Here are some early pics from this morning's Bike to Work festivities, courtesy of Transportation Alternatives. Don't forget to tag your own shots for our Flickr pool, and stay tuned for Streetfilms coverage. 

TA treats cyclists to a complimentary breakfast

Sadik-Khan and Dani Simons, also of DOT, riding to work

Move on over, Bar Refaeli and make room on the newsstand for Paul Steely White and Janette Sadik-Khan. City Hall, a free monthly newspaper, has named the pair of leading transportation policy wonks to its "30 Most Beautiful People in New York Politics" list.

While Sadik-Khan was a shoo-in, we hear that Steely White just barely edged out Queens Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio for that final slot. Congratulations to both and let's chalk up another good reason to commute by bike and by foot: It makes you beautiful.

Feel free to add your own additions to the "Most Beautiful" list in the comments section...

Photo of the bike-accessible workplace at 6 West 48th Street: Transportation Alternatives [PDF]

On Monday afternoon the City Council's transportation committee will take up the Bikes in Buildings Bill, which addresses a major obstacle to bike commuting. The legislation would give people who work in commercial buildings the right to bring their bikes inside the workplace, if they have the consent of their employer. Transportation Alternatives director Paul White calls it "one of the easiest ways to enable much greener travel in New York City." The bill's prospects look promising: Bloomberg reports that it enjoys the active support of the mayor, and most of the City Council is expected to sign on.

The public can testify at Monday's hearing, scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. in the main council chamber at City Hall.

Opposition stems from the Real Estate Board of New York, which is expected to testify against the bill. "I'm sorry but bringing a bike into a narrow or crowded lobby is not necessarily a safe thing," REBNY President Steve Spinola told Streetsblog soon after the hearing was first scheduled. "If somebody brings a bike in and hits somebody, whether it's a woman -- a pregnant woman -- or a man, or whatever, and hurts them, well number one, not only will possibly that bicyclist be sued, but I can guarantee you that they're going to be suing the building owner, arguing that they left an unsafe situation."

Empirical evidence of the supposed hazards posed by bicycles is in short supply. "REBNY has been raising the liability issue for months now," said White. "The fact is they haven't marshaled a single example of a building that has sustained damage or incurred liability or otherwise experienced problems with allowing bicycles inside." T.A. has been compiling a dossier of buildings that let bikes inside, and White says they've found that "it's completely doable, completely easy, and actually is a valuable amenity to tenants."

White sees a parallel to other red herrings dangled about when transportation reforms first surface. "It's the same kind of argument that we heard in the nineties about traffic calming," he said, "that if you built curb extensions or put in speed humps or other kinds of devices that people would be injured by them and they would sue. And it was proved to be completely unfounded."

REBNY also maintains that sufficient progress can be made through voluntary measures and a zoning amendment that would apply to new construction. "We've asked our members to try to figure out ways of encouraging accessibility for people who want to bring their bikes, but we don't think that the city should be mandating it for existing buildings," said Spinola. "We believe that for new construction, there is a reasonable requirement that could be made, and in speaking to my building owners, they understand that, and we've been talking to City Planning about doing that."

The zoning amendment, however, will leave the vast majority of office buildings unaffected. White believes that voluntary compliance will likewise leave huge gaps. "I think if you take all the commercial buildings you'd have something of a bell curve," he told us. "On one end of the curve you'd have the buildings that are doing something already, really taking the lead, being proactive about enabling bike access. On the other end of the curve, you have buildings that are very resistant to it, for whatever reason. And in the middle you have buildings that really don't feel strongly either way, but the only way that they would really enable access would be if they were compelled through this kind of legislation."

Front row l-r: Tish James, Paul Steely White, John Liu, David Yassky. Photo: Mike Infranco.

With the fallout from Wall Street taking a toll on city coffers, Mayor Bloomberg has a lot of tough calls to make. The "Bikes in Buildings" bill [PDF] is not one of them. It's a lay-up -- a simple rule change that promises big gains for bike commuting. The bill, also known as Intro 38, would require commercial landlords to allow tenants to bring bikes inside buildings. No storage requirements attached.

On the steps of City Hall this morning, City Council members David Yassky, Tish James, and John Liu joined Transportation Alternatives' Paul Steely White and a band of advocates to urge passage of the bill. In total, 30 members of the City Council have already signed on to the measure, a majority of the chamber.

A similar pledge to promote bike storage in commercial buildings is enshrined in the transportation plank of Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC. As the speakers were quick to point out, "Bikes in Buildings" is an even easier lift.

"It's simply to mandate that you have to allow access to bicycles, and then you let the landlords figure out, case by case, what's the most efficient way to do it," said Yassky. The way things stand now, he noted, even if businesses encourage employees to bring bikes to work, most building managers won't let it happen. "You can bring a dolly or a stroller, but not a bike."

Reversing this widespread policy would address one of the major obstacles to bike commuting, especially among people who already ride: the lack of a secure place to keep bikes at work. Rigorous projections of the bill's effect are not available, but, drawing from his decades of experience analyzing bike traffic, former TA president Charles Komanoff gave a rough estimate that "universal bike commuter access to buildings would cause at least a 25 percent increase and perhaps as much as a 50 percent increase in bike commuting."

Deb Shapiro, a lawyer who works near Madison Square Park, testified to the senselessness of landlords' current policies. When she asked her building manager why she couldn't bring a bike inside, she was told it came down to concerns about liability and property damage. "I know a little bit about liability issues, and this just didn't make sense to me," she said. "What damage is a bike going to do to a freight elevator? You see all these other things that can go in and out of an office building, like dumpsters and cleaning carts. What more could a bicycle do?"

Yassky had a theory about where that baseless fear of bikes comes from. "There's this feeling that it isn't the proper decorum for an office building to have people bringing their bicycles in," he said. "How outdated can you get? I think any building owner should be proud that the tenants in his or her building are biking to work. That should be a badge of honor."

Some commercial landlords are a step ahead of the curve, White noted: "Hundreds of buildings are doing this with no problem -- Class A office buildings with marble floors."

Advocates are pushing for City Council to consider the bill this fall. "We need a hearing in City Council and we really need Bloomberg to voice support for this," said White.

1. Fully assess the amount of existing and planned off-street parking.
2. Consider measures to significantly reduce required parking.
3. Revise environmental laws so that parking impacts are fully accounted for.
4. Freeze special permits and stop directly subsidizing new parking.

The full slate of recommendations starts on the third page of this PDF. With more than a billion miles per year in extra car traffic on the way if current practices remain unchanged, advocates say the city must first acknowledge the impact of off-street parking. "What is almost as scary as all this new traffic is the fact that the city is not even aware of the problem," said T.A.'s Paul Steely White. "The Department of City Planning does not know how much parking exists, nor how the parking supply affects traffic congestion."

Decisions such as whether to allow developers to exceed parking limits in Manhattan are currently based on small-bore factors, like traffic counts on nearby streets. The cumulative impact of all the off-street parking that's being added through these exemptions remains unknown. That hasn't stopped the Planning Commission from approving a slew of them, the effects of which will be felt for decades. "The city takes a very local view of parking," said report author Rachel Weinberger. "They have to take a citywide view of what additional car ownership means."

The recommendations in the report include a mix of incentives and other measures to stem the tide of excessive off-street parking. The widespread practice of "bundling" a parking spot with the price of housing, for instance, rewards car ownership and weighs down car-free households with an unnecessary cost. Cities including San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. are moving away from this practice, and New York could do the same. Another concept is to nudge developers in less transit-oriented neighborhoods to include space for car-sharing instead of private cars.

Here's a sampling of other ideas being proposed:

• Doing away with mandatory parking minimums and instituting maximums that would vary based on a development's proximity to transit
• Prioritizing the pedestrian environment above the dictates of convenient parking by banning curb cuts on key streets for pedestrians and transit
• Establishing impact fees on new parking spaces that take into account their full costs to the public.

Streetsblog will be taking a closer look at these recommendations and more in the weeks ahead.

Photo of residential driveway in Queens: Forgotten NY

Planning advocates recommended doing away with parking requirements and "unbundling" the cost of parking from the price of housing. "There's no reason for parking to be paid for by people who don't own cars," said Tri-State Transportation Campaign director Kate Slevin, adding that the construction of parking should be "a choice rather than a necessity."

Minimum parking requirements are especially ill-suited to affordable housing developments, said Elena Conte of the Pratt Center for Community Development (pictured at the mic). "[A parking minimum] really makes no sense at all for communities where less than 20 percent of households own cars, because it drives up the cost of housing and takes up valuable space that otherwise could be used to create additional units or public space."

Representatives of Environmental Defense and the New York League of Conservation Voters rounded out the proceedings, calling on the city and state to take stock and head off the traffic-congested future that excessive off-street parking threatens to bring about. "We're building the infrastructure to encourage more people to drive with very little understanding of the environmental impacts," said Josh Nachowitz of NYLCV.

T.A.'s Paul Steely White tied the issue to preserving New York's streets for people on foot, noting that more off-street parking means less sidewalk integrity: "Curb cuts enable cars to drive across the sidewalk and block the sidewalk; it erodes the pedestrian environment."

Major planning groups, including the American Planning Association, the Regional Plan Association, and the Municipal Art Society, have also signed on to the report and urged Mayor Bloomberg to revise the city's ad-hoc policies governing off-street parking. According to one organizer behind the effort, this marks the first time all three organizations have lined up behind the same transportation reform.

Streetsblog will have more soon on the recommendations being advanced by this coalition.

If New York City maintains current parking policies, the traffic generated by the addition of new off-street spaces will likely exceed a billion miles per year by 2030, according to a report released yesterday by Transportation Alternatives. That distance is roughly equal to eight months' worth of all driving in Manhattan below 86th Street. By comparison, congestion pricing is projected to cut traffic by less than half that amount.

The report, "Suburbanizing the City" [PDF], is the first to address the effects of off-street parking requirements on traffic. Developers are essentially building higher rates of car ownership into the very fabric of the city -- between 40 and 50 percent above current levels, the authors conclude. In many cases the inclusion of parking is mandated by the city's zoning requirements. This is a recipe for induced demand: The more parking is provided with new residences, the more people will drive.

"As the pace of residential development is speeding up to provide for a growing population, this increase in the parking supply will unleash a torrent of unnecessary car ownership, unnecessary driving, and unnecessary traffic and pollution," said T.A.'s Paul Steely White. "All of this traffic trouble will largely erase the transportation improvements and carbon savings from PlaNYC."

One of the barriers to addressing the problem is a lack of information. The report notes that the Department of City Planning neither tracks the cumulative amount of parking in the city, nor measures the impact of parking on traffic and pollution. The proliferation of accessory parking in Hell's Kitchen and the possible addition of a 2,300-car Costco garage on the Upper West Side are symptoms of the city's ad-hoc approach to parking management. All told, says report author Rachel Weinberger, the biggest impact on traffic might come from the construction of smaller, one- to three-family residences required to include off-street parking.

A broad coalition of planning and environmental groups is lining up behind the report. Streetsblog will have more on yesterday's joint press conference (also see articles in AM New York, Metro, the Post, and the Sun) and recommendations for addressing the parking glut. Key findings from the report follow the jump.

• In many cases, the city's residential off-street parking requirements exceed existing off-street parking. As a result, new residences built under the zoning code will have far more parking than existing residences. This will shift neighborhoods from pedestrian-oriented to more car-oriented places and undermine their pedestrian character.
• New York City zoning regulations mandating parking at new residential developments will increase auto ownership rates and add over 1 billion annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by 2030. This is 40% to 50% more than if the City were to maintain its existing rate of car ownership. (A billion VMT is equivalent to 8 months of traffic in Manhattan south of 86th Street.) Auto use associated with required parking at new housing will add over 431,000 metric tons of CO2 per year by 2030. (By comparison, the city's new, high-mileage, “green” taxis and black car initiative will reduce CO2 emissions by 351 thousand tons a year.)
• Residents of new residential development are at least 40% to 50% more likely to own automobiles than today's New Yorkers.
• The Department of City Planning lacks crucial information for making informed decisions about the amount of off-street parking it requires in the Zoning Resolution. The agency does not know how much parking there is, how much is required, or how much driving new park- ing will produce.
• There is no evidence to suggest that reducing off-street parking requirements would lead to less development, lower growth or other negative consequences.

Quick, what do a global financial firm and a neighborhood bakery have in common? Bike-friendliness, as you may have guessed. Credit Suisse and Birdbath Neighborhood Green Bakery were recognized by the city today in the first annual Bike-Friendly Business Competition. Credit Suisse won top honors in the "Commuting Cyclists" category for its sterling indoor bike facilities. Birdbath took the prize for "Working Cyclists" thanks to its use of cargocycles to make deliveries.

The winners were announced at a ceremony held by DOT and Transportation Alternatives. "Employers hold many of the cards when it comes to making New York City a bike-friendly place," said T.A.'s Paul Steely White. "When they support bike commuters or conduct business by bicycle, they make it that much easier for New Yorkers to do the right thing."

A photo of Credit Suisse's marble-walled bike parking room comes after the jump.

The Credit Suisse "Bike Spa." From the press release about the awards:

At its buildings at 24 East 24th Street and at One Madison Avenue in Manhattan, Credit Suisse’s entrances provide easy access for those with bicycles. Employees also have access to secure bicycle rooms where they can register their bikes and receive swipe-card access, along with bike identification tags. Air pumps to fill flat tires are located in the room, which also displays promotional materials for cycling activities. Credit Suisse promotes the availability of bike parking to its employees, and they are further encouraged by an employee discount to a health club next door, where showers and lockers are available.

The winners pose with Paul Steely White and DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. 

New York City drivers often fail to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk. More LPIs would help reinforce the rule.

When DOT installed a leading pedestrian interval, or LPI, by a Lincoln Tunnel exit on 34th Street last month, nearby residents were thrilled. Cars turning onto 34th from Dyer Avenue -- a tunnel off-ramp -- had long posed a hazard to people in the crosswalk, leading Community Board 4 to request signal timing exclusively for pedestrians. At first DOT declined to take action, but after 300 people signed a petition in favor of the LPI, it was installed in a matter of days. Now pedestrians crossing 34th enjoy a luxurious 17 seconds during which they have the all-clear.

LPIs make pedestrians safer. The most widely cited study [PDF], released in 1999 by Michael King, former director of traffic calming at DOT and currently a principal at planning firm Nelson\Nygaard, found that LPIs reduce collisions between turning vehicles and pedestrians by 28 percent. Implemented throughout the city, LPIs could cut the number of pedestrians hit by cars by more than 500 each year, the report noted.

The new LPI at 34th and Dyer was a welcome improvement, but why the initial hesitation? After all, installing an LPI amounts to little more than flipping a switch, and costs next to nothing. Current DOT practice, however, requires time-consuming studies of individual intersections to determine whether an LPI is warranted. A different option, which Transportation Alternatives is now pushing, would make LPIs the default condition at the intersections where pedestrians face the greatest threat.

DOT's new strategic plan, Sustainable Streets, recognizes the effectiveness of LPIs and aims to double the number in the city to 360 by 2010. That target could be expanded and accelerated if the agency were to adopt the method suggested by T.A. "LPIs should be as de rigueur as crosswalks," says T.A.'s Paul Steely White. "DOT should install LPIs at the 1,200 most hazardous signalized intersections based on historic pedestrian injury and fatality data." That would cover 10 percent of the city's signalized intersections.

The traffic engineers have yet to embrace the idea. DOT responded to T.A.'s suggestion in writing:

LPIs are installed after a study (that includes peak hour observations and an analysis of turning movement/pedestrian volumes and available accident data) determines their appropriateness. Your suggestion to implement LPIs at 10 percent of all signalized intersections (more than 1200 locations) is beyond the scope of existing operations.

One way to work around these limitations would be to install the LPIs first and study them later. "Then," says White, "traffic operations could identify those locations where they may deem it appropriate to remove the LPIs to prioritize motorized traffic."

With news surfacing that DOT is overhauling its design guidelines, now is an opportune time to standardize ped-friendly traffic signals, says T.A. Planning Director Shin-pei Tsay. "LPIs are a tool to complete a street."

Making LPIs standard operating procedure would also establish a precedent benefiting pedestrians beyond New York. "In switching the burden of proof to favor safety over traffic flow," adds White, "the DOT could set an example for all urban areas and establish itself as a leader in pedestrian safety."

Even drivers don't stand to lose much from this shift, as King's report makes clear:

Repeatedly, though, the question arises of how to justify the adjacent loss of green time for vehicles. Yet all the LPI really does is electronically enforce the legal responsibility of drivers, especially turning drivers, to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. At corners with high pedestrian volumes, the drivers are already suffering a loss of green time as they wait for pedestrians to cross. Furthermore, if an LPI is saving xx amount of pedestrians from being hit by cars, then it is fundamentally appropriate that the car should wait.

Photo: Clarence Eckerson

It seems elitist "green" types aren't the only ones who think city parks should be reserved for people. A passage from this week's New York Magazine feature "Who Owns Central Park?" reveals that regular Joe business execs recently warned Mayor Bloomberg of the economic consequences of a city so dominated by cars.

Last April, about two dozen executives signed a letter delivered to the mayor’s office arguing that the administration’s car policy is hurting the city’s ability to prevent hedge funds from decamping to Greenwich, or Wall Street jobs’ being shipped overseas. “The talent pool we seek to draw from is increasingly focused upon maintaining personal fitness. They are disproportionately triathletes, marathoners, and the highly fit. Cycling in particular is a key interest, and has become a key business-related networking activity,” the group wrote. “What about the loss of yet another team of financial professionals, formerly based on Wall Street, who decide to move to Connecticut to start a hedge fund, because life is just too difficult in New York City?” 

Though the story focuses on the territorial battles among park users, it reads, "There’s one issue about which runners, cyclists, and dog owners are in full agreement: cars." Says Transportation Alternatives' Paul Steely White: "The anger you see in the park is similar to the ire you see in Park Slope with the double-wide strollers. Our view is, Don’t get mad at the stroller moms. Get mad at the city for providing such limited car-free space.”

Earlier this month, TA was joined by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in calling for a three-month car-free trial for Central Park, based on a study that showed it would reduce cut-through traffic on neighborhood streets. Brooklynites are pushing for a car-free summer in Prospect Park as well. With the city's "Summer Streets" program set to launch this year, keeping cars out of parks seems only logical, but no word as of yet.

Photo: Ed Yourdon/Flickr

The Post picked up the story this morning, making the connection between parking rates and traffic congestion:

"There are literally tens of millions of unnecessary miles driven in New York City every year because we've made such a mess of metered parking," said Paul Steeley [sic] White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives.

The major reason, of course, is that street parking in the area is comparatively a bargain - $1.50 an hour compared to $10 to $15 in private garages.

The organization recommended that the city impose graduated parking rates as it has done in Midtown commercial districts, where truckers pay $2 for the first hour, $5 for the second and $9 for the third.

With Albany showing little inclination to help New York City address its congestion problem, the study bolsters the argument that parking policy, which rests in the city's hands, is the most effective way forward to rein in traffic.

"We hope it gives a shot in the arm to the DOT," said T.A.'s Wiley Norvell. "Given what we have to work with, parking is really the primary tool at their disposal to take on congestion. This says pretty clearly that we can manage parking better."

According to Norvell, the study results are consistent with what T.A. has heard from local businesses about -- to borrow a phase -- the high cost of cheap parking. T.A. plans to rally support for parking reform from business improvement districts, he added.

Photo: Felix Bryant/New York Post

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.

The weather may not be fully cooperating, but we know Streetsbloggers won't be deterred on National Bike to Work Day. We want to hear those morning bike commute stories. Impromptu bike posses? Helpful TA volunteers? Fresh paint on the bike lane? Something more sinister? Tell us all about it in the comments.

Photo: David Freedlander / AM New York

In contrast -- or, conceivably, as a complement -- to the L.A. Times portrait of city cycling, here's a Streetfilm from Elizabeth Press, shot yesterday at Transportation Alternatives' Bike Month NYC kick-off.

At a press conference held in the new 14th Street plaza, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan talks about present and future street-level improvements, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe sums up progress on greenways, and Health & Mental Hygiene Assistant Commish Jane Beddell promotes biking as part of the solution to the city's obesity problem. TA's Paul Steely White then gives a quick run-down of some of the 200+ Bike Month events.

L-R: DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, Transportation Alternatives Director Paul Steely White and Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe at this morning's Bike Month NYC event on 9th Avenue.

Benepe with White and Streetsblog Publisher Mark Gorton.

Photos: Will Sherman/Transportation Alternatives 

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

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

Photo of Julia Allison: Time Out New York

With more on DOT's Sustainable Streets plan, here's Transportation Alternatives' Paul Steely White on this morning's Brian Lehrer Show. Over the course of the 17 minute clip, White and Lehrer discuss parking policy, bike commuting and Bus Rapid Transit. Don't miss the Streetsblog plug.

Also this morning, Lehrer hosted New York Times reporter John Broder for a segment on the Clinton-Obama gas tax divide.

Let us pray. 

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

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

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

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

Photo: quosquos/Flickr 

Continuing Streetsblog's breakdown of the Mayor’s Management Report [PDF], we turn our attention this week from DOT to the NYPD section (page 119).

The MMR, if you'll recall, is released every year as "a public report card on City services affecting the lives of New Yorkers." In addition to tracking felonies and violent crime, the NYPD section measures traffic violations -- or, to be precise, how many tickets police hand out. As a performance metric, this leaves something to be desired, because it does not gauge the extent to which drivers actually break traffic laws.

"Cops really need to change the way they measure performance in terms of traffic infractions," says Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives. "They track the number of summonses, but what they don't measure is the level of compliance."

By only counting tickets, NYPD cannot tell whether traffic violations are increasing or decreasing year-to-year, as the department does with felonies. Tracking reports of, say, grand larceny reflects the incidence of that type of crime fairly well, but tallying the number of speeding tickets issued reveals only a fraction of all speeding.

Counting summonses also gives the false impression that hazardous traffic violations cannot be systematically addressed the same way the department has drastically reduced violent crime.

"They could triple the number of summonses but that would have little impact on compliance," says White.

If the NYPD were to compile thorough data on compliance, a better case could be made for greatly expanding automated enforcement measures such as red light cameras. A 2001 study released by the city comptroller's office estimated that drivers burn red lights 1.23 million times every day in New York City. By comparison, the NYPD issued 874,929 summonses for hazardous moving violations in all of fiscal year 2007, according to this year's MMR.

A table from this year's MMR showing traffic deaths and enforcement data.

The NYPD took a step toward better measurement in 1998, when it launched TrafficStat, a system based on its highly successful CompStat accountability process. But TrafficStat focuses on hotspots where crashes tend to occur. It doesn't capture systemwide data on violations.

"Once [compliance data] is ascertained, that's only going to enforce the rationale for red light cameras," says White. He predicts that getting a better handle on the scale and scope of traffic violations will put pressure on Albany to act, since the NYPD won't be able to crack down using manpower alone. "To get the political will to undertake an automated enforcement program, you need that data to show that this is citywide, every day."

NYPD has not yet responded to requests for comment and more information about how it gathers data on traffic violations.

Photo: Photo Gallery / Flickr

A preliminary version of the 2008 Mayor's Management Report was released last week [PDF], and the Department of Transportation section is déja vu all over again. Ten months after the end of the Iris Weinshall regime, DOT is still grading itself almost entirely according to how well it manages traffic flow, keeps highways looking tidy, and other car-oriented metrics.

Even the few new livable streets metrics in this year's MMR, like the number of speed humps installed near schools, fail to provide meaningful information. The MMR is legally mandated by the City Charter to serve as "a public report card on City services affecting the lives of New Yorkers." Yet, it tells us nothing about how the 101 new speed humps installed in 2007 have affected speeding and pedestrian injuries around schools or if more kids are walking and biking to school because of them. Rather, the report depicts a city agency that is more concerned with its own, internal bureaucratic activity than the outcomes of its policies.

The contrast with London couldn't be sharper. That city's transportation agency, Transport for London, sets targets and measures public policy outcomes, like reductions in carbon emissions, noise, particulate matter pollution, and traffic congestion -- as seen in it's detailed, 279-page, annual monitoring report on congestion pricing [PDF]. The report even goes so far as to gauge the effect of pricing on London's employment growth and economic trends, sector by sector, beginning on page 74. TfL's report does exactly what the MMR is supposed to do: It provides a treasure trove of data on how city transportation policies are affecting the lives of Londoners.

Graphs from TfL's Fifth Annual Report on congestion pricing.

Next to TfL's rigorous measurements and focus on actual policy outcomes, New York City's Mayor's Management Report looks laughably inadequate.

"There's nothing there on mode shift, nothing on reduction of VMT," says Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives. "The other thing that's missing is traffic fatalities -- there's no target there. There's still a reluctance to really lead on that, and that's unacceptable."

Instead of setting a goal for reducing traffic fatalities, the MMR measures differences year-to-year. True, this is the first year the MMR has tracked pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities separately from motorist fatalities, but compare that small step to TfL's safety goals, spelled out in its Five-Year Investment Programme (page 37 of this PDF):

• A reduction of 40 per cent in numbers Killed and Seriously Injured (KSI) by 2010 compared with 1994-1998 overall
• Separately for pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, a reduction of 40 per cent in killed and seriously injured by 2010
• A 50 per cent reduction in the number of children killed or seriously injured
• A reduction of 10 per cent in the slight casualty rate per 100 million vehicle kilometres

London is not the only city to set such targets. Ottawa, Ontario, for instance, has adopted the goal of reducing VMT per capita. But in New York, even though PlaNYC has funneled more money to bike infrastructure and pedestrian improvements, the gears of city government apparently grind too slowly for the MMR to reflect new priorities at DOT.

The situation could have improved last year, with the passage of Intro 199. That was the bill City Council Member Gale Brewer proposed in April 2006, which would have given DOT a mandate to reduce traffic and to measure, among other things, how many people switch from driving to biking and transit. Instead, then-commissioner Weinshall helped torpedo the bill right before leaving DOT.

Better performance measures still could have been introduced after the bill failed, without legislation. "Traditionally, the way these targets have been changed is the Mayor sitting down with the agency," says White.

Now, Brewer is in talks with DOT to bring a successor to Intro 199 before the City Council later this year. "Ideally what's happening is that the Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability is working with Council Member Brewer to codify PlaNYC in the MMR," says White. That needs to happen if New York intends to narrow the transportation accountability gap with London.