In the wake of the death of Dashane Santana, the 12-year-old girl killed by a minivan driver while she was crossing Delancey Street earlier this month, Lower East Side leaders are demanding safety improvements for the many pedestrians who cross this approach to the Williamsburg Bridge. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Borough President Scott Stringer, State Senator Dan Squadron and City Council Member Margaret Chin have each called on DOT to take action to prevent one more life from being taken by Delancey Street traffic.

A report from DNAinfo this morning lays out just how hostile the design of Delancey is to pedestrians. To cross Delancey at Clinton Street, where Santana was killed, pedestrians must traverse ten lanes of moving traffic in just 22 seconds.

That’s far less crossing time than pedestrians have at some of the city’s most notoriously dangerous intersections, which DNAinfo went out and measured. Reports DNAinfo’s Julie Shapiro:

For example, pedestrians crossing the eight-lane Queens Boulevard at Union Turnpike have a full 30 seconds to make it to the other side.

People traversing the six-lane Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard at 145th Street have 40 seconds, nearly double the crossing time on Delancey Street.

Other busy intersections with longer crossing times than Delancey Street include West Street at Albany Street, where pedestrians have 31 seconds to cross eight lanes; Houston Street at Essex Street, where pedestrians have 30 seconds to cross eight lanes; 12th Avenue at 23rd Street, where pedestrians have 34 seconds to cross six lanes; Ocean Parkway at Church Avenue in Brooklyn, where pedestrians have 45 seconds to cross 10 lanes; and Atlantic and Flatbush avenues in Brooklyn, where pedestrians have 60 seconds to cross four lanes.

DNAinfo’s report also includes the above video, which includes an interview with one of Santana’s schoolmates.

The area’s elected officials are primarily calling for pedestrian crossing times to be extended, a move that would surely make it easier to cross. Shrinking Delancey down from ten lanes should also be on the table; no matter how long the light is, that’s a wide street to ever cross safely.

DOT will present its plan for improving Delancey Street next Wednesday.

When Scott Stringer held his first transportation conference five years ago, streets like this didn't exist in NYC. Photo of First Avenue: NYC DOT

Times have changed since Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer hosted a conference on transportation reform in 2006. Five years ago, New York City appeared to be on the verge of shaking off the traffic-first approach to street engineering that had dominated city transportation policy for decades. Whispers were in the air about a push to tame city traffic and fund the transit system by putting a price on congestion-plagued streets. Since then, plenty of innovation has come to NYC streets, while traffic congestion and transit funding remain core challenges.

Last Friday, Stringer’s office organized a sequel, providing an opportunity to take stock of the last five years and recalibrate the transportation reform agenda going forward.

As it happened, former DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall made brief remarks at the outset of the event, hosted at John Jay College, in her capacity as a vice chancellor of CUNY. The moment was ripe with irony. Five years ago, then-commissioner Weinshall made a splash at the first Stringer transportation conference, calling for bus rapid transit, parking reform, safe routes to schools, and new public spaces. In the past two years, Weinshall’s dogged attempts to eradicate the Prospect Park West protected bike lane have, if nothing else, underscored why she had to leave the department before progress could be achieved on all the promises she made in 2006.

On Friday morning, the stage belonged to her successor, Janette Sadik-Khan, who highlighted DOT’s long list of achievements and innovations:

• Select Bus Service: Though the roll-out has been slower than originally anticipated and true bus rapid transit has eluded NYC DOT and the MTA, NYC now has three operating corridors of Select Bus Service, including 34th Street and First and Second Avenues in Manhattan and on Fordham Road in the Bronx, improving transit for tens of thousands of riders each day and attracting thousands more.
• Bicycling: In 2006, the city promised to add 200 new miles of bike lanes, a pledge that has since been fulfilled and surpassed. Now New York sets its sights not only on advancing the number of bike lane miles, but creating innovative street designs that lead the nation in making cycling accessible to a wide array of city residents.
• Parking: The DOT has piloted Park Smart, time-of-day variable pricing for parking spots in Park Slope and Greenwich Village and is on its way to expanding it into other parts of the city.
• Safe routes to schools: The city has a robust program to improve safety near 135 schools in all five boroughs.
• Public plazas: The big public space news of 2006 was that the city would add a ribbon of pedestrian space to the Times Square bowtie. No one could have predicted the city would add substantial public plazas at Times Square and Herald Square by reclaiming lanes from traffic.

For all the reasons to celebrate the progress on NYC streets, the conference also provided some sobering perspective on the state of the transit system.

Stringer focused on the high price of MTA capital construction – what former MTA Charman Jay Walder dubbed “the MTA premium” on construction costs compared to other world cities. New York suffers from a much higher cost per mile for expanding its subway network – nearly quadruple the cost of subway expansion in London and more than five times as expensive as in Paris, Berlin and Tokyo.

The borough president pointed to costly work rules and excessive regulation as causes. He also mentioned that not knowing the location of underground utility lines has slowed the Second Avenue Subway and driven up costs.

Stringer proposed an “underground census” that would help capital construction stay on time and under budget by using all our available technology to map the city’s entire subsurface infrastructure network. He claimed such a tool would have saved $80 million on the Second Avenue Subway project. Unfortunately, given the project’s multi-billion dollar pricetag, even $80 million amounts to a drop in the bucket.

Former Port Authority chief Chris Ward – always known as a frank pragmatist – could truly speak his mind, having left his post earlier this fall. He focused on the continued irrationality of New York’s road pricing and the failure to properly fund infrastructure, saying that the region is not going to get anywhere without tolling the East River bridges and developing a more general tolling structure that reflects when and how people use crossings. Crossing the Tappen Zee Bridge during the times of day when traffic moves freely should cost less than driving across the Brooklyn Bridge into the most congested part of the region. According to Ward, we need to assess user fees to reinvest in our infrastructure.

Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign agreed. “Someday we’ll have to move to a system of congestion pricing or bridge tolls. It’s politically very hard but it makes extremely rational sense as a source of funding,” he said, while adding that right now is a very difficult time to be talking about taxes or new revenues.

Albany’s failure to enact congestion pricing or bridge tolls has put transit advocates in a very hard place. Without those revenue streams, the MTA will have to borrow vast sums to pay for its current capital program — a lose-lose proposition. While on the one hand increased borrowing means that the pressure on the fare is only going to go up in the future, on the other hand rejecting borrowing means cutbacks in the capital program that would send the system back to the days of frequent train breakdowns and crumbling stations, said Russianoff.

After several rounds of fare hikes and service cuts in the past five years, there is a consensus that transit funding is the primary transportation issue New York City needs to face. What will it take to celebrate progress on that challenge when the next borough president’s transportation conference rolls around in 2016?

When Scottsdale, Arizona's speeding cameras were temporarily not being used for enforcement, the number of speeders jumped by over 1,000 percent. Image: John Petrozza

The Manhattan Borough Board passed a resolution last Thursday endorsing the use of automated cameras to catch speeding drivers. Earning the support of 10 Manhattan community boards and four City Council members — with no votes in opposition — the resolution was a strong show of support for better traffic enforcement on New York City streets.

As the borough board notes in the resolution, if a driver hits a pedestrian at 40 mph, the victim has a 70 percent chance of being killed, but is someone is struck at 30 mph, she has an 80 percent chance of surviving. With the NYPD stretched thin, camera enforcement is a proven way of consistently enforcing the speed limit.

The only Manhattan community board to abstain on Thursday was CB 9. All the others voted in support of the resolution (CB 3 was absent from the borough board meeting, but had previously voted in support of speeding cameras, according to Transportation Alternatives Safety Campaign Director Lindsey Ganson). No council members voted against or abstained from the resolution. The four voting members with representatives in attendance — Dan Garodnick, Jessica Lappin, Gale Brewer, and Robert Jackson — all voted in favor of the resolution.

Ganson singled out Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer for his influence in getting the borough board resolution passed. “Having his leadership really made all the difference,” she said. Stringer is a long-time supporter of stepped-up speeding enforcement, including through the use of cameras.

Outside Manhattan, Ganson said that the speed camera legislation has earned endorsements from Brooklyn CBs 7 and 9, Queens CB 8, Staten Island CB 2, and from committees at Bronx CB 4 and Staten Island CB 1.

These local shows of support could build momentum in Albany for legislation sponsored by Assembly Member Deborah Glick authorizing the use of speeding cameras, which is necessary for the city to install them, Ganson said. “Having both the borough board resolution and resolutions from individual community boards makes a huge difference when you have a meeting with a state senator or state assembly member,” she said. “It shows them that people in their own district, at the most local level of representation, support this.”

The text of the resolution and the roll call vote are available in full below:

MANHATTAN BOROUGH BOARD RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF AUTOMATED SPEED ENFORCEMENT CAMERAS

WHEREAS, the Manhattan Borough Board is deeply concerned about speed-related roadway deaths and injuries which resulted in the death of 63 people and the injury of 2,150 people in 2009; and

WHEREAS, pedestrians and cyclists are at a heightened risk of injury in speed-related crashes: if a pedestrian is hit by a car at 40 mph there is an 70% chance the pedestrian will be killed, but if a driver strikes a pedestrian at 30 mph there is an 80% chance the pedestrian will survive; and

WHEREAS, speeding is the number one cause of deadly crashes in New York City, claiming more lives than drunken driving and distracted driving combined; and

WHEREAS, in 2009, 170 cyclists and pedestrians were killed on New York City’s roads; and

WHEREAS, law enforcement agencies, with increasing responsibility and without commensurate increases in staffing levels, are considering technologies to improve their efficiency; and

WHEREAS, “automated speed enforcement cameras,” when used in conjunction with traditional means of traffic enforcement and public education complement law enforcement’s traffic safety efforts and enforcement programs; and

WHEREAS, automated speed enforcement cameras have been shown to reduce all crashes by 14-72% and injuries and fatalities by 40-45%; and

WHEREAS, the New York State Senate and Assembly will introduce legislation, which would authorize the City of New York to use camera technology to enforce existing speed limits and support the efforts of the NYPD;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Manhattan Borough Board supports the use of “automated speed enforcement cameras” and calls on the respective houses to pass this legislation and for the Governor to sign it; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Manhattan Borough Board urges the New York City Council and the Mayor to fully support this legislation.

CB 1 – Yes
CB 2 – Yes
CB 3 – Absent
CB 4 – Yes
CB 5 – Yes
CB 6 – Yes
CB 7 – Yes
CB 8 – Yes
CB 9 – Abstain
CB 10 – Yes
CB 11 – Yes
CB 12 – Yes

Councilmember Chin – Absent
Speaker Quinn – Abstain
Councilmember Mendez – Absent
Councilmember Garodnick – Yes
Councilmember Lappin – Yes
Councilmember Brewer – Yes
Councilmember Jackson – Yes
Councilmember Mark-Viverito – Absent
Councilmember Dickens – Absent
Councilmember Rodriguez – Absent

Borough President Stringer – Yes

Extra-wide Delancey Street is one of the most dangerous roads in New York. One pedestrian and one cyclist have already been killed on Delancey this year. Image: Google Street View.

Delancey Street is one of the most dangerous roads in the city. Between 2008 and 2010 alone, 134 pedestrians and cyclists were hit by drivers on Delancey, according to Transportation Alternatives, and two were killed on the street this year.

Last week, Streetsblog reported on a new design for the base of the Williamsburg Bridge which routed cyclists off Delancey and onto calmer side streets. The implication, it seemed, was that the Department of Transportation wasn’t planning to make Delancey safer for cyclists and pedestrians, just less trafficked by them.

Elected officials on the Lower East Side, however, aren’t standing for the deadly status quo. On Monday, State Senator Daniel Squadron convened the first meeting of a new working group meant to improve safety in the area.

“For too long, Delancey has been the scene of far too many tragedies,” said Squadron in a statement. “Our working group is a much-needed step toward ending the cycle of danger. I’m confident that, together, we can find the short-term and long-term solutions to ensure a safe Delancey Street for all types of users.”

Joining Squadron were City Council Member Margaret Chin and representatives from the offices of Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Borough President Scott Stringer, Community Board 3, the Lower East Side Business Improvement District, and Transportation Alternatives. Staff from the Department of Transportation and the NYPD, which would have to implement any safety plan, were also in attendance.

The group will meet monthly to create a set of short-term and long-term changes to improve safety for all users of Delancey. “All solutions are still on the table,” said Squadron spokesperson Amy Spitalnick. In an e-mail, she listed a few possible solutions already being considered: “turning restrictions, stop lines, lengthening medians and crossing times, and a real solution for bikes (understanding that they’ll end up on Delancey no matter what).”

We’ll be reporting on the working group’s recommendations as they develop, but for now, it’s encouraging to see this broad and powerful coalition of elected officials and community leaders commit to a safe Delancey Street. Their statements, collected in a press release, are below:

“I am confident that by working together city agencies, concerned elected officials, experts and community members will institute effective and creative ways to increase safety on the Delancey corridor,” said Council member Chin. “The number of fatalities this year alone demand action. It time to make Delancey safe for everyone who uses it.”

“By bringing the community together, we can develop solutions that improve traffic, pedestrian and cyclist safety in the Lower East Side,” said Congresswoman Velazquez.

“It is essential that we do everything possible to make sure we have the most effective safety measures in place to address the problems we have seen on Delancey Street,” said Speaker Silver. “I am encouraged that we now have key stakeholders at the table and I am hopeful that, with the full participation of the community, we can develop some solutions that will increase protections for pedestrians, cyclists and all other users of this important thoroughfare.”

“Last month’s tragic death of cyclist Jeffrey Axelrod was the latest painful reminder of the dangerous conditions that plague Delancey Street on the Lower East Side,” said Borough President Stringer. “For years I have called on the City to improve safety at this location, and this working group is a much needed a step in the right direction. I am committed to working with the NYC Department of Transportation, my colleagues in government, Community Board 3 and safety advocates to identify mitigations that will make Delancey Street safer for all users: pedestrians, cyclists and drivers.”

“While the last four years have been the safest in City history, we’re always working to make our streets even safer,” said NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. “We recently installed countdown signals along Delancey Street to help pedestrians cross and a safety redesign is now under way at the pedestrian and bike entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge. We continue to look for ways to build on the many enhancements we’ve made throughout the corridor and to working with elected leaders and other stakeholders to cut the number of traffic fatalities citywide in half by 2030.”

“Community Board 3 is very excited about working with the Delancey Street Working Group to make Delancey safer for everyone,” said David Crane, chair of the Community Board 3 Transportation Committee. “The Community Board has been grappling with this issue for years and has included it as a major problem in the current District Needs Statement. Senator Squadron has brought together agencies, advocates, and elected officials who are all very open to collaborating for the best resolution.”

“It’s about time everyone came together to finally put an end to the dangers on Delancey,” said Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives. “Delancey Street is one of the most hazardous streets in the city–this is an important first step in making Delancey safe for foot and bicycle traffic. We understand this is a complex corridor that needs to be carefully studied but there are quick solutions that could be implemented to start saving lives now while a more permanent fix is planned. We’re eager to discuss making these solutions a reality in this working group.”

“The LES BID is excited to participate in this important dialogue with our great partners in government regarding the Delancey Street corridor,” said Tim Laughlin, Director of Policy, Planning and Operations for the Lower East Side Business Improvement District. “We look forward to working with our elected officials to implement financially feasible safety improvements that will complement and enhance projects the BID is currently leading the way on, such as our plan to extend the Delancey pedestrian medians at both Essex and Orchard Streets.”

Borough President Scott Stringer and Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal press the DOT to install promised safety improvements at the dangerous intersection of Broadway, Amsterdam, and 71st Street on the Upper West Side. Behind them are neighborhood residents and members of Community Board 7. Photo: Noah Kazis

One year ago, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal stood on a traffic island in the middle of the intersection of Amsterdam Avenue, Broadway, and 71st Street to urge the Department of Transportation to install a slew of safety features at what they called “the bowtie of death.” That September, DOT put out a plan to expand sidewalks, add crosswalks and remove traffic lanes from both Broadway and Amsterdam.

This afternoon, Stringer and Rosenthal stood with Upper West Side community leaders on that same traffic island, urging DOT to finally put that safety plan into place. “Not next year, not during the fall, but now,” said Stringer.

Over the last two years, there have been 34 crashes at the intersection, according to Stringer’s office.

DOT had promised to make the safety improvements by this spring, Stringer said. The only change that’s been made so far are the installation of countdown timers on the walk signals. Knowing how much time you have to cross, he said, “is not the same as actually having more time.” Stringer explicitly called for each piece of the DOT safety plan to be installed, including the curb extensions, crosswalks, and the removal of traffic lanes.

“We shouldn’t be standing here today,” said Rosenthal. She’s been pushing for a safety fix for the intersection since 2007, when her office released a report on senior pedestrian safety in the neighborhood with Transportation Alternatives. The dangers of the crossing are so glaring that the Los Angeles Times led off a story on unsafe streets for the elderly with a discussion of that very corner, Rosenthal pointed out.

Rosenthal also named 96th Street, Riverside Boulevard, and the intersection of 79th Street and Riverside Drive as in need of pedestrian safety improvements.

Stringer said that while he’s met with DOT to discuss the intersection, he has gotten no firm commitment on when the safety fixes would be installed. The DOT press office did not reply to Streetsblog’s inquiry about what has held up the promised improvements.

Stringer was careful to state that the press conference was not an attack on the department or on Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. But, he said, “we’re not looking to come out here when somebody dies.”

Update: “Work will begin next month now that we’ve resolved the major challenges of building atop a major, active subway station,” DOT spokesperson Seth Solomonow told Streetsblog after the publication of this story.

DOT's plan for the intersection will, when installed, remove traffic lanes and add major sidewalk extensions and crosswalks

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer supports the idea of BRT along 34th Street, though you'd think quite the opposite from reading the Post. Photo: BP's Office via Flickr.

The Post’s unhinged crusade against the 34th Street Transitway appears to be bleeding over from the editorial page into news content. The paper ran a story yesterday strongly implying that Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer opposes plans for separated bus lanes along 34th Street (headline: “Beep blasts 34th St. plan”), while in reality, Stringer seems to support the basic idea of the plan, urging mainly that DOT proceed with care. Here’s Stringer’s statement to us, in full:

The sluggish pace of vehicular traffic on 34th Street makes it a worthy candidate for Bus Rapid Transit service. BRT has the potential to significantly cut down on harmful traffic congestion — we’ve already seen bus travel times reduced by 20 percent along the new First and Second Avenue routes.

But before we redesign this crucial thoroughfare, we need to engage in an environmental review that will clarify potential impacts on the residents, workers and visitors of 34th Street. Loss of curbside access could hurt local businesses and many residents worry that major traffic reconfigurations could block emergency vehicle access to the East Side Hospital corridor.

I look forward to seeing the design that the Department of Transportation will present at the March 14th Community Advisory Committee meeting, and will continue to engage with DOT and the local community to encourage a plan that works for all.

The Post used a Stringer quote about slow speeds on 34th Street to suggest he thinks the street is too congested for improved bus service. In context, Stringer clearly says the opposite, that slow speeds are a reason to support Bus Rapid Transit.

Stringer’s comments obviously don’t offer unconditional support for DOT’s plans, and he does not explicitly endorse a physically separated busway. (It’s worth noting in response to his concerns that DOT is already proceeding with the environmental review process, and that Dan Biederman, the head of the 34th Street Partnership, thinks the businesses he represents will benefit from the plan if it meets some basic conditions.) But in general, this is the statement of someone who wants to see Bus Rapid Transit advance beyond Manhattan’s first taste of Select Bus Service on the East Side. The Post owes its readers a correction.

Upper West Side leaders presenting their recommendations to tweak the Columbus Avenue bike lane. Photo: Noah Kazis

Since Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has promised to take his approach to street redesigns, first put into place by the Columbus Avenue working group, borough-wide, Streetsblog decided to check in with him to see just what this process would look like.

The details are still being worked out. Stringer wasn’t yet sure, for example, whether future working groups would limit their surveys to businesses along the same side of the street as the bike lane, as was done on Columbus, or branch out to groups like residents or pedestrians visiting the area. Stringer did say he’d like to bring working groups in from the very beginning of the process rather than solely using them to troubleshoot already implemented redesigns.

Stringer argued this would ultimately enhance the transformation of the city’s streets, not slow it down. On Columbus Avenue, he said, only two of the businesses surveyed said they were opposed to the new protected bike lane. “There’s a real opportunity here to tone down some of the rhetoric and get things done,” said Stringer. “Having dialogue and even disagreements with communities about street design in the short run may be a big pain for the bureaucrats, but in the long run it’s going to mean a lot to evolving the street design of the city.”

Stringer called the DOT’s current approach too domineering. “The DOT philosophy has been it’s either my way or the highway,” he said. “It’s a system that has been too top-down, too in your face.”

When pressed on the fact that the Columbus Avenue bike lane had been the subject of public discussion since 2008 and community board debate since 2009, Stringer walked back his comments somewhat. “I think that the Columbus Avenue bike lane process has from the beginning been really positive,” he said. Stringer said that the Columbus Avenue process was better than others because of the shared outlook of the community and DOT. “They put DOT in a more comfortable position, because at the end of the day the goals were the same,” he argued.

Even so, said Stringer, “there wasn’t always transparency.” He said that DOT wanted to keep the results of the working group’s survey private, for example. “If you think for a second that they’ve been collaborating with people around the city, that’s just not true.”

With the exception of the first segment on Ninth Avenue, however, the city’s new protected bike lanes have all received community board votes in favor. In the cases of Columbus Avenue, the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, and Prospect Park West, the agency was responding to community-based campaigns for safer streets.

Stringer believes the process went awry, for example, with the way pedestrian refuge islands were built along Columbus — DOT added most of them after the community board vote, once new funding became available to do so. “The islands are terrific,” said Stringer, who agreed that they had been popular at the community board when a smaller number were proposed. But, he said, the community shouldn’t have found out about the extra islands only after they had been installed.

“You tell people what’s going on,” he said. “If it’s good news, I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to tell people.” Not doing so, he argued, feeds “a public perception that you’re not transparent or forthcoming, real or imagined.”

Scott Stringer after his State of the Borough address last night, in which he held up his approach to street redesign as an example of how city government should work. Photo: Jill Colvin/DNAinfo.

Could Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer parlay his approach to adjusting street redesigns into a successful mayoral bid? In his State of the Borough speech last night — which was widely interpreted as a preview of his 2013 pitch — Stringer held up his work on Columbus Avenue as a prime example of the “new partnership” he wants to build between government and an engaged citizenry.

Stringer repeatedly used the word “collaborative” in his speech last night, a quality that he implied the Bloomberg administration lacks. “There is a troubling view taking hold that to set high standards and achieve good outcomes, we must rely on a closed, top-down model of government,” he said. If New York had allowed that attitude in the past, he said, “there would be a highway through SoHo.”

Instead, Stringer suggested, “leadership is about constantly widening your inquiry and circle of concern.” He offered his work surveying local business owners along the Columbus Avenue protected bike lane as his first example of this strategy in action. “This new partnership will show us the way to support bike lanes that respect drivers, pedestrians and business owners, just like my office did on Columbus Avenue with Gale Brewer,” he said.

Stringer’s decision to include his approach to bike lanes in the State of the Borough and to tie it to a broader campaign theme suggests that the implementation of his working group model for street redesigns will remain a top priority in coming years.

Turning to issues beyond the control of the mayor, Stringer also called for the creation of a national or regional infrastructure bank to fund transportation projects based on merit. New York needs to reclaim its heritage as “a place that tackles big projects on time and on budget,” he urged. To that end, he’s holding a conference with Congressman Steve Israel on the infrastructure bank idea next month.

Upper West Side leaders present their recommendations to tweak the Columbus Avenue bike lane. Photo: Noah Kazis

While the new protected bike lane on Columbus Avenue received community support throughout the process, once installed many local businesses along the corridor began to complain that the design was making it harder to park or make deliveries along the east side of the street. In response, elected officials and the community board developed a working group, surveyed those businesses and developed a set of tweaks intended to make the street design work better, which DOT has quickly accepted. That collaborative process has now set the scene for a continued expansion of the bike network on the Upper West Side.

The Columbus Avenue Working Group, made up of Community Board 7, the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance, and the offices of Borough President Scott Stringer, State Senator Thomas Duane, Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, and Council Member Gale Brewer, canvassed the blocks of Columbus between 77th and 96th streets, asking those businesses on the east side of the street what they thought of the bike lane. They announced the results of that survey at a press conference yesterday.

Of the 65 businesses they surveyed, 36 responded. And while that wasn’t a random sample, the results were pretty clear: 72 percent said the redesign had been bad for business. Of those negative responses, 86 percent identified reduced space for parking or loading as a concern and 53 percent said they’d had issues receiving deliveries.

No member of the working group, however, blamed the bike lane or called for a return to the more dangerous Columbus Avenue of the past. When asked by one reporter where things went wrong, Stringer answered, “I don’t think that things went wrong.” The only disconnect, he said, was that community consultation needed to be ongoing.

“You need bike lanes, but you need input,” agreed Brewer.

That input turned into a set of modest recommendations (the full document listing them is up at Transportation Nation). It calls for left turn lanes to be shortened, where possible, to restore a few parking spaces; for DOT to work with businesses to calibrate the parking/loading balance on their block; and to reprogram Munimeters so that they can’t issue permits during loading-only hours.

When they examined the street themselves, working group members found that the lack of loading space wasn’t due to an inadequate number of loading zones, but to inadequate enforcement of those loading zones, which filled up with parked cars. They therefore urge the NYPD to crack down on misuse of the loading zones — particularly parking placard abuse and double parking. They also recommend more enforcement of cyclist infractions in the bike lane.

Those recommendations earned the support of the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance. Columbus Avenue will now be a street “designed for everyone, with input from everyone,” said Tila Duhaime of the UWSSR.

During yesterday’s press conference, Stringer offered an additional recommendation that wasn’t included in the working group report. The borough president complained that the community board had voted on a plan with six pedestrian refuge islands but found 28 installed. When he said they should get rid of some of those islands, however, Brewer and Wymore instantly objected, saying they liked them.

In a letter sent yesterday, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan agreed to comply with most of the working group’s requests and to study or collaborate with other city agencies on the rest. Stringer took a few jabs at DOT during the press conference, but ultimately praised DOT for their quick and supportive response.

Stringer was impressed enough with the results that he wants to make the working group a model. “I want to go to Grand Street,” he said. “I want to go around the borough.”

Rosenthal said the Columbus Avenue model could be a way of bringing people together and cementing support for important street redesigns. “Everybody has an interest in realizing a safe and friendly pedestrian, motorist, bike lane city,” she said. “We want it to work: bike lanes have gotten some bad publicity lately.”

That theory may already be working. Wymore said that the community board is now “looking for ways to connect what we’ve already accomplished here on Columbus Avenue to other bike lanes throughout the city. The goals is to have a network of bike lanes that work and really allow people to get from place to place. Hopefully we’ll be working very closely with DOT to accomplish that.”

The originally-requested northbound pair on Amsterdam may be a harder lift, however. Wymore said that because Amsterdam is less wide and carries more motor vehicle traffic than Columbus, it needs to be considered as part of a neighborhood-wide analysis.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, with Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh on the right, at today's presser. Photo: Ben Fried

With the new protected bike lane on Second Avenue as a backdrop earlier today, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer called for a stepped-up campaign to keep bike lanes clear of obstructions and show New Yorkers how to use their re-designed streets the right way. While many Manhattan streets have been re-engineered for improved safety, he said, enforcement and education aren’t keeping up.

Stringer staffers measured bike lane violations at 11 locations during the morning and evening rush between October 5 and October 7. Motorists blocking bike lanes, wrong-way cycling, and pedestrians wandering into the lane were the most widespread types of misuse. Out of 275 motor vehicles blocking bike lanes, 35 were part of the city’s fleet. Of those, 19 were cops.

On average, observers found that protected lanes were twice as likely to be clear of cars or trucks as painted lanes. But I think most people would agree that driving in a protected lane is at least twice as egregious. Among the blockages Stringer’s staff witnessed: police cars “in apparent non-emergency situations cutting through protected bike lanes to circumvent traffic stopped by a red light.”

The Borough President is recommending that NYPD crack down on bike lane-blocking motorists. He suggests putting traffic enforcement agents on bikes to patrol lanes and issue summonses to both motorists and cyclists. He also wants to see the TLC launch an awareness campaign to cut down on dooring. Stringer said he sent the report to NYPD and the TLC and hasn’t heard back from the agencies yet.

You can see the tally of bike lane violations and Stringer’s full set of recommendations in his report [PDF].

It’s going to be interesting to see how the press picks up this story. We’ve seen an awful lot of sensationalized coverage of the new bike lanes lately. Stringer’s report endorses the infrastructure — it’s mainly concerned with behavior and enforcement. Here’s how it’s being reported in the Daily News, NY1, the Observer, Transportation Nation, Gothamist, and — really, really terribly — on CBS2.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer released his recommendations for the Riverside Center megaproject yesterday afternoon. Like Community Board 7, he doesn't approve of Extell Development's request to build more than 1,800 underground parking spaces and an automobile showroom and repair shop. He does believe, however, that 1,100 parking spots would be appropriate.

The Borough President's recommendations, which you can read in full in this West Side Spirit report, are advisory; the project now moves to the City Planning Commission and then the City Council, which will have the final say.

Compared to the developer's proposal, Stringer's request would help make the project more walkable in a few other ways. For instance, following the community board's example, Stringer has asked for the project to be built at street level, rather than on an elevated platform, so that it is integrated with the neighborhood's sidewalks and street life.

But the parking levels will have the greatest effect on traffic and how people choose to get to and from Riverside Center. At the community board meeting on this project held in July, no one spoke in favor of the developer's eye-popping proposal of 1,800 parking spaces, but debate raged over whether the board would request 700, 1,000, or 1,200 spaces. The board ultimately recommended 1,000.

Stringer is calling for the slightly larger number of 1,100 spaces, which equals the capacity of the first of two floors of parking that Extell is seeking to build. According to the recommendations put out by Stringer's office, the 1,100 parking spot figure came from adjusting the calculations in the developer's environmental impact statement to match the car ownership rate found in a study of the nearby Hudson Yards area. 

By many counts, the number of parking spaces at Riverside Center ought to be far smaller.

Under a 1991 agreement limiting the total number of spaces allowed at the larger Riverside South development area, only 743 spaces would be allowed at the Riverside Center site. If Riverside Center had the same ratio of parking to residences as neighboring buildings, it would only contain around 550 spaces, according to CB 7 member Hope Cohen. By these metrics, 1,100 or even 1,000 spots are still a huge concession to the automobile. 

Stringer's office defended the higher total, arguing that in 1991, 577 residential units and a TV studio were planned for the site, whereas the current proposal could have up to 3,000 units of housing (but no TV studio). "Failure to accommodate the demand for parking of the development would likely cause a significant environmental impact as defined by CEQR," added a spokeswoman, referring to New York City's environmental review law.

The borough president's position is one more reminder of the irony that the city's environmental law often ends up establishing de facto parking minimums across the city, even in Manhattan south of 60th Street. And it brings home the arbitrariness of the whole exercise. Had Stringer's office simply made different assumptions about car-ownership rates, he might have recommended 550 spaces instead of 1,100.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer pressed for traffic safety legislation. He was joined by, from left, Council Member Margaret Chin, the families of Hayley Ng and Diego Martinez, State Senator Daniel Squadron and Transportation Alternatives director Paul Steely White. Photo: Noah Kazis

State Senator Daniel Squadron, who sponsored the bill with Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh, led off the rally. He was joined by the families of Hayley Ng and Diego Martinez, two preschoolers killed last year while walking through Chinatown with their classmates. A delivery van that had been left idling jumped the curb, killing the children, but the driver wasn't charged with any infraction.

By defining a new infraction that increases the likelihood that drivers will face consequences for injuring pedestrians and cyclists, said Squadron, Hayley and Diego's Law will "send the message that careless driving is dangerous and unacceptable." For a first offense, the bill would impose a penalty of $750, 15 days of jail time, or a driver training course; for a second offense, the penalty would be a misdemeanor charge.

Squadron also provided an update on the bill's status. Though it passed the legislature around three weeks ago, it hasn't been presented to the governor yet. When that happens, the governor will have ten days in which to sign or veto the bill. "We're hopeful that the governor will sign it," said Squadron, adding, however, that "I don't think they've fully looked at it yet."

A Paterson spokesperson later confirmed that the governor will review the legislation once the bill reaches his desk.

The strongest words came from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. "Enough is enough," he said. "We want our streets back for our children and frail elderly." Stringer also highlighted the particular need to curb speeding. Forty percent of New York City drivers exceed the speed limit, said Stringer, citing a 2009 Transportation Alternatives study and noting that crashes are nearly twice as deadly at 40 mph as at 30 mph. "When you get into a car, the life of the surrounding community is in your hands," he concluded.

Local Council Member Margaret Chin said the deaths of two small children served as a wake-up call. "What happened to Hayley and Diego showed how dangerous our streets are for our pedestrians," she said. Chin also promised that the City Council would continue to fight for pedestrian safety.

This somewhat loaded prompt is one of several transportation-related questions posed by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in an online survey on the next city budget. There's also an open-ended comment section at the end.

Results will be included as part of Stringer's response to the mayor's budget proposal, which calls for $5 million in cuts to DOT "Complete Streets" projects. The deadline for responses is this Friday, March 5. If you have a few minutes to spare this week, it couldn't hurt to click on over.

A rendering of the proposed Moynihan Station. (Photo: The Real Deal)

The grant makes the intended successor to the current Penn Station, a longstanding priority for New York's congressional delegation, the first winner in a highly competitive chase for $1.5 billion in federal transport funding aimed at moving the U.S. DOT towards a more merit-based decision-making process.

The TIGER funding will allow the project to begin its Phase I of construction, which includes building vertical access points from the street to the new transit hub. Work should begin by the end of the year, according to Friends of Moynihan Station, a private-sector advocacy group founded by the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's (D-NY) daughter.

"Moynihan Station is the poster child for the best way to use federal funding -- it creates jobs, upgrades aging transportation infrastructure, and leaves behind an economic engine for the entire region," Schumer said in a statement.

Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer also hailed the federal grant through his spokeswoman: "For too long, Moynihan Station has been stopped dead in its tracks. Now that our congressional delegation has been able to secure a down payment, we can begin moving forward on this project, which will create jobs, ease congestion, boost tourism, and right the wrongs of half a century ago" -- a reference to the destruction of the original, above-ground Penn Station, which urbanist pioneer Jane Jacobs fought to preserve.

The rest of the Obama administration's TIGER grants are expected to reach public view starting tomorrow, with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood slated to visit Tuscon (hoping for streetcar aid) and Kansas City (home to the ambitious Green Impact Zone).

Protected bike lanes would enhance safety for cyclists and pedestrians on Amsterdam Avenue.

Last fall, Manhattan CB 7 passed a resolution asking DOT to prepare a proposal for protected lanes in the district, which stretches from 110th Street to 59th Street. In a letter addressed to DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan earlier this week, eight electeds signaled their support for the resolution.

The letter [PDF] commends "DOT's ongoing effort to encourage safe, environmentally friendly and healthy modes of transportation" and offers to help the agency consult with local groups prior to implementing bike lanes on the West Side. In addition to Stringer, the signatories are State Senators Tom Duane, Bill Perkins, and Eric Schneiderman; Assembly members Linda Rosenthal and Dick Gottfried; and Council members Melissa Mark-Viverito and Gale Brewer.

DOT says it will work with West Side stakeholders as the agency develops proposals for the area.

East Side electeds continue to express support for the MTA and NYCDOT's redesign of First and Second Avenues while pushing for a more complete corridor. In exchanges with Streetsblog this week, they called attention, in particular, to the absence of plans for separated bus lanes along the corridor.

Assembly Member Jonathan Bing, who represents the Upper East Side and East Midtown, praised the redesign, "even if it's not everything that we asked for." The release of a specific design, he said, "brings into sharper focus the major benefits we will get." But Bing didn't hide his displeasure with the bus lanes: "I was one of the signatories to a letter a couple of weeks ago calling for segregated lanes and obviously anything that does not comport with the terms of the letter is disappointing."

Two years ago, a bill sponsored by Bing enabling the use of bus-mounted enforcement cameras fell short in Albany, a measure which he says is now urgently needed. "This current decision makes it even more important that we push for cameras, as that's going to be pretty much the only means of enforcement," he said.

State Senator José M. Serrano, whose district stretches from the West Bronx down to East Harlem and Yorkville, didn't single out the corridor's design itself but called on DOT and the MTA to implement the project equitably. Many improvements are on hold in Serrano's district pending Second Avenue Subway construction.

"This new service will improve the commute for East Side residents from the Lower East Side, all the way north to my district in East Harlem," he said. As such, Serrano "would like to emphasize how important it is that the design be completed in full throughout the corridor... We must ensure that, wherever possible, equal facilities and infrastructure -- such as the separated bike lane or the red painted bus lane -- are provided to the entire corridor."

Assembly Member Micah Kellner, who also represents the Upper East Side, told Streetsblog he's excited about the project, particularly after some of his concerns about station placement had been addressed. Even so, he isn't satisfied. "My remaining concern is the lack of physically separated bus lanes," Kellner said. "While I appreciate the need to address the needs of businesses that rely on deliveries," he added, "the primary goal of SBS must be to provide mass transit consumers with uninterrupted, speedy service along the First and Second Avenue corridors -- this should be the priority over all other small inconveniences."

With regards to separated bus lanes, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer didn't stake out a position but restated his belief that the current designs are not yet final, saying that he will be "working closely with members of the East Side Community Boards and the Department of Transportation" to keep communication open and guarantee that "the final proposal balances the needs of the community and the logistical realities of these two corridors." Stringer was not a signatory of December's letter calling for separated bus and bike lanes. 

City Council Member Jessica Lappin, also an Upper East Side representative, agreed that "the most important thing is that we move forward with Select Bus Service," while standing by her position that the corridor should receive separated lanes for both bikes and buses.

Lappin noted that in many parts of her district, subway construction would leave much of Second Avenue without any improvements. "I can understand that they don't want to put in infrastructure that they have to take out, but we need infrastructure that works," she said. "I don't want people thinking that they're in a free-for-all zone when the barriers suddenly end." She called on the MTA and DOT to develop a solution to ensure that, even in construction zones, First and Second Avenue cyclists and pedestrians are safe and buses move quickly. 

The MTA and DOT both said they'll take the response from electeds into account. "We're encouraged by the feedback we've received so far, and we look forward to receiving additional input as the design process moves forward," an MTA spokesman said.

"We're excited by the innovative proposal we presented last week and will take into account the feedback we received at that meeting -- where the plan was generally well-received," said a DOT spokesman. "We also look forward to getting additional community input at next month's board meetings."

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

With the state legislative session underway, Albany will soon turn its attention to business that lawmakers never got the chance to address last year. One bill to keep an eye on would give police and prosecutors a new tool to protect pedestrians and cyclists.

After two preschoolers were killed in Chinatown last January by a van driver who left his vehicle idling and unattended, lawmakers and advocates drafted "Hayley and Diego's Law." The bill is what's known as a "vulnerable user law." It would create a new offense called careless driving, which would carry penalties of up to $750 in fines and 15 days in jail for drivers who hit and injure vulnerable street users -- including all pedestrians and cyclists.  

One person's perspective can make a big difference in community board decisions. After a few fresh faces joined Manhattan CB 7 and CB 8, each board defied expectations last fall by passing resolutions in favor of protected bike infrastructure.

Here's where to go tonight if you want to find out more:

Final Community Board Information Session:

Monday, January 11th, 6:30 -- 8:00 p.m.

Community Board 12, 711 West 168th Street

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.