bike lane, 29 percent of motor vehicles were clocked speeding, but only between eight and 17 percent of vehicles on the stretch of Columbus with the bike lane were measured going faster than 30 miles per hour.

In addition to improving safety, installing the bike lane has also encouraged cycling on Columbus Avenue. Bike counts are up by 56 percent on weekdays, while sidewalk riding has plummeted. Double-parking, too, is way down.

The safety benefits of the bike lane have not gone unnoticed. Of the 908 people surveyed by Brewer, 40 percent said the current design works for all users, 33 percent said it was a good start but needed some changes to work better, and only 27 percent said it doesn’t work well. Around 45 percent of those surveyed thought the redesign made it safer to cross Columbus, while 27 percent felt less safe.

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Since a working group of elected officials and community leaders studied and tweaked the design of the parking-protected bike lane along Columbus Avenue in February, things have been relatively quiet on the Upper West Side.

Photo: Civitas

Now that the lane, which runs from 77th to 96th Street, is a year old and residents have had some time to get used to it, City Council Member Gale Brewer has launched a survey to gauge the neighborhood’s reaction. Brewer supports the lane but wants to see if there are ways to improve the street further.

If you live, work, shop or otherwise travel on the Upper West Side, you can fill out Brewer’s survey here. It only takes a few minutes. The questions ask how the bike lane has affected safety, lawfulness, activity and comfort among all street users. It offers space for open-ended remarks on what works well and what ought to be changed.

Given the Columbus Avenue lane’s relative isolation — it has no north-south connections at either end and doesn’t have a protected northbound pair — it’s important to expand this safe cycling design and integrate it into the city’s network of protected bikeways. Filling out this survey can help move that process along.

Last night’s unanimous votes in support of a summer-long car-free Central Park by Manhattan Community Board 7′s parks and transportation committees moved the ball forward for advocates of car-free parks. With no movement at the mayoral level on the issue, any successful push will have to come from the bottom up. Similar statements of community support will be needed from more than one neighborhood.

Everyone from members of the City Council to legendary Parks Commissioner Thomas Hoving has said that Mayor Bloomberg has the power to make Central Park car-free overnight.

In 2008, students marched across the Brooklyn Bridge and wrote 10,000 letters supporting a car-free Prospect Park. Current campaigns to make NYC's flagship parks car-free haven't seen the same level of local organizing. Photo: Ben Fried

Unfortunately, Bloomberg doesn’t appear disposed to do so any time soon. “If you did not allow cars in the park during rush hour,” the mayor said in March, “the rest of the city streets would be overloaded and it would create an awful lot of traffic.”

So the pressure to keep cars out of parks will have to come from the local level in the communities surrounding Central Park or Prospect Park. The CB 7 votes in favor of a summer pilot are an important step forward on that front; while the full board still needs to pass the resolution, it is likely to do so with that kind of committee vote.

This year, the City Council has become another arena for advancing car-free parks proposals. Upper West Side rep Gale Brewer recently introduced legislation to make Central and Prospect Parks car-free.

But Brewer’s efforts in the Council haven’t gained traction. Only four of her colleagues — Fernando Cabrera, Letitia James, Melissa Mark-Viverito and Daniel Dromm — signed onto the bill. Last month, Brewer decided to drop Prospect Park from her bill in the wake of opposition from Brooklyn officials.

At the community board level, much work remains to be done to build the momentum necessary to make change happen. Ken Coughlin, a long-time leader in the fight for a car-free Central Park, was enthused by CB 7′s support but said he wasn’t aware of any parallel effort in the other community boards surrounding the park.

The Upper West Side appears to be the epicenter of the movement for car-free parks. But for the campaign to succeed, more neighborhoods will have to join the fight.

City Council Member Gale Brewer reenergized the fight for car-free Central and Prospect Parks by introducing a bill in the City Council today. Image: nyc.gov.

Upper West Side City Council Member Gale Brewer introduced legislation today that would restore Central and Prospect Parks to their original car-free status.

Brewer’s bill would ban private vehicles from using the park drives in either park; official vehicles would still be allowed to use the roads. Brewer’s legislation would also commission a study examining the impact of creating car-free parks on motor vehicle and pedestrian traffic flow and on the environment.

We’ll have much more on this new push for car-free parks as it develops, but today it seems worth reminding New York of what car-free parks are really all about. The New York Post, which broke the news of Brewer’s bill this morning, says that the bill will “ban cars,” “restrict vehicles” and “turn Central Park and Prospect Park into no-drive zones.” For them, it’s all about what you won’t be allowed to do.

A more historical perspective would remember that when Central Park was built in 1859, the automobile hadn’t been invented yet (the bicycle hadn’t really caught on either). It was only grudgingly allowed into Olmsted’s masterpiece forty years later, and even then cars needed a permit to enter, according to Transportation Alternatives. Car-free parks are about restoring space to pedestrians and cyclists, not taking space away from automobiles.

As this decades-long debate kicks back into high gear, here’s some more history to keep in mind:

• A car-free Central Park is unbelievably popular. A petition in support of a car-free park was signed by an unprecedented 100,000 people.
• A car-free Central Park also has the support of park administrator Doug Blonsky, the man responsible for running the park.
• Car-free parks wouldn’t snarl traffic. One 2008 study by Transportation Alternatives found that Central Park was actually increasing congestion in Harlem, and former Traffic Commissioner Sam Schwartz said that the long-term impact on traffic would be barely measurable.
• The city has been pursuing an incremental approach to re-creating car-free parks for decades. It has consistently cut back the hours in which cars are allowed and closed many park entrances to them. Most recently, the city expanded car-free time in each park in 2007.
• As long as cars are allowed in Central Park sometimes, non-motorized users’ experience can be threatened even during car-free hours. Recently, the police department have cracked down on cyclists for not following the traffic signals meant to regulate cars and unilaterally expanded the hours when cars were allowed for the holiday season.

The Upper West Side is offering the city a lesson in what a mature and constructive response to bike lane growing pains looks like.

Upper West Side leaders present their recommendations to tweak the Columbus Avenue bike lane. Photo: Noah Kazis

While the new protected bike lane on Columbus Avenue received community support throughout the process, once installed many local businesses along the corridor began to complain that the design was making it harder to park or make deliveries along the east side of the street. In response, elected officials and the community board developed a working group, surveyed those businesses and developed a set of tweaks intended to make the street design work better, which DOT has quickly accepted. That collaborative process has now set the scene for a continued expansion of the bike network on the Upper West Side.

The Columbus Avenue Working Group, made up of Community Board 7, the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance, and the offices of Borough President Scott Stringer, State Senator Thomas Duane, Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, and Council Member Gale Brewer, canvassed the blocks of Columbus between 77th and 96th streets, asking those businesses on the east side of the street what they thought of the bike lane. They announced the results of that survey at a press conference yesterday.

Of the 65 businesses they surveyed, 36 responded. And while that wasn’t a random sample, the results were pretty clear: 72 percent said the redesign had been bad for business. Of those negative responses, 86 percent identified reduced space for parking or loading as a concern and 53 percent said they’d had issues receiving deliveries.

No member of the working group, however, blamed the bike lane or called for a return to the more dangerous Columbus Avenue of the past. When asked by one reporter where things went wrong, Stringer answered, “I don’t think that things went wrong.” The only disconnect, he said, was that community consultation needed to be ongoing.

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One of two levels of parking underneath the Riverside Center project, which will now total 1,500 spaces. Image: Extell Development.

Council Member Gale Brewer has struck a deal on the Riverside Center mega-development, sending the 2,500-apartment project through two City Council committees and on a track to final approval. The deal increases the number of parking spaces allowed at Riverside Center to 1,500, far more than the community board or even the City Planning Commission had approved.

With the ability to build 1,500 off-street spaces on the southern edge of the Upper West Side, Extell Development got more than 80 percent of the 1,800 spaces it originally asked for. The City Planning Commission okayed 1,260 spaces — after some fuzzy math added 430 extra spaces — but the Council deal bumped that number up again.

For comparison’s sake, the community board requested 1,000 parking spaces and borough president Scott Stringer called for 1,100 spaces. If Riverside Center were simply built with the same ratio of parking as its successful neighbors, it would only need 550 spaces.

What’s more, while the City Planning Commission required Extell to move a proposed auto showroom to a location where it wouldn’t harm the pedestrian environment as much, the City Council undid that requirement as well, according to environmental planner Dan Gutman. On parking and the showroom, Extell “seems to have recouped what the planning commission took away,” said Gutman.

That isn’t to say that the deal was all bad for the community. The urban design of the project has been consistently improved over months of debate and negotiation. For example, 90 percent of the project’s open space has been brought down to street level, according to a press release from Brewer’s office. That will make the area far more inviting to pedestrians than previous designs which put Riverside Center on an elevated platform, with blank walls facing many sidewalks.

The deal also has Extell putting more money towards a new public school than it had previously agreed to do and guaranteeing that at least some of the affordable housing they must build will be placed on site, both of which are high-priority for the community. The additional parking may have been allowed in order to compensate for those community benefits. After all, said Gutman, “Extell’s argument was always that we need the money. It wasn’t about whether there was a need for these spaces objectively.”

We have a call in with Brewer to find out more about why the Council upped the number of parking spaces in the project.