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.

Join Deborah Marton, Executive Director of the Design Trust for Public Space, for a dynamic conversation exploring the intersection of design, innovation, sustainability, and accessibility in New York's public realm. From bicycle-friendly streets and redesigned taxis to blossoming arts and cultural neighborhoods, this is your chance to speak with the experts about the latest projects and innovations shaping our lives. Panelists include: Ryan Russo, Director of the Bike and Pedestrian Planning Unit of NYC Department of Transportation; Andrew Salkin, First Deputy Commissioner, NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission; Davin Stowell, CEO and founder of Smart Design; Susan Chin, FAIA, Assistant Commissioner, Capital Projects, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs; and Mary Ceruti, Executive Director, Long Island City Sculpture Center.

The event kicks off at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow, 1220 Fifth Avenue at 104th Street. General admission is $9, but to get in free, make an advance reservation by calling (212) 534-1672, ext. 3395.

With city workers pouring concrete in the background (and StreetFilms' cameras rolling), New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan announced pedestrian and cyclist improvements for Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza yesterday. The plan calls for 11,000 square feet of new, landscaped pedestrian islands, a separated bike path, new crosswalks and pedestrian signals.

The redesign should do a lot to help make pedestrian and bike crossings safer and more convenient, particularly on the Prospect Heights side of the Plaza. With new crosswalks connecting Prospect Heights residents directly to the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch and Bailey Fountain, two of the city's most truly awesome historic monuments, DOT's plan may also help activate the beautiful but under-used public space in the center of GAP's traffic maelstrom.

DOT's plan for the Plaza is a direct result of work done by the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, a group of community organizations that myself and others started up back in the spring of 2005 to begin to reclaim and re-envision Grand Army Plaza as the great public space that it was originally designed to be.

Yesterday's press conference was notable not just for the physical changes taking place in the Plaza but for the changes that have taken place at New York City's transportation agency. When we started GAPco, DOT staffers weren't permitted to attend our meetings or even speak at our press conference with Danish urban designer Jan Gehl (Dalila Hall from the Brooklyn Borough office disobeyed the ridiculous order and said a few words anyway).

Yesterday, Grand Army Plaza Coalition organizer Rob Witherwax stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the podium with Sadik-Khan, Borough President Marty Markowitz, Council member Tish James and Prospect Park Alliance president Tupper Thomas. The press conference, staged in front of the Brooklyn Public Library, was probably visible from the apartment window of former Commissioner Iris Weinshall who lives on Prospect Park West.

While the news at GAP yesterday was all positive, GAPco organizer Michael Cairl still qualifies DOT's work as "a good first step." To get a sense of what he means by that, immediately after the press conference Sadik-Khan and DOT Alternative Modes Director Ryan Russo were peppered with questions from Park Slope Civic Council member Ezra Goldstein about why the agency still hasn't done anything to change the seemingly malicious traffic signal timing that traps pedestrians -- often dozens of them at a time -- on a tiny strip of concrete in the middle of Flatbush Avenue between Prospect Park and the Library. Russo said DOT wanted to see how the new crosswalks worked before making any more changes in the Plaza.

For a "before," an "after," and one very compelling "long-term vision" plan, click through to the jump below.

Related:

• It Must Have Required a Concerted Effort to Ruin It...
  
• Reconnecting Grand Army Plaza
• Grand Plans for Brooklyn's Iconic Public Space
• StreetFilms: Reclaiming Grand Army Plaza
• StreetFilms: Grand Army Plaza Community Survey

Existing Conditions at Grand Army Plaza:

Major public space improvements are on the drawing board for Lower Manhattan's old Meat-Packing District. Ian Dutton, Houston Street bike safety organizer, professional airline pilot and Streetsblog reader has the report: 

Last year, community groups came together as the Greater Gansevoort Urban Improvement Project to develop a vision to rein in chaotic traffic and create a great new public space for Lower Manhattan's old Meatpacking District. Only a few months later -- a virtual blink of the eye by city bureaucracy standards -- New York City's Dept. of Transportation has already stepped forward with a detailed plan that would create a new public plaza, a buffered bike lane, simplified pedestrian crossings, and a new road configuration designed to reduce the area's traffic chaos (download the plan here).

As Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan stalls in Albany gridlock, DOT's Office of Alternative Modes is showing one way for City Hall to take control of New York City's streets regardless of what Sheldon Silver or any other New York State Assembly member has to say about it.

DOT presented its renovation plan for the intersection of Ninth Ave. and 14th St. to Manhattan Community Board 4 on Wednesday evening. Ryan Russo, DOT's Director for Street Management and Safety, explained that the agency is taking advantage of a scheduled repaving of Ninth Ave. in mid-July to respond to long-standing community request to remove the two-block northbound contra-flow traffic lane from the avenue, which has been blamed for several pedestrian fatalities, most recently in February.

DOT's plan also includes the conversion of one southbound lane on Ninth Ave. to a buffered-bike lane. The expectation is that by year's end, this bike lane will extend down Hudson St. and Bleecker St., eventually linking up with the recently-approved Bleecker St. bike lane, providing a continuous bike route across Lower Manhattan, all the way to the East Village.

Russo explained that there are many collateral benefits of removing the northbound lane and reconfiguring southbound traffic. Most notably, DOT is creating a 4,500 sq. ft. plaza just above 14th Street. To the east of this plaza will be two traffic lanes and the new bike lane. To the west will be a single lane for traffic making the right turn onto westbound 14th Street. The new plaza island also breaks up the lengthy, treacherous 120' crosswalk into two manageable crossings of 34' and 24'.

Responding to board member concerns that the new plaza would be uncomfortable surrounded by traffic and that local residents prefer attaching the new public space to the busy sidewalk on the west side, Russo said the benefit of this plan is that it provides an immediate solution and is not considered a "capital project." Altering any of the curbing or the existing central island that separates the northbound and southbound traffic would require new drainage studies, new traffic signals, and would require a lengthy process for funding and contracting through other city agencies. Further, Russo said he believed that the traffic on the west side of the new plaza would be relatively light, similar to the traffic one finds on the cobblestoned west side of Union Sq. Park.

Commenting on the new public plaza, DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione mentioned that tables and chairs similar to those in Bryant Park have already been purchased, and that other programming such as a Greenmarket was being explored. Planters and granite blocks would sit atop a textured surface, similar to other public space reclaimations that have taken place in recent years. Jay Marcus, co-chair of Community Board 4's transportation committee, suggested that a group be created of neighborhood residents and members of CB4 and neighboring CB2 to oversee the planning of this public space.

On the south side of 14th St., the sidewalks would be extended, dramatically shortening the crossing distance of the current angled crosswalk. Also, a new crosswalk will be created across 14th St. on the west side of the southbound traffic lanes.

The CB4 committee was in general agreement that it was in the community's best interest to accept the current plan as a interim step, to be followed as soon as possible with the permanent plan emerging from the Greater Gansevoort Urban Improvement Project. As was pointed out by board members, the interim plan bears many resemblances to the design for the Ninth Ave./14th St. intersection that emerged from GGUIP and presents an opportunity to try out some possibilities before the capital program's implementation.

Here is another, more detailed view of DOT's plan, oriented with the north at the top: 

While acknowledging that casualties have dropped overall in recent years, safety advocates and government officials are calling on the DOT to establish measurable benchmarks for further reducing pedestrian injuries and deaths in the city, and want the agency to get moving on relatively minor improvements that would help meet those goals.

At a hearing of the City Council's Transportation Committee at City Hall on Wednesday, DOT Deputy Commissioner David Woloch and Director for Street Management and Safety Ryan Russo caught an earful from council members, transportation watchdogs, community board leaders and members of the public who have lost loved ones.

The protracted exchange between the committee and Woloch and Russo, during which even the simplest of questions couldn't elicit a straightforward response, began when Chairman John Liu asked if the DOT has a systemic master plan for pedestrian safety enhancements.

The answer, which Liu never received in so many words, might be summed up as "Not exactly."

For example, the DOT is just now assembling its first-ever comprehensive study of pedestrian injuries and fatalities, which total some 10,000 and 150 per year, respectively. And though it is rote knowledge to many ordinary citizens, the agency seems stymied by the fact that the vast number of serious collisions occur at a relatively small number of intersections.

In testimony before the committee, Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Paul Steely White pointed out that the DOT can readily recite the number of potholes and stoplights it plans to address during a given period, but that it has no target for reducing pedestrian injuries and deaths -- a task White said should be "job one" for the agency that declares pedestrian safety its "most critical mission." The "real story," White said, is that DOT has reduced auto-pedestrian collisions by improving a small number of intersections, and could replicate that success elsewhere at little cost.

"Signal timing is cheap," said White.

The new collision study, expected to be ready sometime later this year, will help the DOT in the future, Woloch and Russo said. But as of now pedestrian fatalities are "diffuse" and current stats don't indicate "where to go" to make changes, a situation further complicated by the agency's "limited resources."

The committee also learned, among other things, that the DOT does not investigate every auto-pedestrian collision; that there is no formal process for analyzing the site of a fatality in order to prevent future collisions; that there is no set process for gauging input that might remedy dangerous conditions before a collision occurs; and that three years after launching the Safe Routes to School program, in 2007 the DOT will complete improvements at 12 of 135 high-priority schools -- not a "very ambitious goal," said Liu.

Teresa Toro, NYC Coordinator of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, testified that the city should mandate physical improvements by DOT, as well as procedural changes by the NYPD. While DOT has an "obsessive preoccupation with traffic flow," Toro said, the police are "not even comfortable" enforcing laws on the books designed to protect pedestrians.

Without citing specifics, Liu said the committee has "a number of ideas" for bills that are "passable."

Photo: sc_UK/Flickr

This comes from Ian Dutton, a member of Manhattan's Community Board 2 who has been fighting to improve bicyclist safety on Houston Street:

Those of you who have been following the saga know that last year, Manhattan's CB2 and neighborhood residents called for DOT to implement safe space for bicyclists into the reconstruction project for W. Houston St.

At last month's CB2 Traffic & Transportation Committee meeting, Ryan Russo and Josh Benson of DOT presented an alternative proposal for a bike route based on parallel streets, Bleecker St. and Prince St., citing safety concerns particularly involving turning traffic and trucks on W. Houston St. The board initially was skeptical that there was nothing DOT could envision to make W. Houston St. safe for the many cyclists that use Houston St., but Russo and Benson were firm that the reason they could not propose a plan for Houston St. was safety-based and not on DOT's insistence of accommodating increasingly heavy traffic volumes.

Now this month, at the Tuesday, April 10 meeting of the CB2 Traffic & Transportation Committee, the second item on the agenda is a public discussion of the DOT's proposed alternative plan.

It is crucial that supporters of the plan make their feelings clear at this committee meeting to counter arguments that no one favors this plan for bike lanes or that there will be negative effects of removing parking from several blocks. This alternative plan in fact has many benefits for cyclists, allowing for designated space on streets that are much more pleasant to ride on than Houston St. while still creating a crosstown corridor that links to the Hudson River Greenway.

What you can do:

1. Attend the committee meeting and make sure that you voice your support! The meeting is on Tuesday, April 10, at 6:30pm, at the LGBT Community Services Center, 208 W. 13th St. between 7th Ave. and Greenwich Ave. (ask at the front desk for the room assignment).

2. Write a letter to DOT and CB2. Visit http://www.bikehoustonst.net to download a Word file -- the first page gives you some suggested points and the second page is an outline that you can fill in with a few sentences of your own. Then email it back to info@bikehoustonst.net.

At the big Houston Street bike lane meeting a couple of weeks ago, DOT's Ryan Russo and Josh Benson told Manhattan's Community Board 2 that physically-separated bike lanes should only be installed on streets with a maximum of 8 intersections per mile. Houston Street has 18 intersections per mile which, they believe, makes it not a good spot for a Class I bike lane.

Ninth Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn has exactly 8 intersections per mile. It therefore meets DOT's own standards for when a physically-separated, on-street bike lane is warranted! On top of that, neighborhood people are upset about the idea of a bike lane preventing them from occassionally double-parking to load and unload their cars. A physically-separated bike lane might be an answer to those concerns and a real win-win.

The lanes could be put between the sidewalk and parked cars as is done in so many great biking cities around the world. Here is an example from Copenhagen, Denmark:

Another possibility would be to run both lanes between the sidewalk and parked cars along the southern side of 9th Street, away from the double-parking commotion in front of the grocery store, post office and car service station. Here is a two-way bike lane I saw in Paris, France recently (no one is riding because it is in the middle of a hail storm):

It's just Thermoplast. Can't we experiment in New York City?

Last Tuesday night Ryan Russo and Josh Benson from the Department of Transportation presented a plan to Manhattan's Community Board 2 to create a safer east-west bike route across Lower Manhattan. With three cyclists having been killed on Houston Street over the last two years and major reconstruction of the street currently underway, members of CB2 led by Ian Dutton have been advocating for  a physically-separated bike lane to be built on Houston Street.

I'm not going to have time to do the meeting justice right now and I hope that people will add to this report in the comments section. The gist of it is this: DOT argues that Houston Street, with its busy, multi-lane traffic and numerous cross streets -- 18 intersections per mile, Russo said -- wouldn't work all that well as a two-way protected bike lane. DOT's Powerpoint presentation is above (Is Streetsblog becoming some sort of New York City government agency Powerpoint clearinghouse?).

Everyone, however, agrees that Lower Manhattan needs a safe, convenient east-west bike route. But rather than directing bicyclists to Houston Street DOT proposes placing the bike lanes on less busy streets that parallel Houston -- Prince and Bleecker. The plan, Russo said, is similar to the Bike Boulevard program in Berkeley, California and the popular Dean and Bergen bike lanes that parallel Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. One other possible benefit to Livable Streets advocates: The proposal includes the removal of nearly 200 parking spaces.

Community Board members were impressed with the thoughtfulness that went in to DOT's study. Russo and Benson "changed some minds" and the presentation "was well received" according to transportation committee chair Brad Hoylman. "We reiterated our support for a Houston Street bike lane but stated that the alternative was a viable option that should be examined further with continued community input."

Bonus Weekend Essay Project: Compare and contrast the DOT bike plan for Lower Manhattan and the process that brought it about versus the one-way streets plan presented last night in Park Slope.

Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn, between Carroll and Dean Streets, is now designated as a Class III bike route. As anticipated in the May 19, 2005 letter, we completed installation of Class III bike route signage along this route in July. The signage consists of standard "Bike Route" signs complemented with a special "Share the Road" message sign. We still intend to install Class 3 lane markings consisting of bicycle logos and chevron arrows.

As you are aware, the Department recently announced a comprehensive, citywide bike safety initiative that includes a commitment to install 200 miles of new bike facilities during the next three years including up to 45 miles of Class III routes. As part of this effort, we anticipate making further upgrades to the signs and markings used to designate future Class III routes. We are currently looking closely at the appropriate designs for these upgrades. In order for the Fifth Avenue route to utilize new Class III markings we have postponed the anticipated installation of the markings for Fifth Avenue until the start of the next markings season in April.

We walk and ride down Fifth Avenue every day but hadn't noticed the new street signs. We'll look for them and try to snap a photograph. We are glad to hear that DOT is looking into improving the signs and markings for Class III bike lanes. But April seems like an awfully long time to wait. Why not install some interim measure between now and then? By April 2007 it will be nearly two years since Elizabeth Padilla was killed riding her bike on the northern end of Fifth Avenue, now identified as one of the more dangerous bike riding spots in the city.

Streetsblog: The City just released a major bicycle safety study and announced a plan for "unprecedented" bike infrastructure improvements. What does today's announcement mean for cyclists?

Ryan Russo: In the past, we were doing about twenty-five miles of bicycle facilities a year. Right now we are on pace to build forty miles in the current fiscal year (Editor: New York City's fiscal year starts July 1). Next year we're going to pick up the pace and build seventy miles. In 2009 we're going to build ninety miles. So, we are, essentially, quadrupling the output of our bike facilities. That is unprecedented and will create a dramatic change in the city's bicycle network.

SB: Do you see bike lanes as a critical safety feature on New York City streets? Do they really help make cyclists safer?

RR: I think bike lanes are very helpful. I'm a cyclist myself. I bike to work. I bike for my errands, I don't own a car and am very bike dependent. In fact, sometimes I bike too often. I don't want to take the subway and I'll get stuck in the rain a lot. Bike lanes help with safety in a lot of subtle ways and not-so-subtle ways. For motorists they help create the expectation that they are going to find cyclists on the roadway. And they help to make the movements on the roadway more predictable in terms of where the cyclist is expected to be and where the motorist is expected to be. Bike lanes are also useful for laying out the core network. They help aggregate cyclists onto particular routes so that they all end up on the same street rather than dispersing throughout the network. This helps motorists on those corridors get used to the cyclists. There is a lot more to bike lanes but the bottom line is, yes, I think they are very useful.

SB: So, now I've got to ask: What kind of bike do you ride?

RR: Laughing. I ride a model of a Giant bicycle. It's called the Bowery. It's a messenger-style bike although I replaced the drop bar with a straight bar because I prefer a more upright position on my bicycle even though it's less hip.

SB: Does your bike commuting inform your job? Are you riding around the city looking at design issues and thinking, "I'm going to take care of that when I get back to the office?"

Ryan's bike.

RR: Absolutely. My design perspective and my idea of what makes sense on the streets are informed by my experiences on the road and my interactions with motor vehicles. My learning as a designer evolves and is an iterative process and I'm always looking for opportunities to make improvements.

SB: What is your advice to advocates and community organizations who are working to make New York City's streets better for cyclists, pedestrians and mass transit users? What would be the most productive way for the Livable Streets Movement to work with DOT?

RR: That's a really interesting question. The reality on the ground right now is that cyclists are a minority street user. On most corridors cyclists don't outnumber pedestrians or vehicles. When we install bike lanes we give cyclists a disproportionate percentage or roadway space relative to their numbers. Some communities have had a problem with that given all of the competition there is for different uses of our valuable street space. So, I think that the Livable Streets Movement can help educate people who might see bike lanes as a less-than-worthwhile use of street space.

SB: Other advice?

RR: I'd like to see a more cooperative relationship. I think there's a lot of opportunity and a lot of common ground in many of the things that we all want to accomplish. So, let's find that common ground and make things happen.

SB: Towards that end, what are your goals in your new job? What are you trying to accomplish?

RR: I'd like to improve the interconnectedness of the bike network and make sure the network works at key connections like we did on Tillary Street and we'll be doing on Sands Street in Brooklyn. I'd like to make sure we have good connections to popular bicycling facilities like the Hudson River Greenway, Prospect Park, and Central Park. And obviously, safety is something we'd like to see improve.

Before and After: Tillary Street in front of the federal court, Downtown Brooklyn.

Before and After: The plan for Sands Street beneath the Manhattan Bridge.

SB: In a recent letter to the Times you noted that the City's plans for bike lanes are sometimes voted down by community boards. Why does DOT even allow community boards to vote on whether to improve important safety measures? Why not treat bike lanes as a kind of non-negotiable design element, like crosswalks?

RR: Well, how do you think we're going to get 200 miles built in three years!?... Look, what I said in the letter is that we have to work harder to get community board support for these projects which is why I suggested that Livable Streets advocates give us a little hand. At the end of the day the street is ultimately DOT's purview. But we're not going to stop working with communities. We're keeping them in the loop and advising them of our plans and listening to their feedback and we're going to take it into account. But we're also going to try to meet our targets and make these improvements to bike facilities. If you want to see how difficult this can be do a background search on the local newspaper articles that were written when we installed bike lanes on the Shore Front Parkway (pictured below) and Commonwealth Boulevard in Queens .

SB: Those weren't popular with the community?

RR: That's an understatement.

SB: But you went in and put them in anyway?

RR: Yeah. In August.

SB: What kind of complaints do you hear in communities like those when you come in with a bike lane?

RR: If I had to boil it down into three categories of complaints, first there's the worry that bike lanes might somehow slow down traffic. Second, there are concerns about the impact of double parking during street cleaning operations and the higher fine for a parking ticket in a bike lane. Finally, there are negative perceptions of cyclists themselves.

SB: I know we've got to wind up here, so the big question is, do you read Streetsblog? And do you love it?

RR: Laughing. You know, I think there are a lot of people here who read it but I've got a new job and I'm very busy with a big commitment to pedestrians and schools and I'm just not finding the time.

To the Editor:

In a Sept. 3 letter ("New York Is Bike-Friendly"), Ryan Russo, the Department of Transportation's director for street management and safety, states that he and his colleagues "have to work hard to win local support for the bike lanes, as there is often significant community board and elected official opposition to these plans."

We have been working for two years with Queens Community Board 9 to establish a bike path on the long-abandoned city-owned former Long Island Rail Road Rockaway Beach Branch right of way. Returning it to public use as a greenway would seem to be a no-brainer, especially considering it was on the city's 1997 greenway master plan.

The city, however, has been less than helpful. Last year the Department of City Planning obtained funding for a feasibility study for this proposal, but could not go ahead because they were unable to secure a required implementation partner, even though they approached the obvious choices: the Parks Department and Department of Transportation. We ourselves were rebuffed in a meeting with officials from the Parks Department, who suggested that we assume full responsibility for conducting a study and amassing the funds for implementation.

Mr. Russo has our support. Do we have his?

Jordan Sandke
Richmond Hill, Queens
The writer is chairman, Rockaway Beach Branch Greenway Committee

Pedal Politics
August 20, 2006
By ANDREW VESSELINOVITCH

NEW YORK could be one of the best cities in the world for riding bicycles. The weather is moderate (usually). The terrain is generally flat. And many of us live close enough to where we work and shop to make bicycling a reasonable alternative to driving or taking public transportation.

But New York City has been slow to create bike lanes to promote bicycling and to keep riders safe from automobile traffic, despite an expressed commitment to do so.

In 1997, city planners issued a master plan that called for a 900-mile network of bike paths (in places where there are no cars, like in Hudson River Park) and bike lanes (on streets with auto traffic) throughout the five boroughs. Because the paths and lanes must go in both directions, that means 1,800 miles of painted bike lanes and paths.

Most of this, about 1,300 miles of it, was to be created on streets managed by the New York City Department of Transportation. (Most of the rest is managed by the Parks and Recreation Department or the State of New York.) For five years, until last month, when I stopped working at the Transportation Department, it was my job to see that as many miles of new bike lanes as possible came into use.

My small staff of six and I could have produced as many as 50 miles of bike lanes each year, without taking away any parking space or limiting any street's capacity for cars or trucks. The cost is minimal: about $20,000 per mile (for traffic analysis, design and labor), 80 percent of which is reimbursed by the federal government.

From 1997 to 2004, the Transportation Department put nearly 250 miles of bike lanes in operation. But in the last two years, the city produced less than 20 miles. At this rate, it could take more than a century to finish the proposed network. Our efforts were so rarely encouraged, and so often delayed, that I came to the conclusion that the department is not truly committed to promoting bicycling in New York.

Marking of the Eighth Avenue bike lane in Manhattan, for example, was postponed for more than two years after two community boards requested it, in 2003. If a city councilwoman had not personally intervened to get the lane finished, I am certain it would still be incomplete.

After a new bicycle and pedestrian path was opened on the Williamsburg Bridge in late 2002, complaints poured in about the 2-inch-high metal covers that had been placed over expansion joints in about two dozen places. These bumps jarred bicyclists and tripped up pedestrians. I brought this to the attention of the department's bridges division, but the covers were not replaced until 2005, after cyclists injured on the bumpy road filed lawsuits.

Some residents object to having bike lanes, in the mistaken belief that to encourage bike riding is to pose a menace to pedestrian safety. But bicycles are not nearly as dangerous as cars are. And they are a much healthier and more environmentally friendly form of transportation.

Given that more than half the population is overweight, in part because of too little physical activity, and given how much auto traffic contributes to the city's poor air quality, the city should be doing all it can to encourage bicycling.

Rather than delay the creation of bike lanes already in the planning books, the city should make building the lanes a priority. Just as he made the hard decision to rise above objections to the smoking ban, Mayor Michael Bloomberg should direct city officials to complete the remaining bike lanes as soon as possible.

Andrew Vesselinovitch, the director of the city Transportation Department's bicycle program from 2001 to 2006, is working on a master's degree in architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

September 3, 2006
Letters to the Editor
New York is Bike-Friendly

To the Editor:

Contrary to 'Pedal Politics,' by Andrew Vesselinovitch (Op-Ed, Aug. 20), the Department of Transportation has embraced biking as a convenient, environmentally friendly alternative to the car.

We continue to add bike lanes throughout the city, most recently on Eighth Avenue, connecting Central Park to the Hudson River Greenway, and placing a network of lanes and paths in downtown Brooklyn leading to the East River crossings. We do, however, have to work hard to win local support for the bike lanes, as there is often significant community board and elected official opposition to these plans.

Yet our work is clearly paying off, as this year Bicycling Magazine named New York one of the top bicycling cities in the United States, and we are seeing steady growth in the number of cyclists using our streets. The Department of Transportation is committed to further improvements in the years to come. This includes an ambitious schedule for expanding the city's bike network and a new safety outreach program that will educate both motorists and cyclists.

Ryan Russo
Lower Manhattan

The writer is director for street management and safety, Department of Transportation.

Here is yet another sign that change is afoot at New York City's Department of Transportation:

Insiders are reporting that Ryan Russo has been promoted from the Brooklyn Borough Commissioner's office to take over as the new Director of Alternative Modes. That might not be the correct title and we do not yet know the exact job description but it looks like Russo will be running many of DOT's pedestrian and bike projects and taking over the languishing Safe Routes to Schools program.

Russo is in his early 30's, lives in Brooklyn, often shows up to community meetings on a customized orange bike, and has a background in urban planning. In his two-and-a-half years as the Downtown Brooklyn Transportation Coordinator Russo has racked up a quantity of impressive accomplishments (PDF file) for pedestrians, cyclists and more livable streets. 

Among these accomplishments, Russo oversaw significant expansions and improvements of Downtown Brooklyn's bike network (PDF file). This includes the design and development of unprecedented, new, two-way, physically-separated bike lanes on Tillary and Sands Streets to help make the dangerous approaches to the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges safer. He faciliated the creation of the Willoughby Street pedestrian plaza. He moved a major, traffic-calming redesign of Vanderbilt Avenue from a back-of-the-envelope sketch to paint-on-asphalt in a matter of months. And, god bless him, he stopped the honking on Clinton Street by "feathering" the traffic signals.

Russo leaves his current post open to one significant criticism. He was hired at the end of the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project specifically to develop a Downtown Brooklyn Transportation Blueprint. As the DOT's web site says, the Blueprint was supposed to be "a year-long study." It has been 20 months since the first public meeting and Downtown Brooklyn still has no Blueprint.

That being said, if we had to choose between a "Blueprint" and the numerous tangible improvements that Russo has helped create over the last few years, we'll take facts-on-the-ground ahead of a document any day.

In his new job, Russo's immediate superior is Gerard Soffian. Soffian reports directly to Deputy Commissioner Michael Primeggia.

We are hoping that as his first official act in the new office, Ryan will declare that walking is no longer to be called an "alternative" mode of transportation.