A truck driver enjoys the convenience of the 34th Street SBS lane. Photo: Brad Aaron

"Tens of thousands of bus passengers are delayed by cars and trucks parked in what should be reserved lanes," said Stringer. "Yet over more than forty hours of observation by my staff, not one driver parked in a bus lane was issued a summons, no matter how long he sat there. What's the point of having these regulations if they are never enforced?"

Stringer recommended several measures to keep bus lanes clear, including passage of a bill sponsored by Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh that would allow enforcement cameras not only for BRT routes, but all bus lanes. Stringer is also calling on NYPD and DOT to take action through driver education campaigns, improved enforcement and expansion of plans for physically separated lanes beyond Select Bus Service lines.

Responding to the report, NYPD basically confirmed its findings. The department told NY1 that officers have issued "more than 1,700" summonses to bus lane violators so far this year. A back-of-envelope calculation pegs that at about eight summonses per day -- roughly the average number of violations noted by Stringer staffers every hour.

Curiously, the study makes no mention of police vehicles as bus lane blockers.

Motorcycles confiscated by the 34th Precinct in Upper Manhattan. Photo: Manhattan Times

This year has been especially bad already, and with the dangerous and noisy recreational traffic has come an uptick in criminal activity. Crime levels remain relatively low in the 34th Precinct, but robberies are up. Inwood in particular has seen a spate of alarmingly violent muggings lately. Not to say that the two are necessarily related, but to harried residents they are part and parcel of the same problem: lawless and increasingly unsafe streets.

In response, the 34th Precinct says it has ticketed drivers and even confiscated vehicles, and has promised to step up patrols and take a zero tolerance approach to noise. Last weekend was a bit calmer than usual on my Inwood block, but Upper Manhattanites are accustomed to selective enforcement, and have learned that complacency is never an option.

CB 12 has asked the city to install speed bumps in trouble spots, but DOT says daytime speed tests conducted last November (a month when motorcycle racing isn't normally an issue) didn't meet required criteria. The board has requested that tests be performed again on a weekend as late at night as possible, since DOT told transportation committee members that the agency doesn't gather such data overnight.

Tomorrow's meeting, which is co-sponsored by Council Members Robert Jackson and Miguel Martinez, will be held at CB 12 headquarters, 711 W. 168th Street in Washington Heights, at 7 p.m. As always, the more locals in attendance the better.

For the latest on this and other relevant issues in Upper Manhattan, keep an eye on the Inwood and Washington Heights Livable Streets group.

Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh, speaking, with Daniel Squadron and Scott Stringer. To Squadron's right are Wendy Cheung, Hayley Ng's aunt, and Jon Adler, representative for the families of Ng and Diego Martinez

If passed, drivers who hit people with their vehicles would face "suspension or revocation of a driver's license when the violation resulted in the serious injury or death of a vulnerable user of a public way." As we read the bill, that penalty would be suspended pending the completion of a traffic safety course and up to 60 days of community service. Failure to complete the course and community service would result in action against driving privileges and a fine of up to $10,000.

"We want everybody to stand behind this cause," said Wendy Cheung, aunt of Hayley Ng. "We don’t want this to happen to anyone else. We need justice here." 

Oregon and Illinois have recently established similar "vulnerable user" laws.

While it must be said that -- considering the severity of the senseless devastation caused by reckless drivers -- the penalties prescribed by this bill would be a far cry from true traffic justice, its adoption would nevertheless be a huge step for New York State, and could lay the foundation for tougher laws in the future. After the jump, a sobering passage from the bill summary encapsulates the current "stark reality," where drivers who kill are almost always protected by lax prosecutors and weak state laws.

At present, district attorneys across New York State are faced with an unacceptable choice: pursue vehicular homicide charges, most often in the form of criminally negligent homicide, or bring no charges at all against the drivers who kill vulnerable roadway users. Even where culpability may be shown, criminal charges are rarely filed. This is evidenced by the fact that only 29 indictments for the crime of Criminally Negligent Homicide were brought in New York State in the last fifteen years, 1994-2008. This legislation addresses this stark reality, providing district attorneys who are unable or unwilling to pursue criminal charges with an additional option, creating a greater measure of justice and social deterrence against careless drivers who seriously injure or kill vulnerable roadway users.

Will Silver follow through in Albany to make streets safer for his Chinatown constituents?

The plan calls for "zero tolerance" traffic enforcement; the banning of trucks and buses from traversing local streets; more pedestrians safety measures such as bollards and speed bumps; and a comprehensive traffic management plan to serve residents, businesses and vehicles passing through the neighborhood.

This is a thorough plan that includes several politically daring ideas. It would alleviate the scourge of double-parking by properly pricing on-street spaces. It would expand sidewalks and accelerate the implementation of traffic-calming measures. It even calls for congestion pricing, among other traffic management techniques.

There's always the temptation to be cynical -- and some of the recommendations for community board input are tough to swallow in light of recent events -- but this is a moment that should not go to waste. While it's terrible that two children had to die to garner such attention, this horror story has nakedly exposed the systemic failures inherent in the way our streets are designed, managed, and policed. A galvanized Chinatown community backed by a handful of elected officials is a start. More New Yorkers and advocates for safer streets will have to keep up the pressure.

The first person to whom appeals should be directed has got to be Shelly Silver. The Assembly Speaker who allowed congestion pricing to die on his watch now calls for that same policy to be adopted. He's got his name in Stringer's press release and a nice direct quote calling for "the city" to implement the whole nine-point plan.

There's no doubt that the City Council, Mayor Bloomberg, and his deputies at NYPD and DOT need to follow through on this plan, and the fact that City Hall has not publicly responded to the tragedy is shameful. And don't forget the Manhattan District Attorney's office, led by 89-year-old Robert Morgenthau, which is sticking to its policy of granting negligent drivers carte blanche to kill and maim without consequence. But if the Speaker is really committed to the safety and well-being of his Chinatown constituents, much of the responsibility lies with him and his caucus. There is a clear legislative agenda to be pursued: tougher state traffic laws, to start with. We'll see if Shelly cares enough to carry the fight out of his PR office and into the statehouse.

In separate letters issued this month to the Department of Environmental Protection, Thompson and Stringer present lists of unanswered questions pertaining to Local Law 41, adopted by the City Council in May 2005. The law required that all tour buses with engines that are at least three years old be retrofitted with best available technologies to reduce diesel particulate levels, and gave companies until January 2007 to either do the retrofits or apply for waivers.

Over three years later, only one company, Gray Line, has brought any of its buses into compliance. According to a DEP report, as of last August just 61 of the 204 tour buses on New York streets meet the law's requirements. The report, Thompson wrote, "shows a very disturbing lack of progress and, in fact, a widespread non-compliance with the law."

According to a 1999 study referenced in a recent New York Post article, a typical Gray Line bus "emit[s] about 25 times more diesel particles than the average bus."

Thompson takes the DEP to task for its tardiness in issuing the first of its required annual reports pertaining to Local Law 41. It was eight months late and, judging by the follow-up questions submitted by Thompson and Stringer, left many issues unaddressed, such as whether DEP is recommending license revocation for companies that aren't obeying the law.

"Tour Buses No -- Tourists Yes" is not only concerned with air pollution, but also noise pollution and physical safety. In September, sight-impaired West Village resident Lloyd Burlingame told NY1:

"I have to depend on my hearing to know when to cross the street and these tour buses, between the racket they make and these guys blathering, I put myself in danger every time they're here and I try to cross the street. So it's a particular problem for people like me."

Also in the NY1 report, City Council Member Alan Gerson said he wants legislation that would regulate tour bus times of operation, routes and frequency. (Enforcement, apparently, is another matter.) And said Villager Milton Polsky: "We have nothing against the tourists, but we'd like to see them walk and enjoy our wonderful sights here."

Photo: Richard Hsu/Flickr

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

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

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

A study released this week by Transportation Alternatives undercuts the claim that closing Central Park's loop drive to cars would increase traffic on the streets of Harlem. To the contrary, findings indicate that loop entrances on 110th street at Malcolm X and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevards "act as traffic magnets," drawing vehicles onto neighborhood streets from more appropriate routes like the FDR, Harlem River Drive and the West Side Highway.

During a series of driver interviews conducted in the spring of 2007, T.A. found that 57% of private car trips into the park through Harlem originate outside Manhattan, and that private cars -- not taxis -- make up the majority of traffic (two-thirds) on the loop drive. Reads a T.A. media release:

Much of the traffic clogging Harlem streets only enters the neighborhood because the Park drive is open to cars. This is consistent with NYC DOT's own findings that predict at least 3,107 private vehicles would be removed from Harlem streets each week during the morning commute if the drive was closed to car traffic. Armed with this information, T.A. and more than 100,000 Car-Free Central Park Campaign supporters call on the Mayor and City Hall to support a three month car-free trial in the park this summer.

T.A. initially presented its data privately to city decision-makers, hoping it would confirm the city's own analysis and provide the final impetus for a three-month trial closure. That didn't happen, so T.A. is publicly releasing the report [PDF] in hopes that New Yorkers will take up the issue with their electeds -- Mayor Bloomberg in particular -- and urge them to make good on this long-overdue improvement.

T.A. and other car-free park advocates are joined by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in pushing for a summer trial. Says Stringer: "This action has the potential to achieve real and immediate benefits for our city, and to send an unequivocal message that New York City is serious about achieving its green priorities."

Photo: Frodrig / Flickr

Livable streets advocates in Northern Manhattan are proposing a cycle track, similar to the one on Ninth Avenue in Chelsea, to link the Hudson River and Harlem River Greenways at 200th/Dyckman Street in Inwood.

Dyckman currently has bike lanes at its east and west ends, but the stretch between Broadway and Nagle Avenue is four lanes of auto traffic with parallel parking on both sides. When an item showed up on Community Board 12's Traffic and Transportation Committee agenda suggesting DOT might be poised to add bike lanes from Broadway to Nagle, Maggie Clarke got to work.

Clarke, who has a Ph.D. in environmental science, has been an active Inwood organizer since the 1970s. She was a key player in establishing the RING Garden, transforming the Lt. William Tighe Triangle at the intersection of Dyckman and Broadway into a community-supported treasure and making Inwood home to Manhattan's second Greenstreets site. Clarke has not seen the city's plans, if any, for Dyckman Street (neither has Streetsblog -- we have a message in to DOT as of this writing), but says that, because of harrowing traffic, a simple restriping would be a "waste of paint, unless it was a prelude to something bigger."

One idea for "something bigger" was presented by Clarke and other Inwood residents at the CB 12 T&T committee meeting earlier this month. Modeled on the Ninth Avenue cycle track, Clarke and a small group of neighbors proposed a two-way separated bike lane on the north sides of Riverside Drive and Dyckman Street, buffered by a narrow green median, connecting the Henry Hudson and Harlem River Bike Paths.

The Tread Bike Shop, across the street from Dyckman's sidewalk cafés

Clarke, herself a cyclist who has for years led rides originating at the RING, sees such a facility as a natural fit for Dyckman and Riverside. In addition to the obvious benefit of connecting the east and west side Greenways in such a way, Upper Manhattan is already a destination -- or at least a pit stop -- for cyclists who come from as far away as central New Jersey, Clarke says. Inwood Hill and Ft. Tryon Parks flank Dyckman Street, and the RING is adjacent to the proposed cycle track route, on a more serene stretch of Dyckman to the west of Broadway, where cafés set up outdoor seating in the summer. Dyckman even has its own thriving bike shop. Then there's the community benefit of turning a hazardous, unsightly strip of asphalt into a calmer, greener neighborhood asset.

At issue, however, is parking. Community board members are concerned about a loss of spaces, though DOT is now studying a proposal to add more (free) parking on Dyckman's west end, where there are already bike lanes, near the Dyckman Marina. Clarke is hoping that this, as well as her group's proposal to replace parallel parking with angled spots, would minimize or eliminate a net parking loss, and therefore might appease the board and others who would surely howl at the prospect. If not, her group's "Plan B" is to three-lane Dyckman, trading one traffic lane for parking, which could of course rile opposition as well.

DOT Deputy Borough Commissioner Maurice Bruet, who attended the CB 12 Traffic and Transpo meeting, was reportedly impressed to see such a citizen-driven proposal -- and the three-lane plan in particular, as it would allow for wider lane widths -- but said that any work resulting in a net parking loss would require community board approval. Committee Chair Mark Levine described board members as "interested but cautious."

Dyckman east of Nagle Ave has asphalt to spare

Clarke has also been in touch with the offices of Council Member Robert Jackson and Borough President Scott Stringer, both of which expressed interest. She was told by the T&T committee that the project would require "stakeholder" input and cost estimates from DOT to move forward, but she isn't sure when, or if, she can expect to hear from the CB or DOT again. She says Bruet told her the neighborhood should come forth with more design suggestions.

"If DOT wanted a separated bikeway connector, they'd design it," says Clarke. "If there was a beautiful, green, state of the art bike facility up here, it would be a magnet for even more bikes."

Photos by Brad Aaron

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer wants to trade parking spots for wider sidewalks and bike infrastructure on West 33rd Street, moving more Moynihan Station commuters above-ground.

AMNY has the story:

Stringer will float the idea to widen sidewalks and create bike lanes at a public hearing [Thursday] on the future of Moynihan Station. The pathway, which would run past the station, would link Broadway and the planned mega-development at the Hudson Yards.

Parking is already restricted along some of the stretch, and pedestrians need the space in the already congested area, his office said.

"During rush hours, 33rd Street could become a walkway and bikeway for commuters traveling to and from the new station, as well as a thriving, active retail corridor," Stringer said in a written statement. "During the day and on weekends, it could be a lively thoroughfare for New Yorkers to get from midtown to the West Side Rail Yards, and to the Hudson River waterfront beyond."

The plan is backed by Transportation Alternatives and the Regional Plan Association. The Empire State Development Corp., which is overseeing the station project, did not offer an opinion on Stringer's ideas or how it would impact parking in the area.

Photo: moynihanstation/Flickr

We're a bit heavy on bike stuff today (especially considering that all eyes should be on the MTA right now) but following this morning's bleak news in Brooklyn, I thought it would be nice to end the day on a more life-affirming note. Here is Nick Whitaker's StreetFilm on the first annual Kids Art Bike Ride For the Lower East Side.

Hosted by the East Village Community Coalition in cooperation with Transportation Alternatives, Recycle-A-Bicycle, Bike New York, the Lower East Side Girls Club and a slew of other groups, Saturday's 30-minute bike parade rolled through the East Village and down Second Avenue.

The event was clearly a lot of fun and it also gave New Yorkers a glimpse of what a more equitable distribution of street space might look like. For me, the event also drove home just how much we've lost in ceding our city to the automobile over these past decades. It's kind of remarkable that the only conceivable way young kids can ride bikes on the streets of Manhattan is if a slew of local parents, community groups and politicians organize a special day for it.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer was on-hand for the event. Stringer has quietly emerged as the New York City elected official who speaks the most frequently -- and the most passionately -- on Livable Streets issues. You get the sense that he personally cares about this stuff. It means something to him. On Saturday, he said:

We have to create a level playing field and the way to do that is to keep cars out of Manhattan, create parks, create asthma centers, get people on bikes. Let’s create an environment where our children will live longer, be healthy, and do better in school because they will conquer the environment.

Spurred by the death of third-grader Prince Harris, Jr. (pictured), the fourth pedestrian to die this year along a notorious stretch of Ninth Avenue, the Clinton/Hell's Kitchen Pedestrian Safety Coalition (CHEKPEDS) is again urging the city to convene an interagency panel "to address this critical health issue."

On Friday, 8-year-old Harris was on his way to a park with his father and siblings when he reportedly "darted on W. 17th St." and was hit by a Toyota Scion, driven by an unidentified 44-year-old man. Harris's father said the Toyota and a taxi "were speeding down the block to make the light." The driver stayed at the scene and was not issued a ticket.

Today CHEKPEDS issued an e-mail bulletin offering condolences to the Harris family, and imploring the city to turn its attention to the pedestrian casualty epidemic.

The "new DOT" is moving fast and all problems cannot be tackled in one day. Priorities must be set, and in our book none is more important than pedestrian safety. 11,000 injuries and 163 deaths annually would qualify as a national disaster if they were all happening in one day. But they keep happening year after year.

In March, CHEKPEDS worked with Community Board 4 to draft a letter (PDF) to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer asking them to organize a citywide task force "bringing the various players to the table to address street and signal engineering, agencies jurisdiction, enforcement and traffic safety laws, reporting traffic problems and police procedures in accidents." But it hasn't happened.

Also over the weekend, a speeding taxicab jumped a curb and struck three members of the same family, killing 60-year-old TV helicopter pilot Paul Smith; no criminal charges have thus far been reported. On Staten Island, a 4-year-old is "fighting for her life" after being hit by a car yesterday while trying to cross the street with a group of other children; the unidentified driver was not ticketed. And yesterday morning in Coney Island, the driver of a charter bus making a U-turn hit an 60-year-old woman, knocking her down and running over her abdomen; the driver was not charged.

This weekend's carnage comes after last week's angry memorials to Hope Miller and Julia Thomson, who were run down five days apart at the end of September.

Photo of Prince Harris via New York Daily News

After over an hour of public comment, and another hour of deliberation, Community Board 2 last night voted to recommend the DOT proceed with bike lanes parallel to Houston Street, to be located primarily on Prince and Bleecker.

The resolution crafted last week by CB2's Traffic & Transportation Committee -- defining the new bike lanes as "additional interim" routes while affirming support for a Class I lane on Houston itself -- was altered slightly. After members of the public expressed reservations about the viability of Prince Street as bicycle corridor, CB2 is now encouraging DOT to "seriously consider" alternatives.

Pointing to large numbers of pedestrians, vendors and delivery trucks, some speakers predicted that a Prince Street re-striped for bikes would be a "failure," a "disaster," a "no-auto zone" and a "suicide alley." Said one, who described herself as a cyclist: "We should all ride our bikes, but not on Prince Street."

For every citizen who opposed the Prince-Bleecker plan, however, almost two spoke in favor. "It's past time that we start taking our city back from the cars," said Villager Laura Tanenbaum. Charle Cafiero, a former CB2 board member and a veteran in the fight for Houston, said, "The DOT alternate plan is the best we have been able to get in 20 years."

Still, at one point the board went so far as to vote on casting aside the Prince-Bleecker proposal in favor of a substitute motion to "reiterate" CB2's position that an "acceptable bike lane" be built on Houston. Though several board members were vocal in their opposition to bike lanes on Prince, and in some cases Bleecker, the substitute motion failed by a wide margin.

Instead, Traffic & Transportation Chair Brad Hoylman accepted a "friendly" amendment that DOT explore alternatives to Prince (though it was noted that the agency has already done so). Some board members endorsed Broome Street as an option for westbound cyclists.

Interspersed among last night's citizen commenters were appearances by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer -- who, speaking in support of bike lanes "throughout Manhattan," said New York's "out of control traffic crisis" required "bold new initiatives" -- and Council Member Alan Gerson, who also favored the lanes.

CB2 ultimately approved the amended resolution with only a handful of members opposed. In a late-night e-mail following the meeting, Ian Dutton, board member and head of CB2's Ad-hoc Committee for Bike Lanes on Houston, wrote: "From here, I hope to meet with DOT to carry the concerns that I share with the community and seek design solutions that mitigate them to the extent that's feasible. Thus far, DOT has expressed their willingness to consider new ideas to make this bike lane a success, and I look forward to working towards that with them."

In other business, CB2 passed a resolution in support of the Broadway bus bulbs and the Lower Manhattan Transit Priority Plan.

Manhattan on the Move Conference
Edited by Nick Whitaker
Running time: 6 minutes 52 seconds

In his keynote address, Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, made it clear that the conference was about much more than transportation:

I'm often asked to talk people in cities about transport. I say, I cannot talk about transport unless we have an idea of what type of a city we want. Before we have a vision of what type of city we want, we have to know, how do we want to live. Because really, a city is only a means to a way of life. So actually, whenever we start talking about transport, we really end up discussing how we want to organize our daily life."

This latest episode of Streetfilms captures the highlights of the conference.

[T]he centerpiece of the traffic plan involves an initiative that some critics say amounts to a tax, a plan depicted by administration officials as "congestion pricing." The administration will award $130 million in grants starting this spring to help cities and states build electronic toll systems that would charge drivers fees for traveling in and out of big cities during peak traffic times. The money also could go to other congestion strategies such as expanded telecommuting, but administration officials make it clear they think congestion pricing is the most powerful tool they have. The White House will seek an additional $175 million for congestion initiatives in next year's budget.

Beyond automobile traffic, the administration will also introduce legislation soon that could seek to impose a form of "congestion pricing" on airline travel, likely through user fees on airlines. The idea is to spread flights more evenly.

In a press release, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said that he applauded the administration's  traffic initiative and that New York should be aggressive in pursuing a share of the grant money. "I can't believe I'm saying these words," said Stringer in the release, "but I applaud the Bush Administration for their forward thinking on the issue of congestion and thank them for their willingness to work with local governments to address their unique problems."

It's rare that you see someone on the inside of New York City's political power structure doing anything that looks even remotely like picking a public fight with Mayor Michael Bloomberg. That is why this press release from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer caught my eye. Stringer, who hosted an important conference on New York City transportation policy at Columbia University in October, has been making great use of his bully pulpit as a catalyst for transportation policy reform. While he doesn't criticize Bloomberg by name, his statement reads as a pretty direct rebuke of the Mayor's apparent brush off of Growth or Gridlock, the Partnership for New York City's recently released study finding that traffic congestion costs New York City at least $13 billion a year.

From the Borough President's press release:

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer today said that New York City should seek federal funding from the US Department of Transportation (DOT) to explore a local value pricing pilot program in order to ease the congestion on New York City's streets.

DOT has $15 million in grants available for local value pricing pilot programs. Stringer said that given real-world successes with the policy elsewhere, New York City had an obligation to seek these funds and to determine whether value pricing would be a feasible and equitable solution for New York City's transportation woes. 

"Clearly the time has come for our City to seek out and explore bold solutions to our transportation crisis," Borough President Stringer said. "Value pricing has reduced congestion in major cities around the world and it would be wrong to brush it off without even exploring its feasibility here in New York City. It may not be the answer to our traffic problems but unless we study the impacts, we will never know."

At Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's transportation policy conference last week, DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall said she was committed to working "with communities and other city agencies to reallocate street space" to "create public plazas in neighborhoods in all five boroughs."

"These open spaces," Weinshall said, "will make walking more enjoyable, preserve neighborhood character, and can serve as the heart of a neighborhood through which all activity can pulse."

The Commissioner's vision of community collaboration producing great new public spaces is a refreshing departure from DOT's traditional, top-down, engineer-driven focus on moving cars and trucks to "maximize vehicular level of service." The question is: How is Weinshall going to make it happen? How will New York City's Department of Transportation transform itself into something more like a Department of Streets and Public Spaces?

An answer to that question appears to be materializing along the cobblestone streets of Manhattan's Meatpacking District. Flying below the radar for more than a year now, a community-driven initiative to transform the broad, chaotic intersection of Ninth Avenue and Gansevoort Street into a thriving piazza is well underway. In the process, the Greater Gansevoort Urban Improvement Project (GGUIP) is quietly emerging as one of New York City's most promising Streets Renaissance initiatives.

What is, perhaps, most notable about the Gansevoort Project is that it isn't being put forward by a big real estate developer or Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff's Economic Development Corporation. Rather, it is a grassroots, community-driven effort. If city officials and Livable Streets advocates want a concrete example of how to make Commissioner Weinshall's public space vision a reality, this is the project to keep an eye on.

The Gansevoort Project is the brainchild of two neighborhood stalwarts, preservationist Jo Hamilton and restaurateur Florent Morellet. Last Monday evening, Hamilton and Morellet convened 150 residents and business owners from around the Meatpacking District to meet with an impressive group of experts and elected officials to share ideas and hammer out a collective vision for their neighborhood.

The process began in early 2005, when Project for Public Spaces began working with business owners and local residents to define problems, identify best practices, and formulate a vision for what people wanted their neighborhood to be (Click here to download PPS's findings). PPS's philosophy is that "If you plan a city for cars and traffic you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places."

The PPS approach, honed over decades of developing great public spaces in cities around the world starts with the notion of "community outcomes." By leveraging local knowledge, accounting for unique neighborhood characteristics and balancing competing priorities and modes of transportation, the community outcomes approach helps a neighborhood articulate a vision of what it wants to be.

As the residents and business owners of the Meatpacking District began talking about their neighborhood's traffic issues using PPS's community outcomes process, here is what they found:

Likewise, as they began looking at pedestrian and public space issues, they concluded:

Using the PPS process the conversation doesn't start with traffic and parking or arguments over speed bumps, bike lanes or any other specific solutions. Rather, the process begins with people talking about the problems they see in their neighborhood and their shared vision for the future. The consultants and engineers are brought in only after all of this has been worked through. This is where the Gansevoort Project is now.

At Monday evening's meeting, transportation consultant Sam Schwartz said that his company would study the neighborhood's traffic from a regional perspective, taking into account the effect that future changes might have on adjoining neighborhoods and the West Side Highway. Thomas Wright of the Regional Plan Association announced that his group would lead a series of community workshops through the winter. Assemblymember Deborah Glick, State Senator Tom Duane, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer all pledged their support. And the organizers stressed that the community, not the local politicians, would guide the decision-making process and shepherd design ideas through the relevant city agencies.

When Danish urban designer Jan Gehl visited the Meatpacking District in November 2005, he remarked, "the most encouraging part of my visit has been meeting citizens in every part of the city who are working to improve their own neighborhoods. New York City is very lucky to have this resource."

Indeed, every borough, every neighborhood, pretty much every New York City block has its own unique context and character. There can be no one-size-fits-all solution for making Livable Streets in New York. And there is simply no way that any one city agency can be expected to come up with the kind of detailed, site specific solutions necessary to make a Streets Renaissance happen in a city as big and diverse as New York.

As the Gansevoort Project is showing, there are neighborhoods in New York City that have the expertise, energy, resources and incentive to solve their own problems and develop their own solutions. To make a Streets Renaissance happen in New York, DOT and other city agencies have to learn how to leverage these great local resources. 

Commissioner Weinshall put forward a great vision for New York City's public spaces last week. If she wants to see that vision become a reality, the process underway in the Meatpacking District may very well be the model for how to make it happen.

Thor Snilsberg and Alec Appelbaum contributed to this piece.

While former Bogota Mayor Enrique Peñalosa and DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall got most of the attention for their keynote speeches at last week's transportation policy conference, much of the day's real intellectual ferment took place in the five separate breakout sessions that convened before lunch. The groups were organized as follows:

• Subways and Commuter Rail moderated by Gene Russianoff
• Cars and Buses with Bruce Schaller
• Underutilized Modes with Paul Steely White
• Pedestrians and Sidewalks with Ethel Sheffer
• Comprehensive Planning and Policy with Ernest Tollerson and Bob Yaro

The goal of each workshop, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said, was to generate lists of specific short-term and long-term priorities. After lunch, the moderators returned to the stage to present each workshop's findings.

Interestingly, a few key issues bubbled up in all five groups, regardless of the specific topic:

• The five groups all expressed a deep and strongly-felt desire for a better quality of life on Manhattan's sidewalks, streets and non-park public spaces.
• All called for a greater ability for people on the neighborhood-level to test new ideas on their own streets and share urban design best practices with other civic groups.
• Each group called for better collaboration within city government and said that there needs to be improvement in the way that city officials work together across agency lines.

That last point emerged as the day's elephant-in-the-room. Tollerson and Yaro put the question this way: Can city agencies each working "in their own separate silos" nurture the flexible, collaborative processes necessary to create the needed change in New York City's transportation and public space policy? There were some serious heavy-hitters in the Planning and Policy workshop including Buz Paaswell, Director of CUNY's Transportation Research Center, and the general feeling in that breakout group was, "No." It is time for the post-Word War II structure of agencies and authorities responsible for New York City's vast transportation and public space infrastructure to be re-thought and reformed.

After her session on Pedestrians and Sidewalks Sheffer reported, "Many said it was important that communities have more of a role in trying to determine furniture, signage, and width of sidewalks." She also said, "a real concern is that there is not enough coordination on pedestrian and street issues" between city agencies. During the session neighborhood leaders said City Hall downplayed aesthetic priorities that weren't part of big development projects or well-funded retail districts. Wellington Chan of the Chinatown Partnership summed up the mood when he explained how hard it is to procure resources for something like new street furniture:

"Anything that's not dull gray concrete is not acceptable to the Department of Transportation. They'll say, "You have to design in accordance with DOT standards or you're liable for the cost. So, to put up a nice planter, you need to be a business improvement district or a local development corporation."

Sheffer said that many of the participants in her workshop are ready to take it upon themselves to foster a new proactive culture. They want to design their own principles for managing street vendors, for instance, and to build coalitions among different civic groups. Sheffer's Pedestrians and Sidewalks group wanted to:

• Ease the conflict between pedestrians and turning cars.
• Increase the number of pedestrian ramps throughout Manhattan.
• Promote exclusive crossing periods for pedestrians at crazy intersections.
• Seek "better access to the waterfront," with money and staff to promote innovative design and public amenities.

In general, Sheffer said, the group wants to help the city cater to pedestrians' shifting needs and "enable them to traverse the borough with some degree of pleasantness."

Bruce Schaller's session on Cars and Buses spent a lot of its time focused on parking. He reported that there was a "division in the group about whether adding parking spaces eases the parking problem or adds more cars." Like Sheffer's session, Schaller's yielded a call for smarter government. He said the city should "coordinate agencies" on teams to manage big new developments or zoning changes. If the city does that, he said, experts in transportation and health and planning could evaluate a project's total impact on neighborhoods.

Schaller's group called for strong measures to solve Manhattan's congestion problem:

• "Selective congestion pricing" via a phasing-in of charges on drivers where traffic "is most acute."
• This pricing should come with and, perhaps, help to fund more and more frequent bus service.
• The city should "rationalize" its parking policy to balance the needs of all street users.

Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives, whose group discussed underutilized transportation modes, also called for balance. "There's just not room enough to walk and bike in Manhattan," he said. His workshop proposed these steps:

• Extend crosswalk time on busy streets
• Improve connections between subway stations and bike lanes
• Improve cyclists' access to ferries
• More bike parking outside and in private buildings as well.
• Tighten enforcement of existing bike lanes and cyclist-protection laws.

White's group also discussed parking, noting that 15 bikes can fit in the same street space used to store one motor vehicle. The group consensus was that bike parking clogged neighborhoods with big numbers of cyclists like the East Village and Williamsburg would do well to set aside some street space for bike parking, particularly around subway stops.

Those who discussed subway service produced the day's most tailored suggestions. Activist Gene Russianoff, who heads the Straphangers Campaign for the New York Public Interest Research Group, said he had urged his group to "focus on things that could happen or are on the drawing boards." He reported support for the MTA's plan to install electronic real-time information on the 1, 6 and L lines in the next year. Looking farther ahead, Russianoff's group also pushed for cross-agency policies to make the subway better serve the streets above it. These would include:

• Completion of the 2nd Ave subway, ideally with a link to Brooklyn.
• A "green component across the system," building on the success of the solar panels at the Coney Island-Stilwell Avenue station.
• Expanding elevator access and other services to people who use wheelchairs.

Participants acknowledged the gap between what New Yorkers really want and what is currently politically popular. Russianoff rated outgoing Governor George Pataki's pet project, a link from Penn Station to Grand Central, "middle priority" and gave Mayor Bloomberg's plan to extend the 7 line to 11th Avenue and 34th Street "very low priority." Yet, "at the moment seems most likely to go ahead in the real world," Russianoff said.

How to narrow the gap between the real world and the ideal? That was the focus of Tollerson and Yaro's panel.  Tollerson's group called for sensible (i.e., radical) changes to guide future laws and rules. They want to see the City:

• Prioritize projects through inter-agency collaboration
• Create 24/7 live-work neighborhoods around transit hubs (without closing streets or building new towers that warp neighborhood scale)
• Use the zoning code to promote mass-transit oriented strategies.

Sounds like a tall order? For one day, at least, it all felt entirely possible.

On Friday, Department of Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall stood up in front of 600 people at Borough President Stringer's Transportation Policy Conference and said that her agency was serious about reducing car use in New York City. It was a great policy speech.

Then on Sunday morning I flipped on the radio and heard that the lower roadway of the Manhattan Bridge would be closed for repairs for a year. Throughout the day on Sunday and then again this morning, the local media has faithfully repeated this message from the City:

The Department of Transportation is urging drivers to use alternate routes and roadways, even though the upper level of the bridge will remain open during construction.

Is this nitpicking? I don't think so. In the end, it is the moments like this that count far more than a big policy speech at Columbia University. Today, the city's message on the Manhattan Bridge closure is being repeated ad nauseum throughout the region's various news channels. DOT has the ear of the region's commuters. The agency has the chance to let the region's car commuters know, in a subtle, non-threatening and entirely helpful way, that with the Manhattan Bridge's car-carrying capacity greatly reduced there are better ways to transport themselves into Manhattan than by car. So, why isn't DOT doing that?

It is one thing to make a great policy speech. It is a far different thing to implement policy. A policy speech doesn't mean that much if the content of that speech doesn't filter down into the day-to-day culture, communications and operations of city government. Commissioner Weinshall needs to make that happen.

Photo: GoCarlo

10:40 am:

Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia is the keynote speaker. In only one three-year term as Mayor, Penalosa revolutionized the transportation system and public spaces of his city of 7 million (Mayors only get one term in office in Bogota so he had to work fast). This was a big speech for Peñalosa. He even said that he was a little bit nervous about it. The crowd here is large -- 600 people -- and all of New York City's major transportation policy players are in the room.

Here's a bit of what Peñalosa said (insert mellifluous Colombian accent on your own):

"Today, we aren't just talking about transportation. What we are really talking about is: What kind of city do we want? There has to be a collective decision about how do we want to organize our lives. NYC along time ago, explicitly or implicitly decided that much of the city's space would be dedicated to cars. This was a decision. It's not some sort of natural law. Tomorrow we can change this. This is something that we have to decide. Transportation is not a technical matter. It is a political matter."

Applause line: "How about if we took away curbside parking and made sidewalks bigger? I speak in cities around the world and present New York City's sidewalks as the best, most lively sidewalks in the world. Still, they should be bigger. We did this in Bogota and it worked. New York City sidewalks, they could be much better."

"Manhattan could be one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world. Applause (Editors note: Wow on the applause. This is not a room full of TransAlt and Times Up members, folks. This is a pretty staid crowd). In Bogota we closed the city's streets to cars. I dream of Manhattan making a Broadway closure for pedestrians permanent. In Bogota we have the Sunday Ciclovía. We close the street on Sundays for bikes and joggers. I dream of this for Broadway for a few hours on Sundays."

"Bicycles are an amazing machine. If we are a democratic society then everyone has a right to safe mobility. But not everyone has access to a car. We have to think of a bike not as something that is cute or nice but a right. Safety for cyclists is a right. In a developing country cycling is a matter of democracy. Bike lanes are important, 20% for bike safety and 80% because it's a symbol that a citizen on a $25 bicycle is just as important as one in a $30,000 car." Applause.

"Bogota had 30,000 individual bus owners. So we created the TransMilenio Bus Rapid Transit system. The stations are in the middle of the street. When the bus comes four doors open and the bus floor is level with the covered platform. One hundred people can get in and out of the bus in seconds. Two dedicated lanes are going each wa. The system is moving more passengers per km/hour than most transit systems in the world. (Peñalosa shows a slide of automobile traffic completely jammed up next to a freely flowing bus lane). We called it TransMilenio to make it sound sexy. Buses have a bad name. The system is moving more than 1.4 million passengers a day. To pay for it we established a gasoline surcharge and 25% of the gas taxes goes towards financing TransMilenio." (More applause. What? Is this room filled with Communists!?)

"Why not a BRT while we wait for the Second Avenue subway to built? Make a bus that goes much faster than cars! Now Manhattan has beautiful buses but they move to slow. In our old, historic downtown people said the roads are too narrow for buses. We said, "You are totally right. So, now cars can not go downtown anymore." This is done in lots of cities -- parts of town where only buses and bicycles can go.

"Forty-second Street as a pedestrian promenade. I think that would be beautiful. Applause.

"What are we working towards? What is our goal? A city where a child can go anywhere safely on a bicycle." (Standing Ovation).

10:00 am:

Six hundred people registered for the conference and this auditorium is packed. Scott Stringer just finished his talk. Guess what: Congestion pricing is an applause line now. Stringer: "Cities around the world have shown us what a transportation policy can be. London's congestion pricing.... Copenhagen's bike and bus lanes.... Solutions are within our grasp. We are now poised for that change. People will make adjustments if we give them a reason to do so. Congestion pricing and Bus Rapid Transit should be part of this discussion." BIG APPLAUSE

9:47 am:

DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall just finished her introductory speech. Thanks to a police investigation nixing subway service over the Manhattan Bridge I missed the first half of it. But I got here in time to hear Weinshall announce one piece of significant news: DOT has agreed to close the Times Square "bow tie" making way for big pedestrian space increases in Midtown's congested heart. The "bow tie" is the segment of roadway between 42nd and 47th Streets that allows traffic to merge between 7th Avenue and Broadway. After the closure, cars traveling down 7th Avenue will be forced to continue down Broadway. Vehicles traveling down 7th Avenue will have to continue down Broadway. This entire middle section of Times Square will be given over to pedestrians. Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance has long sought this change. It will make traffic flow less complicated and creates a lot more pedestrian space within Times Square. Only a year ago powerful people within DOT were stymying the idea of closing the Times Square bow-tie. Today DOT's Commissioner is touting the change. The Times, they are a-changing