Chalk up more bikeway innovation to the folks at the NYC Department of Transportation. Nearly complete, the Sands Street approach to the Manhattan Bridge is now safer and more enjoyable thanks to a New York City first: a center-median, two-way protected bike path. The facility is a perfect solution to counter the dangers posed by a tangle of roads and highway on-ramps that burden the area. Dramatic before-and-afters tell the delicious story.

We'll also take you back into the archives to April 2005, when, following a severe injury to Transportation Alternatives' Noah Budnick, advocates held a passionate rally asking Mayor Bloomberg to not only improve bike access to the Manhattan Bridge, but to all East River bridges. Four years later, there's much to be proud of. As DOT Assistant Commissioner for Traffic Management Ryan Russo points out, back in 2005 about 800 cyclists used the bridge daily. In 2009, those numbers have soared to over 2,600. That gives us a serious case of happiness.

NONMOTORIZED TRANSPORTATION ACCESS AND STORAGE. -- Grants under this chapter may be used to provide access to rolling stock for nonmotorized transportation, including bicycles, and recreational equipment, and to provide storage capacity in trains for such transportation, equipment, and other luggage, to ensure passenger safety.

Queens Congressman Anthony Weiner got the language into the bill after prompting from Transportation Alternatives. President Bush has not yet signed it into law, but according to the Times, the White House has signaled that he will.

"In the past, Amtrak has claimed that because the funding bill did not explicitly say that the money may be spent on bikes that they couldn't make trains bike-accessible," says T.A.'s Noah Budnick. "Now it should be clear to the most bureaucratic bureaucrat: Federal money for Amtrak can be spent on bike-accessibility."

The bill does not mandate bike-accessibility, so riders will have to contact Amtrak to put it on its agenda. I know I'd like to bring a bike on board the next time I visit my grandmother in DC. A SmartBike location right at Union Station would also do the trick.

Photo of Caltrain bike car near Palo Alto: richardmasoner/Flickr

Construction of the Sands Street bike path was promised to begin in 2006...

The slow pace of safety improvements for downtown Brooklyn streets became tragically apparent earlier this month when eight-year-old Alexander Toulouse was killed by a postal truck on Livingston Street. A $5 million traffic calming project for the area, unveiled in 2007, is not the only livable streets initiative to suffer delays. The Sands Street bike path, a physically protected approach to the Manhattan Bridge, has languished behind schedule for years, held up in the city's construction bureaucracy. The project serves as a prime illustration that livable streets hinge not just on DOT, but on other, more obscure city agencies as well.

...here's how Sands Street looks today.

In April 2005, Noah Budnick of Transportation Alternatives was riding on Sands Street, after exiting the Manhattan Bridge, and crashed on a dangerous stretch where cyclists often have to contend with deeply pock-marked pavement and cars accelerating onto the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. He sustained severe head trauma, requiring hospitalization and a prolonged recovery.

Two years earlier, Budnick had joined other Brooklyn bike advocates in calling on the Department of Transportation to improve the safety of the very same bridge approach. Borough President Marty Markowitz and City Council member David Yassky pledged support (right). DOT, under the leadership of commissioner Iris Weinshall at the time, did announce plans for a protected bike path on Sands Street -- two months after Budnick's crash. Construction would start in 2006, the agency said.

This June marked the third anniversary of that announcement, and construction on the Sands Street bike path has still not begun. (A contractor is slated to begin work in October.) Last year, a new team took the reins at DOT and dramatically accelerated the pace of bike improvements. But getting this critical safety measure through the different stages of government approval has been slow as molasses. Why?

Capital projects like Sands Street are carried out by the city's Department of Design and Construction, which works with contractors to see DOT's designs through to completion.

The initial DOT design for Sands Street called for a two-way bike path, running along a raised median, protected from car traffic by a fence on both sides. Transportation Alternatives and Community Board 2 lobbied DOT to replace the fence with bollards. A continuous fence, they said, would have kept residents of nearby Farragut Houses from walking across the street midblock, in addition to posing a danger to cyclists by making it harder for them to exit the bike path in case of an emergency. A bike path design using bollards was adopted.

DOT and DDC attempted to fold the bike path project into an existing contract where work was already underway, the reconstruction of Flushing Avenue. DDC put out the $40 million Flushing Avenue bid in 2003. DOT and DDC initially stated that the contractor, Bronx-based firm Demicco Bros., would not agree to incorporate the bike path work into the project.

On Sands Street, cyclists contend with broken pavement and cars getting onto the BQE.

Frank Demicco of Demicco Bros. says his firm was never officially told to do the work. "It was something that was just talked about," he said. The city did not go so far as to issue a change order instructing Demicco to build the bike path. "There's no items in the contract for me to construct that, so it's really illegal for them to give me work without issuing a change order, and the change order might have been too expensive, or whatever they thought. That's probably why they went that route." The city is reluctant to push through such projects by issuing a change order, he added, when it can do the work cheaper through competitive bidding.

In the case of Sands Street, this meant forgoing the originally promised construction timetable and letting the project out to bid again. DDC sent Streetsblog a revised statement after Demicco's version of events was brought to their attention: "At the time this project was requested, the option of adding the path to the active reconstruction project was explored, but due to a number of issues including approvals, funding, and scheduling, it was decided a new procurement would need to take place. It was DDC's decision to proceed as noted above, not the contractor's."

That decision was reached through an internal process known as a change order estimate, wherein DDC projected a price tag for the bike path. When the agency arrived at a figure, work was not allowed to proceed because another city agency, the Office of Management and Budget, rejects change order estimates that exceed 10 percent of the total project cost.

The Sands Street path is now under a separate, $4.6 million contract with a firm called Trocom Construction. When it is finally completed, the path will serve as a critical link in the city's bike network. Just as bridge approaches become choke points for car traffic during peak hours, they also serve large numbers of cyclists, especially bike commuters. The increasing popularity of biking in New York is reflected in the number of cyclists crossing bridges. In 2005, an average of 829 cyclists crossed the Manhattan Bridge every day. In 2006, the last year for which data is available, daily crossings shot up to 1578, a 90 percent increase.

Bridge approaches handle some of the densest bike traffic in the city, and the volume is only going up.

The more people bike across the bridge, the greater the number of potential conflicts between drivers and cyclists. The hazards are amplified on Sands Street, where drivers access two on-ramps to the BQE.

"You're navigating through very high vehicle traffic," says Caroline Samponaro of T.A. "It's essential to have protected space set aside, and proper signage and lighting."

Thousands of cyclists have been put at risk because this project was delayed for two years.

Rendering: NYCDOT

Photos: Aaron Naparstek

I don't think "Talk of the Nation" is available on WNYC but you should be able to tune in via the Internet. They'll be taking callers as well.

After the jump, you'll find last week's Wall Street Journal article on Anderson and his law suit. And here, to give you a sense of where Anderson is coming from, is a choice quote from his blog:

Riding a bike in SF -- or any American city -- will never really be "a safe, attractive option," regardless of the miles of bike lanes that are eventually painted on city streets. Regardless of the obvious dangers, some people will ride bikes in San Francisco for the same reason Islamic fanatics will engage in suicide bombings -- because they are politically motivated to do so.

It's amazing that the court and 1970s-era environmental regulations have given this local gadfly such power and legitimacy, but there you have it. If you were going on national radio with Rob Anderson, what points would you try to hit?

SAN FRANCISCO -- New York is wooing cyclists with chartreuse bike lanes. Chicago is spending nearly $1 million for double-decker bicycle parking.

San Francisco can't even install new bike racks.

Cyclists say the irony is killing them -- literally. At least four bikers have died and hundreds more have been injured in San Francisco since mid-2006, when Mr. Anderson helped convince a judge to halt implementation of a massive pro-bike plan.(It's unclear whether the plan's execution could have prevented the accidents.) In the past year, bike advocates have demonstrated outside City Hall, pushed the city to challenge the plan's freeze in court and proposed putting the whole mess to local voters. Nothing worked.

"We're the ones keeping emissions from the air!" shouted Leah Shahum, executive director of the 10,000-strong San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, at a July 21 protest.

Mr. Anderson's fight underscores the tensions that can circulate as urban cycling, bolstered by environmental awareness and high gasoline prices, takes off across the U.S. New York City, where the number of commuter cyclists is estimated to have jumped 77% between 2000 and 2007, is adding new bike lanes despite some motorist backlash. Chicago recently elected to kick cars off stretches of big roads on two Sundays this year.

Famously progressive, San Francisco is known for being one of the most pro-bike cities in the U.S., offering more than 200 miles of lanes and requiring that big garages offer bike parking. It is also known for characters like Mr. Anderson.

A tall, serious man with a grizzled gray beard, Mr. Anderson spent 13 months in a California federal prison for resisting the draft during the Vietnam War. He later penned pieces for the Anderson Valley Advertiser, a muckraking Northern California weekly owned by his brother that's known for its savage prose and pranks.

Running for Office

In 1995, Mr. Anderson moved to San Francisco. Working odd jobs, he twice ran for a seat on the city's Board of Supervisors, pledging to tackle homelessness and the city's "tacit PC ideology." He got 332 of 34,955 votes in 2004, his second and best try.

That year Mr. Anderson, who mostly lives off a small government stipend he receives for caring for his 92-year-old mother, also started a blog, digging into local politics with gusto. One of his first targets: the city's most ambitious bike plan to date.

Unveiled in 2004, the 527-page document was filled with maps, traffic analyses and a list of roughly 240 locations where the city hoped to make cycling easier. The plan called for more bike lanes, better bike parking and a boost in cycling to 10% of the city's total trips by 2010.

The plan irked Mr. Anderson. Having not owned a car in 20 years, he says he has had several near misses with bikers roaring through crosswalks and red lights, and sees bicycles as dangerous and impractical for car-centric American cities. Mr. Anderson was also bugged by what he describes as the holier-than-thou attitude typified by Critical Mass, a monthly gathering of bikers who coast through the city, snarling traffic for hours. "The behavior of the bike people on city streets is always annoying," he says. "This 'Get out of my way, I'm not burning fossil fuels.' "

Going to Court

In February 2005, Mr. Anderson showed up at a planning commission meeting. If San Francisco was going to take away parking spaces and car lanes, he argued, it had better do an environmental-impact review first. When the Board of Supervisors voted to skip the review, Mr. Anderson sued in state court, enlisting his friend Mary Miles, a former postal worker, cartoonist and Anderson Valley Advertiser colleague.

Ms. Miles, who was admitted to the California bar in 2004 at age 57, proved a pugnacious litigator. She sought to kill the initial brief from San Francisco's lawyers after it exceeded the accepted length by a page. She objected when the city attorney described Mr. Anderson's advocacy group, the Coalition for Adequate Review, as CAR in their documents. (It's C-FAR.) She also convinced the court to review key planning documents over the city's objections.

Slow Pedaling

In November 2006, a California Superior Court judge rejected San Francisco's contention that it didn't need an environmental review and ordered San Francisco to stop all bike-plan activity until it completed the review.

Since then, San Francisco has pedaled very slowly. City planners say they're being extra careful with their environmental study, in hopes that Mr. Anderson and Ms. Miles won't challenge it. Planners don't expect the study will be done for another year.

Meanwhile, Mr. Anderson and Ms. Miles have teamed up to oppose a plan to put high-rises and additional housing in a nearby neighborhood. He continues to blog from his apartment in an old Victorian home. "Regardless of the obvious dangers, some people will ride bikes in San Francisco for the same reason Islamic fanatics will engage in suicide bombings -- because they are politically motivated to do so," he wrote in a May 21 post.

"In case anyone doubted that you were a wingnut, this statement pretty much sums things up!" one commenter retorted.

Mr. Anderson is running for supervisor again this November -- around the time the city will unveil the first draft of its bike-plan environmental review. He's already pondering a challenge of the review.

On Thursday, the New York City Council voted 40-7 to approve a home rule message enabling state lawmakers to enact bus lane enforcement legislation. The bill would permit the use of bus-mounted cameras to deter cars from using bus-only lanes. It now moves to Albany, where it has already been introduced in both the State Assembly and Senate. The City Council also voted in favor of a measure that would make it easier to enforce restrictions on blocking the box, which is likewise now in Albany's hands.

With the Assembly set to adjourn on June 23rd, and the transportation committee meeting today to discuss the bus camera bill, one more round of calling and reaching out to key legislators will help move this legislation forward.

Automated bus lane enforcement is a key step toward implementation of Bus Rapid Transit, especially since physically separated lanes do not figure heavily in the city's plans. Similar enforcement legislation was first drafted eight years ago, but, lacking support from the governor's office and high-level MTA management, did not progress this far. The City Council vote indicates that circumstances have changed.

"This is unprecedented," said Noah Budnick of Transportation Alternatives. "City Council is doing the right thing for the millions of bus riders in this city. This is a really good step towards improving mass transit in the short term. For the time being, it's all about buses."

Council Member Lew Fidler, who voiced support for better traffic enforcement while opposing congestion pricing, said he co-sponsored the bill. The members who voted against were Charles Barron, Erik Martin Dilan, Mathieu Eugene, Darlene Mealy, Diana Reyna, and Kendall Stewart of Brooklyn, and Melinda Katz of Queens.

While the Senate is expected to vote on the bus camera bill soon, a floor vote is not assured in the Assembly, according to Josh Nachowitz of the New York League of Conservation Voters. The Assembly transportation committee, chaired by Rochester Democrat David Gantt, is discussing the bill today and may vote on whether to allow it to come to the full floor. Sponsor Jonathan Bing has officially requested that a committee vote be scheduled, according to Nachowitz, making the bus camera legislation the only bill currently before the committee to receive such a request without yet having it granted. Streetsblog has asked Gantt's office whether the assemblyman plans to schedule a vote, but has not received a response.

"It would be an utter shame for Albany to end the current legislative session without taking action to improve transit in New York City," said Budnick. "Two-thirds of New Yorkers supported congestion pricing because it would have improved transit. People still want better transit. That hasn’t gone away."

Michael O'Loughlin at the Campaign for New York's Future said:

Congestion pricing is dead. Long live congestion pricing.

The Assembly still has to come up with a plan to deal with a $17 billion transit deficit in a $29 billion capital plan. As Gene Russianoff at the Straphangers Campaign said, 'That's more hole than plan.'

The fundamental facts remain the same. The traffic problem and air pollution problems are real. The need for better transit is real. Two-thirds of New Yorkers support congestion pricing if the funds are used for transit. The success of congestion pricing in other cities is real. The reality is that we have to come up with a plan to solve our traffic and transit crisis, if not today then tomorrow.

Now, the legislature has to confront the MTA capital plan. They have to come up with billions and billions of dollars from somewhere.

It doesn't end here. The issue is engaged and it's not going away. But this is a bad day for 7.5 million transit riders, that's for sure.

Noah Budnick at Transportation Alternatives said:

There is still a lot that the Mayor and City Council can do without the state but it's certainly less than what we could do with that $354 million in federal money, the hundreds of millions of dollars in congestion pricing revenue and the billions in bond money that we could have done with congestion pricing.

The city doesn't need Albany's permission to undertake parking policy reform, to establish market rate curbside parking and to start reclaiming street space from automobiles and repurposing it for other uses. The city doesn't need state approval to build dedicated bus ways and protected bike lanes. Bus lane enforcement cameras do need Albany's permission but can be stand-alone legislation and may not be as heavy a lift. Creating pedestrian-only streets temporarily or permanently, Albany has no say over that. And we could establish a bike-sharing program similar to what Paris has done.

Yes:

Vacca
Mendez
Arroyo
Baez
Brewer
Dickens
Felder
Garodnick
Gerson
Gioia
Gonzalez
Jackson
James
Koppell
Lappin
Liu
Viverito
Martinez
McMahon
Monserrat
Palma
Sanders
Seabrook
Stewart
Vann
White
Yassky
Recchia
Rivera
Quinn

No:

Addabbo
Avella
Barron
Comrie
DeBlasio
Dilan
Eugene
Fidler
Gallagher
Gennero
Gentile
Ignizio
Katz
Mealy
Nelson
Sears
Vallone
Reyna
Oddo

Not present:
Foster

Maria Baez (chair), Bronx - yes
Joseph Addabbo, Queens - no
Eric Martin Dilan, Brooklyn - no
Lewis Fidler, Brooklyn - no
Melissa Mark Viverito, Manhattan - yes
Michael McMahon, Staten Island - yes
Hiram Monserrate, Queens - yes
Joel Rivera, Bronx - yes
Larry Seabrook, Bronx - yes

MTA chief Elliott "Lee" Sander delivered the first-ever "State of the MTA" address this morning, using the agency's 40th anniversary to urge the enactment of the full $29.5 billion, five-year capital plan unveiled last week. Speaking before a packed house at Cooper Union's Great Hall, Sander argued that the New York metro region needs every tier in the plan to serve a growing population, keep up with global competition, and address the challenge of climate change.

Sander linked the plan to the historical trajectory begun in the early 1980s, when the MTA rolled out successive five-year capital plans, reviving a decrepit system with a $70 billion overhaul. The capital plan now on the table, he said, would "turn the page to the next chapter in New York City's transit history" and create "a world-class, seamless transportation network."

Sander also reinforced the importance of congestion pricing to the MTA's plans, and placed major capital projects within the context of the city's sustainability initiatives. "Inherent in the capital plan and in congestion pricing is the belief that sustainability is critical to the region's future," he said. "Global warming and sea level rise are challenges no enlightened society can afford to ignore."

The presentation depicted three categories of improvements: 1) short-term service enhancements that can be implemented before congestion pricing, 2) major projects in the 2008-13 capital plan, and, looking ahead as far as 2048, 3) long-term system extensions for the five boroughs and surrounding counties that the current proposal would make possible.

The first category will consist of new bus routes in every borough and more frequent subway service on 11 lines. In the second category, big-ticket projects like the Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access -- linking the LIRR to Grand Central -- take center stage. The third category, which Sander called a "long-term vision and action plan for the next 25-40 years," includes ideas like using the Second Avenue Subway as a trunk line for service into Brooklyn and the Bronx, and building a "circumferential" subway line connecting Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx using existing rail rights-of-way (an idea first proposed by the Regional Plan Association). A detailed summary is available in the MTA press release, and City Room has posted a great recap.

Transportation advocates were largely positive, though not without reservation, in their assessments of the speech.

"It was a smart thing for the MTA to do," said Neysa Pranger of the RPA. "Any opportunity they can take to pitch their program is a good one. It's going to need the energy and enthusiasm of the people in that room to get the capital program through Albany."

In the MTA's long-term vision, the Second Avenue Subway (yellow) will serve as a trunk line extending to routes in upper Manhattan and other boroughs (blue).

Noah Budnick of Transportation Alternatives said Sander made a compelling argument. "They explained how much investment has already gone in, and what that has done for the system. I heard a case made for why past investments have worked, and why we need to keep investing or else the system's going to go downhill."

A cautionary note came from Joan Byron of the Pratt Center for Community Development. With commodity prices rising and the region's economy on shaky ground, she said, "it all adds weight to the argument for doing things to expand the system incrementally." The Pratt Center and its partner, COMMUTE, have been advocating for more BRT in the capital plan to make sure neighborhoods underserved by transit see a greater, more immediate benefit. "East Side Access has a lot of benefits," Byron said. "But you could value-engineer money out of that and deliver miles and miles and miles of BRT."

In a Q & A following his speech, Sander was asked if the MTA planned to implement BRT lines that cross bridges, which would directly connect the outer boroughs to Manhattan. "In the five corridors that we're doing with DOT, none of those go over bridges," he said, "but I wouldn't rule it out."

Graphics courtesy of the MTA

On Tuesday the Bloomberg administration announced record low traffic deaths from 2000 to 2007, and claimed, if not in so many words, that city streets are safer than ever. But the numbers, included on a chart that accompanied this media release, also indicated that 23 cyclists died in 2007. That would make last year -- according to the data released Tuesday, at least -- the deadliest for riders in the eight year period shown.

But are those figures accurate? And in the context of the growing number of people cycling throughout the city, what do they mean?

According to a 2006 joint report from DOT, NYPD and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (40-page pdf), 24 cyclists were killed in 2005, and 23 were killed in 2002. That doesn't match the figures released this week. And while it could be easy to assume that that only means the streets are even more dangerous than portrayed, such variations in the raw numbers don't necessarily mean much in terms of safety.

"The sample size is so small and standard deviation so little that T.A. has never found deaths to be an adequate indicator of safety trends," says Noah Budnick of Transportation Alternatives. "That's why we requested the city's 2006 report look at injuries too."

Comparing fatal crashes with daily ridership, Budnick says that the crash rate -- the number of deaths per cyclist -- shows a decline since 1985, which is as far back as T.A. has complete data sets for both ridership and fatalities.

Then there's the safety-in-numbers rule -- also called "P.J.'s Law," after Peter Jacobsen, the California engineer who documented it in 2003 -- which posits that doubling the number of cyclists on the road tends to bring about a corresponding one-third reduction in vehicle-cyclist crashes. In other words, the more cyclists who take to the streets, the safer the streets get for them.

"Over the past decade, regular cycling has increased 30 percent and annual bicyclist injuries and fatalities have dropped 40 percent," says Budnick. "That said, even one death is too many. This is why initiatives like Vision Zero, in Sweden, are so important. They set a hard target and push government to achieve it."

So while city streets may indeed be getting safer, as Mayor Bloomberg and DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan declared, in addition to reconciling its crash data and incorporating figures on pedestrian and cyclist injuries, there's still plenty of room for improvements, physical and otherwise -- a fact also tacitly acknowledged by Bloomberg and Sadik-Khan. But will the city ever aim as high, or low in this case, as the Swedes?

"More protected bike lanes, better traffic enforcement, tougher laws against drivers who hit bikers and walkers and more cyclists will prevent crashes and bring NYC’s numbers down," Budnick says. "We need a 'Vision Zero' vision from the city."

Chart data courtesy Transportation Alternatives

It looks like the street redesign around the Manhattan entrance of the Manhattan Bridge is nearing completion. Considering that Transportation Alternatives has been pushing for these fixes for years, that was pretty fast. DOT presented its plan to the local Community Board, to unanimous approval, in July; sketched out the lines on the street in August; and here we are.

With the Manhattan side of the bridge squared away, attention now turns to the utterly pathetic state of bike access on the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge. Former DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall unveiled plans for the creation of a Sands Street bike ramp on June 14, 2005, shortly after T.A. Deputy Director Noah Budnick's life-threatening bike crash down there. Two and a half years later the Sands Street project is nowhere. Apparently, the Department of Design and Construction has completely dropped the ball on this one.

Thanks to Streetsblog reader Dave "Paco" Abraham for sending in these photos. You can find more detailed DOT plans for the Manhattan Bridge and other "complete streets" projects around the city here.

REPORTER: Jan Gehl is an urban designer, also from Copenhagen, who advises the city's Department of Transportation. Like his friend and mentor, the late Jane Jacobs, Gehl speaks of the 'humanization' of the city's streets, which he thinks have become 'infested' by cars. But Gehl thinks Manhattan, given its density and flatness, is perfectly positioned for a wide-scale conversion.

GEHL: It would be a piece of cake to have a really high class bicycle system which could take care of half of the commuting in Manhattan.

REPORTER: Gehl thinks that the political pressures arising from gas prices and the green movement will force the city to adopt bicycling fast. He says real change may be visible here within 5 years, and that the city could be profoundly altered in about 10 years. As more people take to riding bikes, it becomes safer, which in turn encourages more people to ride. Gehl sees major economic benefits as well, as people tend to linger more - in public plazas, or stores or sidewalk cafes - when air and noise pollution go down.

GEHL: In Europe increasingly we are trying to make the cities so that they are wonderful places, where you like to go out and sit and have meals and watch your fellow citizens, talk with them in spaces which are not completely filled with noise. Something about being a public citizens who enjoys his city.

... 

As we ride along 8th avenue, we're forced into the car lane because of all the double-parking law-breakers.

At one point, a man in a huge SUV pulls up next to us and honks his horn. The driver rolls down his window, and he shouts, 'There's only one bike lane, bro!'

Noah ignores him, then watches as the guy runs a red light. And he's at peace.

BUDNICK: the next thing, he's stuck in gridlock, and you're 10 blocks ahead of him five minutes later. Brings a smile.

The Department of Transportation revealed plans for New York City's first-ever physically-separated bike lane, or "cycle track," at a Manhattan Community Board 4 meeting last night. The new bike path will run southbound on Ninth Avenue from W. 23rd to W. 16th Street in Manhattan. Unlike the typical Class II on-street bike lane in which cyclists mix with motor vehicle traffic, this new design will create an exclusive path for bicycles between the sidewalk and parked cars.

DOT's plan also includes traffic signals for bicyclists, greenery-filled refuge areas for pedestrians, a new curbside parking plan, and signalized left-turn lanes for motor vehicles. "The left turn lane will be immediately adjacent to the bike lane," DOT Bicycle Program Director Josh Benson explained to CB4 members. "As a cyclist you’ll know that if there’s a car next to you, that car is turning left." Likewise, left-turning drivers' view of cyclists will be completely unobscured. The bike lane is 10-feet wide to accommodate street cleaning and emergency vehicles.

DOT planners consulted with Danish urban designer Jan Gehl on the plan, according to Transportation Alternatives Deputy Director Noah Budnick. "They are drawing from international best-practice and being smart about talking to other engineers and planners who have implemented these types of designs," Budnick said. "They really thought holistically about everything that is going on on the street."

These types of physically-separated on-street bike lanes, increasingly referred to as "cycle tracks," are commonly found in bike-friendly cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Livable Streets advocates have long pushed DOT to experiment with this type of bike lane design in New York City. After Benson's presentation, Community Board 4's transportation committee voted to approve the DOT plan which is part of a larger pedestrian safety and public space initiative around the intersection of 9th Avenue and 14th Street.

The new bike lane design is a break from previously stated DOT policy. In March, during discussion of a possible Houston Street bike lane, DOT officials told Manhattan's Community 2 that physically-separated bike lanes should only be installed on streets with a maximum of 8 intersections per mile to ensure fewer conflicts with turning vehicles.

A copy of the presentation DOT made at last night's Community Board meeting can be found here.

Yesterday was the first day of a car-free evening rush hour on Prospect Park's East Drive. Car-Free Park advocates and Transportation Alternatives members manned the barricades at the Park Circle entrance, reminiscing over more than a dozen years of activism and organizing. That's StreetFilms' Clarence Eckerson holding the "Thank you DOT" sign above. Below, T.A.'s Noah Budnick recommends Flatbush Avenue to the driver of a Lexus SUV.

Photos: Aaron Naparstek

Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne writes about his 30 years of cycling in New York City on his website.  Byrne is an avid bicyclist, and an alternative transportation advocate:

I have been riding a bicycle in New York City for almost 30 years! For transport, not for sport. At first there were only a few of us. Loners, losers, maniacs and nerds. Some of the members of Talking Heads used to make fun of me and say I was going to turn into Pee Wee Herman.

Over the decades things have improved in New York for cyclists — a little. Now there is a wonderful bike path up the Hudson that runs almost the entire length of Manhattan. I use it to commute to and from work. Now there are markings on some streets indicating imaginary bike lanes (imaginary because the traffic and pedestrians often ignore the markings) but they are there in spirit, at least. Someday they will be taken seriously, I have no doubt — when gas hits $10 a gallon.

Now Paris is embarking on a bicycle plan that should make New York envious. A collaboration between business and civic affairs than may just work, as both the city and Deceaux can benefit. Bikes as a means of local transport has worked elsewhere; the mayor of Bogota, Enrique Peñalosa, relieved traffic congestion AND made his city more livable by converting streets to bike/pedestrian use and by adding dedicated bus lanes. Of bike lanes he said, “If an eight year old kid can’t ride on it safely then it isn’t a bike lane.” I don’t remember Paris having very many bike lanes, and the drivers adopt a “survival of the pushiest” approach, as I recall, but that may be changing.

A crowded and often contentious Tuesday night meeting yielded a compromise on proposed bike lanes through Lower Manhattan, one some fear could come at a cost.

The Traffic & Transportation Committee of Community Board 2 voted 8-1 to recommend the DOT add bike lanes on routes parallel to Houston Street, mostly on Prince and Bleecker. The motion as passed defines the new routes as "additional interim" lanes, rather than "alternate" lanes, as committee members voted to "affirm support" for the DOT to eventually make Houston Street itself safer for cyclists and pedestrians. The motion also opposes construction of left-turn bays on Houston.

The hopeful language and intent of the committee's motion are cold comfort to those who say cyclists will -- and should -- continue to use Houston, as it offers a fast, convenient and direct river-to-river route.

"All of you stood on Houston Street and promised a safe street for cyclists," said a Time's Up! volunteer, a city employee who asked that her name not be printed. "Cyclists and pedestrians are going to die on Houston Street because you accept DOT's plan."

Some spoke against the proposal not for the sake of cyclist or pedestrian safety, but because they don't want to attract bike traffic to their streets, or don't want to lose the 186 parking spots the Prince/Bleecker plan calls for removing.

David Gruber of the Carmine Street Block Association said "funneling" cyclists through narrower neighborhood streets would be "a real mistake."

"People have cars to park," Gruber said. "We're overloaded with cars with just nowhere to go."

Village resident Wendy Dembo had an answer for that.

"This isn't about free parking," Dembo said. "This is about commuting, biking and living in New York car-free."

For that reason, to many who want to see Houston Street brought under control, the DOT plan is a gift nonetheless. Supporters of the proposal, including Transportation Alternatives, believe an all-or-nothing campaign to tame Houston Street would be doomed as long as Michael Bloomberg remains mayor. They also cite the planned removal of on-street parking, and say that developing the Prince/Bleecker corridors will draw more cyclists to take to the streets, ideally leading to more pressure on DOT to finally calm Houston once the political climate becomes more favorable.

"With DOT you never get what you want at first, but you never give up," said TA Deputy Director of Advocacy Noah Budnick. "This isn't the end of Houston Street."

Though none of them bemoaned the potential loss of parking, debate among committee members echoed much of the public comment, and included criticisms of "bogus" DOT studies and a call to physically block Houston Street "if that's what it takes." After about a half-hour of heated discussion, the vote was cast.

The committee recommendation now moves to the full board.

Photo: Brad Aaron 

• Presentation and discussion of a proposal by the Department of Transportation for improvements designed to enhance pedestrian mobility, access and comfort at the Grand Army Plaza.
• Presentation by the Department of Transportation of a plan to install two-way Class II bicycle lanes and roadway markings for left-turn turning lanes along 9th Street between 3rd Avenue and Prospect Park West.
• Presentation by the Department of Transportation of a plan to install Class III bicycle routes in Red Hook.
• Discussion and consideration of the Department of Transportation's investigation into the installation of a speed hump on Columbia Street between Halleck Street and the Gowanus Bay.

As is always the case with bike lane projects -- and maybe more so in this case -- there will be community opposition to this plan. Noah Budnick from Transportation Alternatives urges advocates to attend and express their support.

Listen to the show right here.

Noah Budnick, programs director of transportation alternatives -- on alternative means of transport in New York

and

Iris Weinshall, New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner -- on the city's effort to make biking in New York safe Tune in right now

A report in the Metro Briefing column last Friday about the death of a bike messenger in Manhattan misstated the number of bicyclists killed in traffic accidents in New York City in 2005. It was 21, not 12, according to the police. Page A2, August 18, 2006; Late Edition

Unfortunately, the correction is still incorrect. The New York City Department of Health counts 24 cyclists killed on the streets of New York City in 2005, not 21, not 12. Why the discrepency? "The NYPD stat only counts cyclists who died in crashes with moving vehicles," according to Noah Budnick at Transportation Alternatives. Cyclists who, say, crashed into parked cars or on a greenway are not counted by the police. Apparently, they are not counted by the New York Times either.

Now if we could just get the Newspaper of Record to stop using the word "accident" to describe every instance of motor vehicle death and destruction, we'd be making some real progress. How about a more neutral and objective term like "crash?"