The "gateway" treatment at Longfellow Avenue and 167th Street marks the lower speed limit with prominent signage and stenciling on the street. A new speed hump is just visible in the background. Photo: Noah Kazis

The city’s first “neighborhood slow zone” officially opened this morning, bringing a 20 mph speed limit and new traffic calming treatments to the residential Claremont neighborhood in the Bronx. Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, joined by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., City Council Transportation Committee Chair James Vacca and local District Manager John Dudley, announced that the 20 mph zones would soon be coming to neighborhoods across the city. Starting today, residents and community boards can apply for their own slow zone.

The new Claremont zone covers the roughly 35 city blocks bounded by 167th Street, 174th Street, Southern Boulevard and West Farms Road/Boone Avenue. At each entrance to the zone, street signs flank the road announcing the 20 mph limit and that it is a residential area. Inside the zone, stencils and street signs continue to trumpet the lower speed limit. Nine new speed humps have been added to five already in place, which Sadik-Khan said makes the zone largely self-enforcing. In London, slow-speed zones incorporating traffic-calming treatments are preventing dozens of deaths and serious injuries each year.

Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., City Council Transportation Committee Chair Jimmy Vacca and District Manager John Dudley announced the opening of the Claremont neighborhood slow zone. Photo: Noah Kazis

“To some people, this neighborhood is nothing more than a shortcut,” said Sadik-Khan. That attitude, she noted, has had deadly results. In the last five years, 46 people were killed or seriously injured in traffic crashes in the larger community district between 2006 and 2010. The slower speeds would restore the streets to the community, she said. “Our streets are for New Yorkers. They’re where we live, where we play, where we shop.”

“The slow zone is now one where pedestrians will feel safe,” said Diaz, who said he’d been hearing complaints about safety in the area since he served in the state Assembly. Diaz touted the fact that the program would be expanding to other neighborhoods. “This is not going to stop at Claremont,” he said.

Vacca, too, celebrated the safety improvements. “They will save lives,” he declared. In addition to the speed bumps slowing down cars, he urged motorists to respect the speed limit voluntarily. “Look at your speedometers and see how fast you’re already going, and then slow down,” he said.

The form to get your own neighborhood slow zone is already live on DOT’s website, where the agency lays out the characteristics that will lead to successful applications. DOT is looking for zones that include schools, daycare centers, senior centers, and mostly residential uses, taking up an area roughly five blocks by five blocks and set off by clear boundaries, such as parks or major roads. The city wants to keep the slow zones separate from commercial areas, bus and truck routes and hospitals and fire stations.

Applications must come from community boards, business improvement districts, civic associations or elected officials, and are due by February 3. The first round of slow zones will be selected in March, according to DOT, and installed over the course of next year.

More photos of the slow zone below:

New speed humps are paired with closely spaced signs announcing the bumps and the speed limit. Photo: Noah Kazis

Even where speed bumps weren't placed, striping narrows travel lanes for drivers and stencils remind them of the lower speed limit. Photo: Noah Kazis

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz is hoping that a new hotel can replace excess parking near Yankee Stadium. Photo: Crain's.

As the operator of the taxpayer-financed Yankee Stadium parking garages heads toward default, there’s no longer any question that providing so much parking in such a transit-rich location was a mistake on the scale of Carl Pavano’s contract. The decision to give up $2.5 million in city taxes and $5 million in state revenue has proven a poor investment indeed. The question, at this point, is what comes next.

One idea, from Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., is to convert one of the garages into a hotel. “One of the older garages is perfect for hotel development,” said John DeSio, a spokesperson for Diaz. Diaz advocated for a new Bronx hotel in his State of the Borough address two weeks ago, saying that “a new hotel would create hundreds of good-paying jobs offering health benefits, pension plans, and a chance for its workers to have a better life.”

While the garages were built on what used to be public parks, the South Bronx is unlikely to see that parkland return. “We have to come up with a plan that not only benefits the neighborhood but is palatable for the bondholders,” explained DeSio. The bondholders will have to okay any new use for the garages, so it will have to be a revenue-generator.

In terms of parking policy more broadly, DeSio said that while there aren’t any major developments where parking is an issue currently being considered by the borough president’s office, “I’m sure that we’d have to take to heart what happened here in the future.” (Plans for a new East Bronx mall anchored by a Target are too preliminary to comment on for now, he said.) DeSio also suggested that the private sector will notice this high-profile case of wasting resources on providing an excessive supply of parking.

Streetfilms' Robin Urban Smith was up on the Grand Concourse this morning for one of New York's Bike to Work Day traditions -- the Bronx Borough President's ride from Poe Park down to Lou Gehrig Plaza. Watch and see all the different answers you get when you ask people, "Why do you bike to work?"

After the jump, more Bike to Work Day pics by photographer Andrew Hinderaker from today's pit stops and press events.

Fueling up at Transportation Alternatives' Queensboro Bridge pit stop.

At the Brooklyn Bridge, near the end of the ascent.

The Commish.

SELF Magazine editor Lucy Danziger at a Times Square press event with TA director Paul Steely White. Danziger asked her staff to bike to work today. Details at 6 and 11.

It's clear that even in areas where pricing received unanimous support in the City Council, some state lawmakers are not getting the message. Here's Bronx Assembly Member Ruben Diaz, Jr., via NY1:

"It's just a bad approach where working class citizens of the city of New York are going to wind up having to pay either $8 or eventually a fare increase."

If pricing passes, just 3.7 percent of those who live in Diaz's district would pay the congestion charge. That leaves 96.3 percent to face more fare increases if pricing fails. Legislators like Diaz need to understand that, by voting against pricing, they will be responsible for increases in transit costs, and delays in improvements, which will be borne by nearly 100 percent of the working class citizens they represent.

This is the most important New York City transportation policy moment in decades. It's worth a phone call.

Silver, who has not voiced a public position on the issue, said the meetings will continue today, and he refused to declare the plan dead.

Meanwhile, Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco has proposed that pricing be attached to the budget, the Daily Politics reports, which would make it tougher to vote down. But on this count, Silver's position is already well-known.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver reportedly is vehemently opposed to including congestion pricing in the budget, and has said he doesn't want to deal with this issue at all until after the budget is passed.

After the jump, a collection of quotes from lawmakers following last night's meeting.

From the Times:

“I think it’s going down,” said Anthony S. Seminerio, an assemblyman from Queens. “There are too many unanswered questions.”

“This is Albany, and nothing is dead until it’s dead, dead,” said Assemblyman Daniel J. O’Donnell, who represents the Upper West Side and opposes the mayor’s plan. Still, he said, “It doesn’t look good.”

“The Assembly won’t let the mayor and Senator Bruno force this into the budget,” said Micah Kellner, a Democratic Assemblyman from the Upper East Side who supports congestion pricing. “The Assembly is going to stand firm on this.”

From the Post:

"Congestion pricing is not dead but it's on life support," said Assemblyman opponent Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn). "[It] will require substantial amendments in order to revive it and even that may not be enough."

Assemblyman Michael Benjamin (D-Bronx), another opponent of the toll system -- which is already operating in London -- fumed: "The last good idea to come from Britain was radar!"

"It's a good plan," said Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV (D-Manhattan), one of the few local supporters who spoke. "Anything that reduces vehicle traffic and increases mass transit is a good thing. Driving into Manhattan is a privilege, not a right."

From New York 1:

"It’s just a bad approach where working class citizens of the city of New York are going to wind up having to pay either $8 or eventually a fare increase,” said Assembly member Ruben Diaz, Jr. 

"It’s our obligation to help the city and help our neighborhood to obtain the funds necessary to improve our system,” said Assembly member Carmen Arroyo.

"There are some problems in the bill. I think that would need to get addressed before I could consider voting for it," said Assemblymember Danny O'Donnell.