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.

Brewer’s survey isn’t a scientific poll of the neighborhood, but did reach a broad segment of the population. Her office put the poll online and publicized it to senior centers, merchants, local business associations, AAA, and delivery cyclists.

While every group surveyed said that the redesign made them feel safer, opinions varied based on the way respondents normally got around. Pedestrians said, by a margin of 56-32, that it increases pedestrian safety, while drivers said it increased driver safety by a slimmer margin of 48-36. More than 90 percent of cyclists said the bike lane made their trips safer.

Based on the survey, Brewer called for a few additional tweaks to the lane, including additional signage promoting safe behavior by all street users and better enforcement of parking rules by the police.

“We all know that change is hard,” said Council Member Brewer, “but 70 percent of our respondents think that the bike lane is going in the right direction.”

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.

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.

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.

“You need bike lanes, but you need input,” agreed Brewer.

That input turned into a set of modest recommendations (the full document listing them is up at Transportation Nation). It calls for left turn lanes to be shortened, where possible, to restore a few parking spaces; for DOT to work with businesses to calibrate the parking/loading balance on their block; and to reprogram Munimeters so that they can’t issue permits during loading-only hours.

When they examined the street themselves, working group members found that the lack of loading space wasn’t due to an inadequate number of loading zones, but to inadequate enforcement of those loading zones, which filled up with parked cars. They therefore urge the NYPD to crack down on misuse of the loading zones — particularly parking placard abuse and double parking. They also recommend more enforcement of cyclist infractions in the bike lane.

Those recommendations earned the support of the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance. Columbus Avenue will now be a street “designed for everyone, with input from everyone,” said Tila Duhaime of the UWSSR.

During yesterday’s press conference, Stringer offered an additional recommendation that wasn’t included in the working group report. The borough president complained that the community board had voted on a plan with six pedestrian refuge islands but found 28 installed. When he said they should get rid of some of those islands, however, Brewer and Wymore instantly objected, saying they liked them.

In a letter sent yesterday, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan agreed to comply with most of the working group’s requests and to study or collaborate with other city agencies on the rest. Stringer took a few jabs at DOT during the press conference, but ultimately praised DOT for their quick and supportive response.

Stringer was impressed enough with the results that he wants to make the working group a model. “I want to go to Grand Street,” he said. “I want to go around the borough.”

Rosenthal said the Columbus Avenue model could be a way of bringing people together and cementing support for important street redesigns. “Everybody has an interest in realizing a safe and friendly pedestrian, motorist, bike lane city,” she said. “We want it to work: bike lanes have gotten some bad publicity lately.”

That theory may already be working. Wymore said that the community board is now “looking for ways to connect what we’ve already accomplished here on Columbus Avenue to other bike lanes throughout the city. The goals is to have a network of bike lanes that work and really allow people to get from place to place. Hopefully we’ll be working very closely with DOT to accomplish that.”

The originally-requested northbound pair on Amsterdam may be a harder lift, however. Wymore said that because Amsterdam is less wide and carries more motor vehicle traffic than Columbus, it needs to be considered as part of a neighborhood-wide analysis.

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.

Council Member Gale Brewer would like to reduce the number of parking spaces at Riverside Center, but doesn't think it's likely to happen. Photo: nyc.gov

Now that the City Planning Commission has called for 1,260 parking spaces at the Riverside Center development — instead of the 1,800 requested by the developer — the project moves on to the City Council for the final step of the city’s land use process. Traditionally, the local Council member representing the district is given a lot of deference by her peers, so we checked in with West Side representative Gale Brewer to see whether she’d be pushing for a further reduction in the number of spaces.

Brewer said that she still supports bringing the total number of spaces down. She said that she supported the community board’s recommendation, in this case 1,000 spaces. “I always support what CB 7 did,” she said. “I will do everything I can to get as close to that as I can.” Brewer had previously endorsed the goal of building only one floor of parking, or 1,100 spaces.

However, Brewer doesn’t expect to be able to bring the number below 1,260. “My guess is we won’t get it much lower than that,” she said. “We have a lot of Council members who have cars.” Negotiations in the Council hadn’t begun as of Friday, she reported.

Brewer also thanked the City Planning Commission for bringing down the number of parking spaces. “That was quite unusual, for City Planning to do that,” she said. “It was a good effort.”

Chair Jimmy Vacca at yesterday's City Council transportation committee hearing. Photo: Noah Kazis

The City Council Transportation Committee held a hearing yesterday on four bills that would release new information about traffic crashes and how the Department of Transportation decides whether to install traffic calming measures and traffic control devices like stop lights and stop signs. All together, the bills would cover a wide spectrum of information, but committee chair Jimmy Vacca said the goal of each is “empowering citizens who want to fight for traffic calming measures in their own community.” The measures drew opposition from DOT representatives, however, who seemed to bristle at the prospect of Council-imposed mandates even while pledging support for the intent of the bills.

The first two bills, Jessica Lappin’s Intro 370 and Rosie Mendez’s Intro 374, would both open up data about traffic crashes to the public. Intro 370, an amended version of Lappin’s “Saving Lives Through Better Information Bill,” would require DOT to publish on its website weekly information about all traffic crashes and traffic fatalities in the city, searchable by intersection. Intro 370 would also mandate the creation of an interagency traffic safety plan, developed and implemented jointly by all the relevant city departments.

Lappin’s original bill would have placed the responsibility for publishing crash data on the NYPD. The police came out against that bill and effectively killed it earlier this year, even though a former NYPD traffic chief said the agency could have easily complied. During today’s hearing, Lappin said that she amended the bill “based on feedback we’ve received from the Administration.”

Intro 374 would fill a big hole in the city’s crash data, requiring DOT to gather information on all bike crashes that get reported to the city. Currently, no data are reported about collisions between cyclists and pedestrians or other cyclists.

These bills each got a lot of support from the committee and those testifying. “Think about it,” said Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Paul Steely White, explaining the need for Intro 370. “Right now, community groups and elected officials like yourselves are often forced to make decisions that directly affect life and death, based on information from 2008, at best.” White also said he believed it would be more appropriate for the NYPD to be in charge of releasing crash information, as that department already collects and compiles it.

Speaking for Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Mark Brumer praised Intro 374. Though Stringer’s office recently released its own study showing what happens in his borough’s bike lanes, that wasn’t a scientific survey. “A lack of reliable data on a citywide level prohibits an empirical approach to making bike lane improvements or increasing law enforcement in bike lanes,” said Brumer. “This dearth of information puts the safety and wellbeing of cyclists and pedestrians at risk.”

DOT, however, argued that releasing crash data is not its turf, preferring instead to pass the buck back to the police department, which collects the data. “If you’re talking about the police department data,” said DOT Deputy Commissioner of External Affairs David Woloch, “that’s a question for them.”

Woloch said at first that releasing weekly information would be “something that we couldn’t do.” “We don’t have state data from this past year,” he said. Lappin, noticing that Woloch had switched from talking about the more frequently-updated NYPD information to the more robust but less timely information from the state DMV, asked how often they could get the NYPD information. At least monthly, admitted Woloch.

After a long line of questioning, Council Member Dan Garodnick forced Woloch to admit that they “have access” to all the NYPD data in question. “You’re describing it as your data, their data,” said Garodnick. “This data is not really proprietary. We don’t care who’s disclosing the data, but the data’s important.”

Gale Brewer added that 374 would actually help DOT with the goal of increasing cycling. “I’m the biggest bicycle advocate you can imagine,” she said. But she’s “barraged” by complaints about dangerous cycling, she said, and she feels unequipped to defend cyclists. “If you put this online, when we get complaints that DOT and the police do nothing, we can help you,” said Brewer. “We don’t have a lot to go on.”

Intro 376, sponsored by Vacca, would mandate that DOT publish guidelines on its website about when and where it will install traffic calming treatments. Intro 377, another Vacca bill, would require DOT to include “a detailed explanation of the reasoning behind its determination and any traffic studies or reports supporting its determination” whenever it responds to a request from the public for a traffic analysis.

Vacca said these two laws are intended to educate the public, including community boards and Council members, so that they can be more constructive participants in planning their neighborhoods. “We in the Council still see a need out there, an unmet need, to further slow down traffic,” he said.

For that to happen, he argued, citizens need the ability to know what they can ask for, and if their request for traffic calming is turned down, why. He gave the example of residents in his district who kept pressing for a speed hump only to learn that they weren’t an option on bus routes, or another group that petitioned for a traffic light and was denied with the sole reason being that “it wasn’t in the warrant.”

DOT argued against both of these laws as well. On Intro 376, Woloch claimed it was a redundant measure given that the department already has a number of publicly available standards for traffic calming devices, such as the Street Design Manual and a page in the FAQ section of its website. “We have guidelines and standards in place, so we’ve accomplished at least a chunk of the bill,” he said.

Council Member Vincent Ignizio wasn’t buying that argument, however. “This administration seeks to codify administrative policies when it suits their political needs,” he said. “Then it’s necessary and needed, because we want to keep it for future generations.” (For example, the Council codified PlaNYC 2030 in 2008′s Local Law 55.) When the Council says something deserves to be written into law, however, then the administration says it’s not necessary, he claimed.

Woloch made a different case against Intro 377, saying it would add too much new work for the department. DOT conducted 4,000 different traffic studies in response to public requests last year, he explained. “If it were just one line for each of these 4,000 that could accurately encapsulate those decisions, that sounds reasonable and would be much easier for us to do,” he said. But since longer responses would be necessary, he argued, it would cut into the department’s ability to do other work. “We don’t want more people to be injured because we cut down our workload.”

After the hearing, Vacca said he was open to working with the administration to amend the bills, but that he wouldn’t abandon his push. “I want to get these bills passed,” he said.

The Upper West Side wants parking rules to apply on Sundays, too. Photo: dumbonyc/Flickr

According to a report in DNAinfo, Community Board 7 on the Upper West Side is taking the rare step of asking the city to end the giveaway of free curbside parking. The community board approved a resolution calling for paid Sunday parking in its meeting last night by a vote of 21 to 12, with five abstentions, DNAinfo’s Leslie Albrecht reports.

Sunday parking has been free all over the city since a 2005 vote by the City Council (inspired by a Freddy Ferrer mayoral campaign gambit) decreed that no one should have to “pay to pray,” overriding a Bloomberg veto. (Note to out-of-town readers: NYC churchgoers who ride the subway or bus to worship still pay to pray.)

After living with the results of the law for a few years, CB7 is looking to reinstate meter rates and increase turnover in scarce spaces.

“The result of the ‘pay to pray’ law has been almost zero turnover on many commercial blocks on the Upper West Side on Sundays,” explained CB 7 member Ken Coughlin, who voted for the resolution. “Merchants have been complaining that their driving customers can’t find parking spaces.”

Given that a 2008 study by Transportation Alternatives showed that in one 15-block area of Columbus Avenue, cruising for cheap metered parking adds up to 366,000 miles a year, free Sunday parking must add an incredibly destructive volume of traffic to the neighborhood’s streets.

To reinstate metered parking on Sundays, however, the Upper West Side needs permission from the City Council. Gale Brewer, who represents the area, said she has no plans to introduce such legislation. “It’s not going to move,” she explained. “The City Council passed legislation only a few years ago on the topic and my colleagues in Brooklyn and Queens feel very strongly on the subject.” Brewer believes that it wouldn’t be possible for legislation to carve out an exemption from the “pay-to-pray” law for one neighborhood, though she says her staff is looking into it.

Coughlin, however, suggested that there’s precedent for allowing different rules in different neighborhoods. “For example,” he suggested, “sidewalk cafes are allowed in some neighborhoods but not others.” If Brewer’s right that the council isn’t going to reverse itself on citywide Sunday parking, this legal point becomes the central question for Upper West Side residents looking for relief from excessive Sunday traffic.

The location of every building with an official bicycle access plan. Image: City Council [PDF]

The law requires commercial buildings with freight elevators to allow cyclists entry to the building, as long as their employer consents to have bikes in the workplace. Surveys have repeatedly shown that New Yorkers who bike cite the lack of secure parking as the number one reason they don't ride to work.

According to DOT statistics, 346 tenants have filed formal requests for their buildings to create bike access plans. Many of those requests are still pending, with the buildings within the deadline for compliance. That's a level of participation "beyond my wildest expectations," said Council Member Gale Brewer, one of the law's sponsors. 

The real impact of the Bike Access Law might be far greater, said Transportation Alternatives' Wiley Norvell. "For every one of the requests that makes its way to the DOT," he said, "there are many more instances of buildings that are implementing bike access policies of their own accord." Watching City Council pass such a pro-cycling law was an impetus, he argued, for many building managers and landlords to better accommodate cyclists. 

For example, the press conference announcing these numbers this morning -- headlined by Brewer, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and transportation chair Jimmy Vacca -- was held in front of Seven World Trade Center, where developer Larry Silverstein installed a slew of bike amenities without the prompt of a formal request for bicycle access. Another landlord with a major portfolio of office buildings, Trinity Real Estate, has also implemented bike amenities in many of its properties. 

Although the law is an important and innovative way to provide bike parking in New York City, there are still a few holes. In some buildings, for instance, freight elevators shut down at 5:00 PM, leaving cyclists unable to bring their bike out of their office after work. Brewer noted that bike access plans are concentrated in Manhattan, and especially Midtown. "I'm hoping that in other parts of the city, other people will be able to do this too," she said. 

There aren't any plans to revise the law just yet, according to Brewer and Norvell. "We're starting to get a sense of ways to expand or improve it, but we're only five months in," said Norvell. "It needs some room to breathe." He expects a second look at the law to come in a year or two.

Because crash info remains hidden from the public, the only civilians who see the results of unsafe conditions are witnesses.

In her letter to Commissioner Ray Kelly, Brewer asked that monthly NYPD traffic and enforcement data be made available to community boards at district service cabinet meetings, where representatives from city agencies issue reports and gather neighborhood input. While district managers at these meetings may engage the Department of Sanitation, for instance, on truck routes or overflowing waste baskets, says Brewer, "One of the issues that [does] not come up is traffic statistics."

"You always hear about the police coming to a car accident or a bicycle accident," Brewer told Streetsblog, "but you don't get those reported in the same way that, God forbid, somebody gets shot or robbed. In the neighborhoods and at the community board, we want the police and the Department of Transportation to report on things that are not necessarily captured by CompStat."

Brewer also requested that NYPD begin publishing traffic data online, listed by date and precinct, which is how the department currently posts CompStat reports. If Brewer's letter doesn't do the trick, the Council has a bill in the works to compel NYPD "to make certain traffic-related statistics available through its website." For street safety proponents accustomed to NYPD secrecy, this effort holds groundbreaking potential.

"This is empowering information," says Transportation Alternatives' Paul Steely White. "There are parents, block associations and advocates who are handcuffed in their pursuit of safer streets without these numbers to back up their assertions. There is absolutely no reason for government to wall this data off from the public eye."

Brewer's hope is that publicizing crash information will bring tangible, if not always attention-grabbing, results.

"We have very alert transportation committees and people who are concerned about pedestrian safety in the neighborhood," says Brewer. "If it's a well-functioning community board, like mine, they really do make changes based on discussions in that [district] meeting. The public doesn't see this but it does improve quality of life."

Brewer is also asking for updated information from NYCDOT. She says that since the release of the Sustainable Streets Index of 2008, DOT has failed to comply with Local Law 23, which requires an annual written report to the City Council on "volume and movement" of cars, buses, bikes and ferries. The thrust of the law -- a revelation when introduced by Brewer in 2006 -- is to reduce congestion and promote efficient use of street space through walking, cycling and transit, among other car-free modes, which fosters a safer environment for all users.

Brewer says she should have at least some DOT data by next week. NYPD did not reply to Streetsblog's query, but told Brewer's office that the department will respond to her letter by the end of the month.

Protected bike lanes would enhance safety for cyclists and pedestrians on Amsterdam Avenue.

Last fall, Manhattan CB 7 passed a resolution asking DOT to prepare a proposal for protected lanes in the district, which stretches from 110th Street to 59th Street. In a letter addressed to DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan earlier this week, eight electeds signaled their support for the resolution.

The letter [PDF] commends "DOT's ongoing effort to encourage safe, environmentally friendly and healthy modes of transportation" and offers to help the agency consult with local groups prior to implementing bike lanes on the West Side. In addition to Stringer, the signatories are State Senators Tom Duane, Bill Perkins, and Eric Schneiderman; Assembly members Linda Rosenthal and Dick Gottfried; and Council members Melissa Mark-Viverito and Gale Brewer.

DOT says it will work with West Side stakeholders as the agency develops proposals for the area.

The gathering threat.

The bill also includes language requiring bike parking in new buildings, mirroring a zoning amendment unveiled by the Department of City Planning earlier this week.

Yassky spokesman Jake Maguire stressed that the bill is about access. "It's a no-brainer that if you want people to stop driving and relieve crowding on subways, you need to allow people to bring their bikes to work," he said. "Hopefully this bill will have a speedy hearing and a speedy debate in the Council. With the support of 30 members we expect it to pass before the end of the year."

To review: The bill provides for bike access to existing buildings (which will constitute the vast majority of commuting destinations long into the future), and bike parking in new buildings. A few weeks ago transportation analyst Charles Komanoff gave us a quick-and-dirty estimate that bike commuting could rise up to 50 percent as a result of universal access to workplace buildings.

Crain's Insider has reported that the Real Estate Board of New York opposes the Bikes in Buildings Bill. REBNY President Steve Spinola sent a letter to Streetsblog Wednesday outlining his organization's stance, and confirmed his opposition to the new bill in a phone interview this morning. He questioned the city's legal authority to mandate bike access and cited concerns about liability, arguing that access should be expanded voluntarily by building managers. More on that exchange later.

Photo: kate at yr own risk/Flickr

With help from Transportation Alternatives, a group of mothers and families known as Mobilized Moms led a  car-free Central Park rally on Tuesday. Streetfilms' Robin Urban Smith says about 50 supporters, including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and City Council Member Gale Brewer, came out in support of the Moms, who marched from Central Park West and 72nd Street to the Naumburg Bandshell.

The group plans to collect kids' artwork from the event, along with written correspondence, for a book to send to Mayor Bloomberg in hopes that a car-free trial period might finally be instituted. 

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg signed into law Intro 199, a bill requiring New York City's Department of Transportation to collect and monitor data specifically aimed at helping the city "to reduce automobile traffic and encourage more sustainable means of transportation vital to combating congestion, pollution and improving the City’s long term economic health." The new law could signal a significant change for a city agency that has typically measured its own performance based on how many potholes it fills, street lamps it fixes and how well it keeps motor vehicle traffic flowing through the city's over-burdened street grid. 

"You measure what you care about," said Transportation Alternatives executive director Paul Steely White, an architect of the new legislation. "Traditionally DOT has not cared enough about bus riders, cyclists, and pedestrians. The bill is really seeking to understand more about how much bicycling there is now, how much walking activity, and to look at bus ridership and bus speeds. Armed with this information, DOT can set targets for improving those modes."

Passed by the City Council in a 48-0 vote on May 15, Intro 199 creates a framework for DOT to set goals for traffic reduction and the growth of cycling and bus ridership. A version of the bill was first proposed in 2006, but was quashed early last year in the waning days of DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall's administration. It was revived with the support of Council Member Gale Brewer, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, and Transportation Alternatives.

Though the new legislation is light on detail and lays out no specific transportation policy goals, it codifies the emphasis on alternative modes of transportation seen in DOT's strategic plan, Sustainable Streets. "The new DOT regime has recognized that the bill is really an opportunity to lock in a lot of the change that they've been making happen," said White. "This is part and parcel to Commissioner Sadik-Khan's stated intent to change the DNA of the agency."

In a written statement, the mayor said:

Introductory Number 199-A advances the goals of PlaNYC by requiring the City's Department of Transportation to take a macro-view of traffic in our City. The Department will collect and make available performance indicators that are relevant to reducing traffic and promoting higher performance traffic modes. Such indicators will include, for example, information on bicycle usage, ferry ridership and vehicle speed data.

Streetsblog has a request in to DOT to find out if the new metrics will be incorporated into the Mayor's Management Report, the document released each year that tracks the performance of city agencies. In the past, the MMR has focused on output measures like fixing traffic signals and potholes. Metrics like pedestrian and cyclist fatalities are tracked in the report, but no targets are set. White believes that might change: "If you look at what's in 199 and Sustainable Streets, there are a lot of really good metrics in both documents that should be incorporated into the MMR."

In referring to "higher-performance traffic modes," the bill sets another precedent. "For the first time," said White, "the city is recognizing that biking and walking are not just good for the city's air quality, but make the most efficient use of our scarce street space." By acknowledging that there is a "spatial dividend" to these modes, he added, the city is setting the stage for quality-of-life improvements that result from a re-allocation of space, like wider sidewalks, which would help make PlaNYC and other green initiatives more palpable for New Yorkers.

City Council Member Rosie Mendez has introduced a bill to overturn the NYPD's parade permit rules, which require groups of over 50 to obtain a permit before assembling. Enacted a year ago, the rules were seen as a way for the city to subvert Critical Mass rides and have been the subject of civil rights action and at least one lawsuit.

Mendez, along with Alan Gerson and Gale Brewer, were to introduce the "First Amendment Assembly Act" yesterday. According to a media release, the bill [PDF] "decriminalizes parading without a permit and allows groups that need exceptions to various laws, such as traffic laws, to obtain such for their events."

Streetsblog has posted consistently on how the NYPD seems more intent on harassing cyclists than protecting them. And just last week Commissioner Ray Kelly got an earful from citizens who are fed up with unsafe conditions for cyclists and pedestrians.

The full press release from Mendez follows the jump.

COUNCIL MEMBER MENDEZ INTRODUCES BILL TO PROTECT THE FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE

Wednesday March 26th 2008

At today's Stated City Council meeting, Council Member Rosie Mendez (District 2, Manhattan), along with Council Members Alan Gerson and Gale Brewer, will introduce a bill to balance the NYPD's duty to ensure public safety with citizens' right to free assembly. If enacted into law, the bill will override the parade permit rules adopted by the NYPD a year ago which were created without City Council oversight and require any group of 50 or more to obtain a permit. Currently, anyone in such a group without a permit is subject to arrest.

A copy of the legislation being introduced can be downloaded from the Assemble For Rights NYC website:
http://www.assembleforrightsnyc.org/files/a4r/legal/parade_bill_final_draft.doc

"Groups wishing to assemble and stay within the limits of the law should not be required to obtain a permit; the First Amendment is our permit" stated Council Member Mendez. "Larger assemblies that want the police to
assist in managing traffic along their route and ensure security should be able to apply for a permit through a fair and transparent process. This bill sets forth clear guidelines for each instance."

The First Amendment Assembly Act, based on legislation drafted by the civil rights advocacy group Assemble For Rights NYC, decriminalizes parading without a permit and allows groups that need exceptions to various laws, such as traffic laws, to obtain such for their events.

A parade permit will not be required when:
* A group believes their proposed assembly will not prevent other lawful uses of the same city public space and the expected attendance of the assembly will be less than 100, or
* The assembly is an immediate and spontaneous response to an event.

The Act also sets forth guidelines for the NYPD to facilitate peaceful assemblies even when a group should have obtained a permit but did not. Furthermore, the Act also encourages calmer resolutions to assemblies which become too difficult for the NYPD to facilitate: these guidelines include providing clearly communicated dispersal orders and reasonable opportunities to disperse before making any arrests.

The Act is similar to rules which were created to govern assemblies in Washington D.C. in the wake of mass arrests that eventually cost D.C. millions in civil penalties. D.C.'s laws have successfully reduced tensions between police and citizens there, and significantly reduced that city's legal liability to wrongful arrest civil suits, while ensuring public safety.

Assemble For Rights NYC (http://assembleforrightsnyc.org), is a coalition of over two dozen organizations dedicated to keeping free speech alive and well in New York City.

Photo: Doug Letterman/Flickr

The Daily Politics got hold of the letter [PDF], which appears below in full, including the names of its 20 signatories -- some of whom, like David Yassky and Melissa Mark-Viverito, are pricing supporters.

Dear Mayor Bloomberg:

We are writing to urge you to correct an unfairness in the "congestion pricing" policy proposed by the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, prior to the upcoming votes in the City Council and the State Legislature.

We are concerned that the burden of paying for congestion pricing will fall too heavily on New York City residents - and in particular on residents of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island - while commuters from outside the City will remain unaffected.

Under the current proposal, bridge and tunnel toll payments would be credited against the $8 congestion charge. This means that commuters who currently pay tolls to use the Port Authority and Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority river crossings will pay no additional congestion fee. The bulk of these drivers live outside of New York City. At the same time, drivers who enter Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge or the Williamsburg Bridge will pay the full $8 congestion charge. Most of these drivers do live within New York City.

This is blatantly unfair.

Indeed, the Final Report of the Congestion Pricing Commission itself appears to recognize the unfairness when it states: "The Commission recommends that the State Legislature consider the concerns raised by some Commissioners regarding the contribution of commuters from west of the Hudson River to the MTA Capital Plan."

We ask you, as the primary architect of the congestion pricing plan, to act to remedy the unfairness, either by amending the plan to require commuters from outside New York City to pay a congestion fee in addition to bridge and tunnel tolls, or by forcing the Port Authority to agree to devote a significant portion of their revenue from Hudson River crossings to funding mass transit in New York City (as suggested in the sentence quoted above from the Commission Report).

One proposal for addressing the unfairness would be to give drivers a full credit for bridge and tunnel tolls only if they reside in one of the five boroughs; under this proposal, drivers from outside the City would be given partial credit for toll payments but would still be required to pay some fee for entering the congestion zone. This would improve the existing plan in three ways. First, it would treat New York City residents more equitably in comparison to New Jersey commuters; while City residents would still bear the brunt of the new charges, the unfairness would be lessened. Second, it would raise substantially more revenue than the current proposal, with no additional cost; this revenue would enable more significant expansions in mass transit service than are envisioned in the Commission proposal. Third, it would make the policy more effective in reducing congestion by giving New Jersey commuters an incentive to choose mass transit.

We have been told by members of your Administration that a concern has been raised as to the constitutionality of a plan that provides a different toll credit to City residents than is provided to non-residents. After consulting with constitutional law scholars, we are confident that our proposal is constitutionally valid - just like, for example, the current practice of allowing Staten Island residents to pay a reduced fare for using the Verrazano Bridge.

As an alternative to adjusting the toll credit, another way to address the unfair burden on City residents would be to require the Port Authority to contribute a significant portion of its revenue from tolls on the Holland Tunnel, the Lincoln Tunnel and the George Washington Bridge to the Metropolitan Transit Authority, for use in funding system improvements within the City. We note that in expectation of the congestion pricing policy, the Port Authority cynically raised the tolls on the crossings it controls, so that those tolls will be exactly the same as the $8 congestion fee - thus ensuring that revenue generated from drivers who use those crossings will be spent by the Port Authority rather than on mass transit. Either of the two proposals discussed in this letter - capping the toll credit, or requiring a Port Authority contribution to the MTA - would ensure that more of the revenue generated from driving commuters goes to mass transit, and would help force the Port Authority to be a more responsible partner in planning and implementing the region's transportation network.

Finally, we note that some of the signatories to the letter support the idea of congestion pricing; others do not, or have concerns beyond the unfairness of the plan's burden on City residents in comparison to non-resident commuters. All of us, however, believe strongly that this unfairness must be corrected.

Sincerely,

Council Members,

Yassky
James
Mark-Viverito
Garodnick
Brewer
Koppell
Jackson
Gioia
Seabrook
Felder
Vacca
White
Mendez
Liu
Gentile
Lappin
Stewart
Vallone
Rivera
Dilan

This holiday season, users of Central and Prospect Parks got an unexpected and welcome gift after years of finding coal (and exhaust) in their stockings. Interestingly, the sources of that exhaust didn't seem to complain (or perhaps even notice) that things had changed.

For years, cars have been barred from most of the Parks' Loop Drives during weekday non-rush hours. But year after year, an exception has been made for the period between Thanksgiving and New Years when the city has temporarily lifted the weekday traffic ban. They called it "Holiday Hours." The reason, to quote a 2005 Department of Transportation press release, was "to provide additional capacity to help process the expected increase in vehicular trips during the holiday season" and, as former DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall said in 2006, "to help make room for the many people that want to enjoy our City's attractions." In other words: Accommodating more motor vehicle traffic was the mitigation for too much motor vehicle traffic.

Whether there is any evidence that "additional capacity" is needed or does anything more than fuel traffic congestion was the subject of a post on this site in November 2006 (see "Sacrificing Central Park to Appease the Traffic Gods"). But there is no doubt that the sudden appearance of car traffic during times of day that have been car-free for the previous ten months has been an annual jolt to the park's thousands of recreational users.

This year, however, at the urging of Transportation Alternatives, DOT for the first time quietly failed to open the Parks' gates to the anticipated crush of Santas hurtling to Midtown to fill their SUVs with gifts. The suspension of car-free hours was itself suspended. What ensued is instructive: nothing.

DOT officials say that they didn't receive any calls or complaints through 311 and the Mayor's Community Assistance Unit heard nothing from motorists furious that they hadn't received their customary holiday handout. Traffic congestion around the Parks did not appear to be any worse than usual.

But while drivers may not have noticed or cared much, the Parks' recreational users certainly did. According to a DOT official, the agency received considerable feedback through e-mail and other means from people who noticed that weekday car-free hours in Central and Prospect Parks remained intact during the holidays and were pleased. T.A., too, heard from many delighted park users, some of whom could not believe their eyes (or their lungs).

"We're going to keep reviewing how it went, but certainly we'd look to do it again next holiday season," the DOT official said. "At this point we see no reason to make a change."

All this bodes well for the three-month trial closing of both parks to traffic this summer, a long-overdue measure being pushed by TA and numerous elected officials, including Upper West Side Council Member Gale A. Brewer, who introduced the car-free summer legislation two years ago. To be sure, drivers are more likely to notice when a privilege is taken away rather than simply not reinstated. But nearly every incremental restriction of car traffic in both parks has been preceded by dire predictions of traffic cataclysm. Time and time again, these fears have proved groundless.

The holiday hours story should embolden officials to take an extended holiday from traffic and make Central and Prospect Parks the refuges they were meant to be.

Photo: Swruler9284 / Flickr

Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and Chinese Chamber of Commerce Chairman David J. Louie will distribute free NYC bicycle helmets to delivery workers on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will also distribute reflective safety vests at the event. The helmet fitting and distribution will be held from 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm at the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, 62 Mott Street.

The event is intended to inform businesses and bicycle operators about two new laws that take effect on July 26th, 2007 and were sponsored by Council members Gale Brewer and Alan Gerson, both of whom attended today's announcement.

The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has begun a pilot program to provide delivery workers with reflective vests that increase cyclists' visibility and allow for easy display of identifying information. Under city law, commercial cyclists must display a sign indicating their employer's name and a personal, three-digit identification number.