Hint: "The answer might depend on who you think is the giant."

Which coalition has been winning so far in the congestion pricing wars? So far, at least, the pro-congestion pricing forces have been on the defensive, even though they appear to be much better organized and financed and have the support of three bedrock organizations of municipal influence: the Partnership for New York City, the Regional Plan Association and the Citizens Budget Commission.

But it is not clear that supporters of congestion pricing have won enough public support, despite having achieved broad support among organized interests. Meanwhile, opponents of congestion pricing, like the Queens Civic Congress, have had a lower test to meet; their goal is to defeat the traffic fees by raising just enough doubt and skepticism -- with a public that is already doubtful and skeptical.

No matter that the overwhelming majority of commuters to Manhattan do not need to drive, or that the money raised from traffic fees would be used to improve mass transit across the city. The point is that the opponents of congestion pricing, like the Queens Civic Congress, have so far managed to create enough doubt around the idea -- a doubt that has swayed many Assembly members.

Of course it's easy to raise doubt and skepticism about a complex issue when one's arguments are largely unburdened by facts. Take this passage on Council Member David Weprin from today's Metro, in which the paper itself -- as does the City Room passage above -- refutes a rote, yet mostly baseless, objection to congestion pricing.

"I represent a district in eastern Queens that for most people is four or five miles from the nearest subway,” he said. "It is also not accessible to buses. You can’t tell me that they’re going to start building subways and changing bus lines in time if they’re going to adopt this congestion tax now."

Yet that is the stated intention of the Bloomberg administration, which hopes to first increase bus service to areas that lack subway access before implementing congestion pricing. More than half of the projected $500 million federal grant would supposedly go for transportation improvements. For example, one neighborhood in Weprin’s district -- Bayside -- is already slated to get new and expanded bus service under the mayor’s long-term sustainability plan, dubbed PlaNYC.

Weprin, though, remains unconvinced.

"The mayor is asking Albany to act now on the congestion tax and to worry about the public transportation improvements later," he said. "That’s backwards."

So Weprin wants to kill the plan to finance the improvements he says are needed before the plan he wants to kill can be implemented.

David and Goliath? Sure, if this version has a looking glass...

However, the mayor also said he may be amenable to a revised version that simply raised the cap on the vehicles, known as pedicabs. He suggested 500 as a limit.

Bloomberg had supported the pedicab regulation measure as it moved through the City Council. But during a bill signing ceremony on March 14, he postponed his decision after hearing arguments from a group of pedicab drivers who said the proposal would cost them their jobs.

"Let the free marketplace decide," Bloomberg said Friday during his weekly radio show on WABC.

Stu Loeser, a spokesman for the mayor, said that Bloomberg did favor the bill's measures that called for basic safety and insurance regulations for pedicabs.

The mayor acknowledged it's likely the City Council could override the veto, but urged citizens to lobby for a cap removal or one that's higher.

All across the city neighborhood groups are coming together to re-envision and plan their own communities. In the last few months we've seen valuable community-planning processes taking place in Hell's Kitchen, the Meatpacking District and, to a certain extent, along Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. People aren't waiting around for real estate developers or city agencies to tell them how their neighborhoods should be. They are going out and doing the thinking and planning themselves.

Add the neighborhoods around Grand Army Plaza to the list of communities taking pro-active steps to create a streets renaissance in New York City. Grand Army Plaza Coalition organizer Rob Witherwax describes the GAPco community workshop event in more detail:

Recently, we've witnessed a great example of community planning and traffic engineering from the top down (DOT Deputy Commissioner Michael Primeggia's one-way plan for 6th and 7th Avenues) and seen how well it was received by its intended beneficiaries. However, on a much quieter note, we have also participated in a great example of grassroots community planning: the GAPCo Community Workshop, held on Saturday, March 10 at the Brooklyn Public Library.

GAPCo, as you may recall, is the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. It was formed just over a year ago to study Grand Army Plaza and propose ways to improve access to, and through, Grand Army Plaza for all user groups. GAPCo has grown organically to comprise many community stakeholders: private residents, civic and business associations, cultural organizations like Prospect Park and the other Heart of Brooklyn members, activists, and the city government (community boards, elected officials, and bureaucrats alike). Everyone got on the bandwagon early, and participated: in a site walk-through, the formulation of 14 short term fixes, and taking ownership of the Plaza through clean up efforts.

The culmination of GAPCo's year of organization and study was the March 10 community workshop. Fifty individuals, representing almost as many different stakeholder groups assembled on an overcast Saturday morning to play Project for Public Spaces' "Place Game." Seven teams dispersed to various sites around GAP to examine and evaluate how (and whether) those sites worked to their full potential. Returning to the library, those teams brainstormed on improvements to their site, and presented their findings to the other teams.

Literally, dozens of great ideas emerged: some were simple, small scale, easily achievable; others dramatic and more far-reaching. PPS and GAPCo are currently refining and categorizing these ideas, and will shortly issue formal findings. These findings will contain suggestions for improving way-finding and access, addressing the lack of public amenities, leveraging opportunities for historical and cultural exposure, restoring a better balance between 'car space' and 'people space', and instituting regular programming for the space. 

The important point to emphasize is that each of these suggestions was reached in a consensus-building manner by a broadbased coalition of stakeholders. Rather than having a few guys in a room crunch numbers and redraw maps, many people immersed themselves in Grand Army Plaza, and devised solutions based on their own common observations. Together we came up with a set of ideas that no one indivdual ever could have developed. It doesn't take an expert to see Grand Army Plaza has issues, and it need not take an expert to solve those issues.

Every drivers knows that it can be nearly impossible to find a legal parking space in the neighborhoods in and around Downtown Brooklyn but, until today, no one had ever tried to quantify the problem. No Vacancy (PDF download), a new study by Transportation Alternatives, finds that nearly half of all of the vehicles clogging the vital shopping avenues of Park Slope are occupied by drivers who are simply looking for a parking space. T.A.'s study, which riffs off the work of UCLA professor Donald Shoup, author of the acclaimed (and remarkably entertaining) High Cost of Free Parking, found that:

• 94% of the area's metered parking spaces are occupied with nearly 100% of spaces occupied at peak periods.
• Nearly one in every six vehicles parked along 7th Avenue is illegally parked, with the rate of illegal parking rising exponentially as the curb fills.
• Nearly two-thirds of local traffic consists of vehicles circling the block looking for parking spaces!

White says "When one in two cars is simply circling the block in search of parking, the curb is being mismanaged. This study shows that Brooklynites are suffereing from needless traffic and dangerous illegal parking that could be easily eliminated through inexpensive improvements like market-priced Muni-Meters and residential parking permits."

Yassky has been pushing the City to explore the possibility of a residential parking permit program for the neighborhoods around Downtown Brooklyn for three years now. Many believe that residential parking permits and better management of curbside parking space could help reduce unnecessary automobile trips into transit-rich Downtown Brooklyn. Jointly conducted by the Downtown Brooklyn Council, DOT and EDC, the residential permit study (PDF download) ultimately recommended not going forward with a residential parking permit program. The $75,000 study was one of the only concessions that the Bloomberg Adminsitration made to neighborhood groups during the extensive rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn.

• Report: No Place To Park In Park Slope (NY1)
  

Testifying before the City Council on Intro. 199, a bill to improve NYC transportation data collection and performance measures, outgoing NYCDOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall challenged the bill's suggestion that New York City's transportation-related data collection efforts don't go far enough. Commissioner Weinshall told the Council, "the City Charter already requires the submittal of objectives and indicators as detailed in the Mayor's Management Report (MMR) and, therefore, any legislation to require additional reporting seems redundant."

Press coverage of the hearing focused on Weinshall's statements that traffic congestion is more a matter of perception owing to bigger vehicles rather than growing numbers of them. Leaving aside the obvious fact that vehicle size matters to congestion-the same number of people driving trucks take up a lot more room than if they were on bicycles - the absence of any real information about traffic or congestion trends in the city in the commissioner's testimony seemed to argue for the Council's proposal.

Tri-State concludes:

The Bloomberg administration missed a golden opportunity to build support through Intro. 199 for new metrics of sustainable transportation. The Council should pass Intro 199, explicitly charging the city administration to come through with a way to measure progress on sustainability goals.

Here's an editorial one wouldn't expect to see in The Times: An unabashedly pro-bicycle manifesto anointing cycling as "the cheap, green answer to so many contemporary troubles" and urging city authorities to use congestion-charging revenues to create a first-class cycling infrastructure.

Alas, this remarkable editorial was published not in the New York Times, but in the Times of London. Here in New York City our leading editorial board is busy pushing the police to hand out more traffic tickets to bike riders while debating State Senator Carl Kruger's absurd proposal to fine pedestrians who cross the street while listening to an iPod.

Cycling, the London Times editorial argues, "is a way to reduce stress and demonstrate an environmental conscience at the same time." The modern urban cyclist "is making an elegant and intelligent response to pollution and traffic congestion." The editorial even alludes to Peter Jacobsen's revelatory "safety in numbers" finding, something I've never seen in a mainstream, general-audience publication:

Cycle lanes need to be better protected from motorists. There would also be safety in numbers. At 2 per cent ridership, London lags far behind cities such as Berlin (10 per cent), Copenhagen (20 per cent) and Amsterdam (28 per cent), where the cyclist numbers influence driver behaviour.

Even the obligatory mention of bad biking behavior feels half-hearted and concludes on a rising note:

Those who ride on [sidewalks], who head in the wrong direction down one-way streets, and who smugly jump traffic lights with no care for others, are certainly stoking contempt for this bespoke form of transport. But the majority should not be tarred with that brush. British cyclists are to be admired for their courage, if not always for their manners.

The contrast between London and New York City's civic elite is stark. "Far too many traffic officers fail to hand out tickets to bicyclists who don't follow the rules," the Gray Lady scolded earlier this month, in that ridiculous iPod editorial that, actually, had nothing to do with cycling. The Times' most recent editorial on bicycle policy, Cyclists, the Police and the Rest of Us, seemed to imply that people who ride bikes in New York City are not, well, "the rest of us."

The London Times editorial steers way clear of casting cyclists as The Other. Here's how it wraps:

London has a unified transport authority. It must join up the dots. It is unacceptable for the world's foremost capital city to have a patchwork of cycle routes which peter out timidly on the road to nowhere. It may seem paradoxical that an intermediate technology is now the future. But it would be churlish not to encourage cycling as the cheap, green answer to so many contemporary troubles. May those who cycle be blessed with clean consciences, stronger arteries and safer journeys.

Just so. And may some of us live to see the day when our paper of record dons its glasses, clears its throat and delivers a ringing endorsement of cycling in our city. It's just a matter of time.

Photo: Dave Gorman / Flickr

We could really use the help of the Streetsblog online community to build this collection. If you know of a site that fits the bill, or if you wouldn't mind spending a few minutes poking around online to find some good potential sites in specific cities, please do. Just add your finds to the comment section.

Here are some starter links to give you a sense of the kinds of sites we've been finding so far...

Boston:
http://newtonstreets.blogspot.com
http://www.livablestreets.info

Toronto:
http://bikingtoronto.blogspot.com

Portland:
http://www.bikeportland.org

Cleveland:
http://www.gcbl.org

Washington DC:
http://washcycle.typepad.com
http://pedshed.net

San Fran:
http://bikecommutetips.blogspot.com

Berkeley:
http://www.localecology.org/localecologist

Miami:
http://www.transitmiami.blogspot.com

London:
http://www.kingscrossenvironment.com

Vancouver:
http://sfucity.wordpress.com/about/

As Streetsblog reported Monday, New York City's Department of Transportation failed to follow through on a 2004 pledge to build potentially life-saving pedestrian safety improvements along the Third Avenue corridor where a 4-year-old boy was run over and killed last Tuesday.

Streetsblog asked DOT why the pedestrian safety recommendations were never implemented despite a March 19, 2004 announcement by DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall that DOT would make an "immediate review" of the Third Avenue corridor and accelerate "$4 million in funding for capital improvements associated with the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming... from Fiscal Year 2009 to Fiscal Year 2006."

Here is a reply, from the agency's press office:

DOT has acted on many of the recommendations of the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Report since it was published in June 2004 and improved conditions for pedestrians and cyclists. On several streets in Downtown Brooklyn, DOT has reduced the number of travel lanes, added medians and left turn bays, adjusted signal timings, converted one-ways to two-ways and added parking, all to slow vehicles down and discourage through traffic. Miles of bike lanes have been installed, including a physically separated path on Tillary Street. Leading Pedestrian Intervals (LPI) were installed at 9 locations and LPI studies will begin shortly at 3 more intersections.

Capital work was delayed because the construction was more complicated than initially anticipated. Preliminary plans for all 250 recommended neckdowns were completed by DOT in March 2005, but underground utilities issues led to the need for more complex designs. The project has been divided into two phases to be handled by the Department of Design and Construction. The first phase, in the capital plan for fiscal year 2008, is fully funded at $5 million and includes the construction of neckdowns at 101 locations at 43 intersections.

To put the 2008 date in perspective, the public demonstrations that led to the creation of the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project began in 1996.

DOT's announcement of $4 million in funding for the installation of "median extensions, neckdowns and other traffic-calming" measures recommended by the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming plan was made after the February 9, 2004 deaths of Juan Estrada and Victor Flores. The Park Slope fifth graders were run over and killed by a gravel-filled truck at Third Avenue and 9th Street in circumstances eerily similar and almost exactly three years prior to Tuesday's tragedy

Last week, 4-year-old James Nyprie Rice was killed at the intersection of Third Avenue and Baltic Street in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn (newspaper stories had him incorrectly named as James Jacaricce). The boy and his 18-year-old aunt were walking in the crosswalk with the pedestrian signal giving them right-of-way when a yellow General Motors Hummer, driven by 48-year-old Ken Williams of Brownsville, made a right turn off of Third Avenue and ran them over, killing the boy and injuring his aunt. Juan Estrada and Victor Flores were also killed by a right-turning truck while walking in the crosswalk with the right-of-way. In both cases the drivers walked away with a summons from police.

As reported Thursday on Streetsblog, the May 2003 final report of the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project had recommended a set of pedestrian safety measures -- a "gateway treatment" consisting of "neckdowns" and a "raised crosswalk" for the intersection of Third Avenue and Baltic Street. These particular traffic-calming measures (illustrated at right) are designed specifically to protect neighborhood streets from through-traffic and help prevent the type of "right turn conflict" that killed all three boys.

The pedestrian safety recommendations were never implemented despite a March 19, 2004 announcement by DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall that DOT would make an "immediate review" of the Third Avenue corridor and accelerate "$4 million in funding for capital improvements associated with the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming... from Fiscal Year 2009 to Fiscal Year 2006." These funds, according to the commissioner's statement would "enable DOT to install median extensions, neckdowns and other traffic-calming initiatives." Fiscal Year 2006 ended on June 30.

The 2004 deaths of Estrada and Flores made the front pages of all of the dailies and Commissioner Weinshall's commitment to accelerated traffic calming was made following an unusual and emotional joint meeting of City Council's Transportation, Education and Pubilc Safety Committees. The March 1, 2004 public hearing, which opened with a moment of silence for the two Brooklyn boys, was convened to press DOT for pedestrian safety improvements around city schools and at the location where the two boys died.

Since March 2004 the Department of Transportation has accelerated the planning of its once-moribund Safe Routes to Schools program and provided Downtown Brooklyn and surrounding neighborhoods with a number of spot traffic-calming, pedestrian safety and bicycle infrastructure improvements, many of which are illustrated in this PDF document. At Third Avenue and 9th Street where Estrada and Flores died, DOT "granted to pedestrians" a seven second head start across the intersection ahead of motor vehicles, a traffic-calming measure known as a Leading Pedestrian Interval.

Yet, three years after Commissioner Weinshall's apparent commitment, DOT has not built neckdowns, median extensions or any other significant, physical pedestrian safety measures along the dangerous Third Avenue corridor.

The three fatalities above aren't the whole story either. On December 7, 2006 a 6-year-old boy named Andry Vega, was fatally struck at 3rd Avenue and 46th Street in Sunset Park by a truck running a red light.

Though pedestrian fatalities, on the whole, have declined in New York City in recent years, Third Avenue appears to be bucking the trend.

 
A graphic from the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project final plan showing pedestrian safety recommendations for Third Avenue and Baltic Street

The five-year, $1.2 million, Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project recommended "neckdowns" and a "raised crosswalk" at Third Avenue and Baltic Street, the intersection where four-year-old James Jacaricce and his 18-year-old Aunt Ta-Nayin St. John were run over by a bright yellow General Motors Hummer driven by Ken Williams, a 48-year-old Brownsville resident (Click here to download that section of the Traffic Calming plan).

The boy and his caretaker were on their way home from the Police Athletic League nursery school at the Warren Street Houses when they were hit by Williams' SUV. They were walking in the crosswalk with the pedestrian signal giving them right-of-way when Williams, traveling northbound on Third Avenue, made a right turn and hit them, killing the boy and injuring his aunt. Police told the Daily News "The guy didn't realize he hit them because the vehicle rides very high." There is a car wash on the southeast corner of Third and Baltic. It is set back from the street and was closed for the day when the crash occurred. Apparently, the only thing impeding Williams' sightline was his own vehicle.

Looking up Baltic Street from Third Avenue

While it is impossible to know definitively if Tuesday's crash could have been prevented, the pedestrian safety measures recommended nearly four years ago in the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project are designed specifically to prevent the type of "right-turn conflict" that resulted in the four-year-old's death. The community-driven plan, created by the international consulting firm Arup, urged New York City's Department of Transportation to install neckdowns and a raised crosswalk at Baltic Street where vehicles from busy, fast-moving, truck-heavy Third Avenue turn onto the quieter, more residential street. A raised crosswalk makes pedestrians more visible to drivers as they walk across the street. Neckdowns make it more difficult for drivers to execute fast, careless turns into the crosswalk while pedestrians are crossing.

The recommendations were never implemented by the Department of Transportation despite widespread community support for the plan. DOT has not yet responded to questions about why the safety measures were never implemented.

Tuesday's crash is reminiscent of the deaths Juan Estrada and Victor Flores, fifth-graders at P.S. 124 in Park Slope, who were crushed to death by a right-turning, gravel-filled landscaping truck as they crossed Third Avenue at 9th Street, on February 9, 2004, nearly three years ago to the day of James Jacaricce's death.

Pedestrian fatalities needn't go unmarked. Last year in Chicago, after a little girl named Maya Hirsch was struck by a car running a stop sign, the result was an immediate crackdown on reckless motorists, fully backed by the city's mayor and police department. Maya's death also prompted proposed legislation that calls for stiffer penalties for drivers who ignore stop signs. It's called Maya's Law, and it's just moved out of committee. Chicago lawmakers are also talking about using an increase in parking meter fees to fund crosswalk-safety improvement, transit station upgrades and local shuttle bus service. All of this is causing a lively discussion among Chicago motorists and pedestrians.

But here in New York, we're instead talking on and on about Sen. Carl Kruger's proposal to ban wearing iPods when crossing the street (in fact, some news outlets seemed eager to make the iPod connection in yesterday's fatality, although there is no proof as to whether St. John was wearing hers when she and her nephew were hit). As if pedestrians bear the full responsibility for anything that happens when they let down their guard for even a moment. As if, unless they scurry across the street like hunted animals, they are somehow at fault when they are struck by cars.

Why doesn't some forward-thinking New York legislator take the horrible occasion of James's death and propose some solutions? Like stiffer penalties for drivers who hit pedestrians when failing to yield? Like traffic-calming infrastructure?

If none does, maybe New York pedestrians should consider borrowing tactics from their Seattle counterparts, who recently staged a demonstration trying to bring attention to the issue of reckless drivers.

Although you have to wonder, if a child getting crushed to death by a Hummer doesn't get people's attention, what will?

Photo via Gothamist

Scribner Avenue, New Brighton, Staten Island, formerly two- and now one-way, looking up the hill toward Bismarck Avenue from Westervelt Avenue

Streetsblog reader Dan Icolari became curious about changes that were being made on his neighborhood streets in Staten Island. In researching the issue he found that progressive policy statements coming out of Department of Transportation headquarters on Worth Street don't appear to be filtering down to the agency's borough offices. His own assumptions about what is "progressive" were challenged as well. Here is Dan's story: 

Like other Streetsblog readers, I've been encouraged by DOT's recent, more enlightened pronouncements. But not long ago, when I noticed that DOT had converted a number of two-way streets to one-way in my Staten Island neighborhood, all I could see, as an alternative transportation advocate, was that a traffic-calming arrangement had been replaced by one that practically guaranteed higher speeds and less safe streets.

I called DOT to find out if my own two-way through street was on the list for conversion. And who makes these decisions, anyway? And how, and why?

The first thing I found out is, there is no list. "We get change requests mostly from community groups," said the Staten Island DOT rep I spoke to, "usually through the community board, though some changes are made by the borough commissioner." I was assured no change was planned for my block.

I then brought up the serious lack of crosswalks in the neighborhood--specifically in the several-block area surrounding my corner, where speeding has become a significant problem. It's an area where pedestrian traffic is not heavy but is constant throughout the day, and becomes heavier during rush hours and after school. I asked if the three-block stretch I referred to could be studied by DOT, possibly to introduce traffic-calming measures that might improve safety.

"No," the DOT rep replied, "that's just not what we do here. If there's a speeding problem you can ask NYPD to step up enforcement, but our job is to keep traffic moving efficiently, not to do studies on pedestrian safety." It wasn't the answer I was hoping for, or even the one I expected, but at least it was clear.
 
But what did my neighbors think, I wondered--the people who live on the two blocks recently converted from one-ways to two-ways? I was pretty sure they'd be furious at the loss of their charming two-way streets.

I was wrong.

Not only were my neighbors not furious; they were actually delighted.

After years of driving on steep hills with limited visibility in bad weather, they told me they welcomed the change. Only one, Jonathan B., preferred the old two-way arrangement because it provided more options.

"My choices as a driver are more limited now," admitted Joanne S., "but I think both blocks are safer." Her husband Alan seemed relieved: "With the change, I don't feel so tense behind the wheel." Harouna B. told me, "It's much safer for my kids, and there's finally a stop sign posted." Emily S. offered the most surprising observation: Speeding has actually declined, she said, and crossing the street is much safer.

As a committed walker and mass transit proponent, those were, once again, not the answers I was expecting. But when I visited the two now-one-way streets to take photos for this story, I could see my neighbors' point: There were multiple places in the roadway on both streets where it would be impossible to see oncoming traffic. I began to think that maybe my two-way-good, one-way-bad orthodoxy might need a little revising.

So I wonder: At a time of peak oil, global warming and growing population, when we want to raise levels of consciousness and encourage more thoughtful transportation choices, how do we design transportation policy elastic enough to work not just in Manhattan and the brownstone belt of Brooklyn, but in the rest of the city, too?

That is, how do we address the traffic, land-use, congestion and pedestrian/cyclist safety problems of the city's most dynamic areas, while devising practical alternatives that help outer-borough New Yorkers reduce private car use and make other environmentally conscious transportation choices, particularly in more suburban clusters not well served by public transit?

The Staten Island Advance reports on Monday's press conference outlining the qualities that leading City Council members would like to see in the next DOT Commissioner. The Bloomberg Administration responded to the Council with the following statement:

The Mayor will appoint a commissioner who will carry out policies to meet the sustainability challenges he outlined in his '2030' speech and will continue [outgoing DOT] Commissioner Weinshall's work reducing pedestrian fatalities and increasing safety for all New Yorkers through the implementation of innovative programs like Thru Streets.

The Advance also notes: 

Bloomberg, who with Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden pushed through the unprecedented bans on smoking and trans fats, should take that same intrepid approach with the next transportation commissioner, said Gene Russianoff, attorney with the Straphangers Campaign.

Meanwhile, a source inside DOT Commissioner Weinshall's office says that Deputy Commissioner for Traffic Operations Michael Primeggia, who is often credited by Weinshall as the architect of DOT's Thru Streets program, is "being considered" for the commissioner's job.

There are laws on the books to stop jaywalking, but if one New York state senator gets his way, it will soon be illegal to bop along to your iPod while crossing the street.

Sen. Carl Kruger will propose a bill that would ban using an iPod - and any other electronic device that is a distraction - while crossing traffic, WCBS-TV reported Wednesday.

"We're talking about people walking sort of tuned in and in the process of being tuned in, tuned out," Kruger, a Democrat, told WCBS-TV. "Tuned out to the world around them. They're walking into speeding cars. They're walking into buses. They're walking into one another and it's creating a number of fatalities that have been documented right here in the city."

You've already weighed in on what you'd like to see in the next DOT commissioner. Now members of the City Council and Transportation Alternatives have weighed in too, with a press conference yesterday highlighting qualities they would like to see in the city's next Transportation Commissioner. Here is Council Member Yassky's press release.

Council Member David Yassky (D-Brooklyn) and transportation advocates today urged the Bloomberg Administration to appoint a new Department of Transportation commissioner with the credentials and experience to tackle the traffic congestion and pollution problems that are plaguing New Yorkers.

"This City has been fortunate to have such a hard-working DOT commissioner in Iris Weinshall for the past five years," Council Member Yassky said. "But now that she is moving on, we must look toward the next five years and beyond and choose a commissioner who will tackle our quickly increasing environmental and transportation challenges. Our next transportation commissioner will be making decisions that will effect the health, business and general quality of life of all New Yorkers, make sure she or he makes the right ones."

Council Members and advocates called on the Mayor to meet his 2030 PLANYC sustainability goals by appointing a DOT commissioner with a mandate to reduce automobile traffic while improving surface transit, walking and bicycling options.

"There is so much a transportation commissioner could do to improve the quality of life of New Yorkers by reducing traffic and encouraging transit use," said Gene Russianoff, senior attorney for the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign. "We need a dynamic leader - like Commissioner Thomas Frieden has been in the area of health - to improve air quality and neighborhood life by taming city traffic."

"Commissioner Weinshall has steered the Department for many years and her shoes will be hard to fill," said Council Member John C. Liu, Chairperson of the Transportation Committee. "New Yorkers need a Transportation Commissioner who can get up to speed quickly and also change the internal inertia that sometimes dampens innovation, especially if we are to truly create a system for the free flow of people and goods in the City."

"It is crucial the Administration selects a new Department of Transportation commissioner who will make pollution, traffic congestion and parking issues a priority," said Council Member Bill de Blasio. "The next commissioner will play a vital role in making sure the City reaches its future goals of increasing and improving our transportation alternatives."

The evening's high point was Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's ten minute speech. Perhaps sensing a political vacuum in City Hall on these issues, Stringer is rapidly emerging as the city's leading elected official on traffic, transportation and Livable Streets. "Traffic congestion," Stringer said, is "the number one quality of life issue" for the borough of Manhattan and the city as a whole. And while other world cities are tackling their congestion problems, "everywhere you look in Manhattan there is a traffic jam, gridlock, pollution."

"The truth," Stringer said, "is that we have not had a new idea about transportation since we built the subways."

Though he didn't mention him by name, Stringer (right) seemed to be pointing directly to Mayor Bloomberg's recent sustainability speech when he said "It is incredible when you think of all the damage we're doing to this city and the fact that we don't have bold, forward-thinking transportation planning when we know that we have one million more people coming here by 2030."

Stringer also noted the non-existence of a citywide transportation strategy or even a serious public discussion about these issues in the current political environment. "Why can't we as a city have an intelligent conversation about traffic? Why can't we have a five Borough transportation agenda and talk about things that are controversial?" Stringer asked.

"I think we should talk about whether congestion pricing can work in New York City. There, I said it. Let's not have a political fight over this. Let's have a real dialogue. Let's talk about real sustainability. Let's have a discussion about bus rapd transit. Let's talk about bike lanes. Let's also talk about the fact that there is no reason why the poorest neighborhoods should get the most pollution."

If we don't talk about these things, Stringer warned, "The one thing I can guarantee is that, come 2030, we will be a second rate city and people will say, 'They didn't plan properly.'"

While Stringer somewhat stole the show, saying things that you simply don't hear any other citywide elected official saying these days, the main goal of the meeting was to provide neighborhood residents and stakeholders with the opportunity to talk about their local traffic and public space issues. While these kinds of open mic town hall meetings are sometimes hijacked by axe-grinders and loonies, virtually every single one of the twenty or so people who stood to talk were concise, eloquent and had something valuable to say.

A representative from St. Vincents hospital said that their emergency vehicle route time had increased because of Ninth Avenue congestion and the result has been an increasing number of "catastrophic incidents." In other words, their patients are dying in traffic. To applause, a number of residents called for better enforcement of honking, blocking the box and other motorist infractions. One guy, who introduced himself as living on "the southern shore of Lake Related" noted that traffic cops seem to emphasize "keeping the traffic moving rather than ticketing people who are blocking the box or honking their horns." He said that he sometimes tries to get the Port Authority cops at the Lincoln Tunnel to enforce these rules and they just say, "No. It's the city," and go back to reading their newspapers. A number of speakers brought up bicycling issues and spoke out in favor of George Haikalis and Roxanne Warren's Vision42 light rail plan.

Next, Fred Kent from Project for Public Spaces (left) ran through a slide show about what makes great public spaces. Kent said that he thinks "we are going through a sea change in New York City" comparable to the environmental awakening that led to the first Earth Day in 1970. He senses that "there is a real passion for a very different future for New York City and it always comes back to the street. And once we begin to reclaim the street as a public space it will be a transformative agenda for New York City."

Kent described the avenues of Hell's Kitchen as an area filled with "chaos" and "unfit for human habitation the way it is currently managed." He urged the community to press for "a SWAT team approach by the city and Port Authority, to just pick a target and say, 'This area is going to be very different in a week,' and then just make it happen."
Finally, Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance urged Livable Streets advocates to focus on three things as they work on these changes. First apologizing for the traffic created by his annual New Year's party, he delivered his advice in '70s TV show metaphor:

1. Just the facts: Focus on the problem. Study what's going on. Analyze the data and present information in the language that policy-markers understand.

2. Book 'em Danno: Enforcement is incredibly important. Work closely with the precinct. Fines and fees have to be strict and enforced.

3. Think in the long-term: Keep in mind what is happening 10 and 20 years out and know that even small changes take a long time to make happen in New York City.

The meeting was a pre-cursor to a design workshop that will take place Saturday January 20, 2007, 2 to 5 p.m. at the Holy Cross School, 322 west 43rd Street. The workshop will be facilitated by Project for Public Spaces.

After the opening ceremony for Hudson River Park's Chelsea North section on Dec. 11, we asked Mayor Bloomberg what's being done to improve the safety of the park's bike path, on which two cyclists have been killed this year alone: Dr. Carl Nacht, 56, who was hit in June by a police tow truck crossing the path at 36th St., and, more recently, Eric Ng, 21, who was struck on Dec. 1 at W. Houston St. by a driver who had been drinking at Chelsea Piers and was speeding down the path in his BMW.

Bloomberg expressed his sympathy, but said bikers also have to watch out for themselves in interactions with cars. "Even if they're in the right, they are the lightweights," Bloomberg said of cyclists. "Every year, too many people are hit by cars - and bikes have to pay attention." Bikers shouldn't assume car doors won't open into their path, for example, he said.

Bloomberg said he's personally concerned about safety on the street too, noting, "I'm a pedestrian." Both the mayor and Connie Fishman, the Hudson River Park Trust's president, said that a multi-agency investigation is being done to see how path safety can be increased.

On another bike-related topic, asked about the ongoing "war" against Critical Mass, the mayor's tone changed. "Critical Mass is not where people just accidentally show up and 10,000 people happen to ride down a street. That idea is ridiculous," he said. "Critical Mass has unfortunately tried to co-opt the city and the law applies to everyone. And if they don't like the law, they can try to change it. We are going to enforce the law - and any group that thinks they are above the law is sadly mistaken."

Peter Hornbeck was killed on January 10th 2004 in a horrific hit and run crash on 96th and Park Avenue. The driver who killed him was speeding, had his license already revoked for prior speeding and the vehicle itself was stolen. The site of his death will be the memorial site for all pedestrians killed on city streets this Sunday at 1:30pm.

Last night I attended Community Board 8's Transportation Committee meeting to propose the installation of basic pedestrian protections on the Park Avenue medians. As reported in this morning's New York Sun, the idea was rejected for a variety of reasons. "Longtime neighborhood residents," the Sun reports, "said they hated to sacrifice the aesthetics of a landmark city street for a safety issue they felt was no big concern.

While I certainly don't expect Park Avenue's median to be restored to its verdant, pre-1922 width any time soon, the photo above illustrates the absurdity of pitting streetscape aesthetics against pedestrian safety. Clearly, Park Avenue was once a whole lot more beautiful and a whole lot more safe than it is today as a roaring six-lane parkway. As we've written before, there are lots of ways to make a street safer for pedestrians. Even bollards, the most basic and functional of pedestrian safety measures don't have to be ugly.

Peter Hornbeck's fiancee Rachael Myers volunteered to speak at the meeting. Rachael was walking with Peter the night that he was killed. With Rachael's permission, I thought I would share with you what she said last night since it had a deep impact on me and many other people in the room:

In an article published in the New York Times this past week on the issue of installing barriers at the Park Avenue medians, it was reported that some residents were surprised that this issue had emerged. After all, only one person was killed while crossing Park Avenue in 2003 and another in 2004.

As the girlfriend of the person killed in 2004 and a witness to the crash, I can tell you that one person is too many. What exactly are we willing to sacrifice for the "touch of Paris" look of the medians on Park Avenue? Are we willing to sacrifice two human beings?

Those of us that were close to Peter will feel that loss forever. But the loss to our community is something that we will never know and never be able to calculate. Pete spent his free time volunteering to care for homeless dogs at a local animal shelter on East 92^nd street. He was an outspoken environmentalist who was returning to graduate school at Hunter so that he could teach Earth Science to high school students. We will never know how he would have touched these lives if given the opportunity. It is important to try to keep this in mind when looking at statistics and numbers and trying make a cost/benefit analysis.

Some may think that we can solve this problem through increased traffic enforcement, and that is certainly part of the solution, but police cannot be everywhere at all times. In this case, the driver's record indicates that he had little respect for police and traffic laws. He not only was driving a car that was uninsured and reported stolen, his driver's license had been revoked due to prior speeding infractions. All previous efforts by the police to get this driver off the road were ineffective. When such drivers refuse to stay off the road, our only hope is that traffic-calming measures and pedestrian-friendly street design will be in place to protect our fellow citizens.

I can assure you that even if the proposed median barriers protect only one person in the future, it will be worth it. Not only for the friends and family, but for the countless lives who are affected by just one individual; it will be worth it for the entire community.

While we failed to win Community Board support for new pedestrian protections on the Park Avenue medians last night, Rachael's statement made a difference, we got the discussion started, and this issue isn't going away. Hopefully we can make some changes happen before the next horrific headline.

Photo: New York Historical Society via Jeff Prant

Eliot Spitzer's campaign for governor promised, "Day One: Everything Changes." Well, it's Day Two and it's time to govern. Much of New York City's transportation policy rests in the hands of Albany legislators and agency officials. Here are ten things that the new governor can do to make New York City's streets more livable and transportation policy more sensible. Feel free to add more to the list in the comments section.

1. Improve safety on the Hudson River Greenway.
Congratulations, Governor Spitzer. You now run the busiest bike path in the United States. Some 5,000 cyclist use Manhattan's west side greenway each day and over 10,000 people visit Hudson River Park during peak times. In 2006, drivers killed two cyclists on what is supposed to be a car-free bike path. State DOT and the Hudson River Park Trust are currently examining greenway safety and redesign options. We need you to make sure that they come up with some real solutions. Likewise, rather than simply counting vehicles and measuring success as "vehicle throughput," you should push your DOT hard to begin analyzing the highway, greenway, park and all of its various users more holistically. As Fred Kent at Project for Public Spaces says: "If you only plan for cars and traffic, you get more cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get more people and better places."

2. Give us our red light cameras.
Support legislation to grant the City of New York permission to deploy red light, speed and bus lane enforcement cameras at its discretion. Don't let Albany continue to prevent us from making our streets safer.

3. Create secure bike parking at major transit hubs
New York State now has its hand in the planning and development of a remarkable number of major, New York City transit hubs: Moynihan Station, World Trade Center Transportation Hub, Fulton Street Transit Center and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. All of these transit hubs should have significant bike parking facilities in and around them. According to the NYC Department of City Planning, the lack of secure bike parking is the primary obstacle to potential commuter cyclists. Take a look at European cities (like Amsterdam, right) or, heck, even Chicago, for examples of how to integrate bike parking into train and bus stations.

4. Accelerate Bus Rapid Transit.
The MTA should increase funding to complete, not just five, but ten BRT corridors by 2012. The governor should challenge New York City to increase its annual contribution to BRT as well. The State and City should launch a p.r. campaign framing BRT in the broader context of "citywide traffic relief" so that drivers and parking-hungry neighborhood groups understand why it is necessary to prioritize buses over cars. And, oh yeah: The state also needs to pass legislation to allow New York City to deploy bus lane enforcement cameras.

5. Make sure New Yorkers know how to drive.
It must be a strange feeling after all of the hard work of running for governor and the elation of winning to wake up the morning after inauguration and realize, "Oh, crap, I'm in charge of the Dept. of Motor Vehicles." You may as well take the opportunity to strengthen the meager pedestrian, bicycle and street safety components of New York's driver education curriculum. Don't re-invent the wheel. Just steal from the Germans. Their drivers licensing requirements are incredibly stringent. New York's should be too.

6. Make it easy to bring bikes aboard trains.
NJ Transit and PATH abolished bike-on-board permits several years ago. It's long past time for Metro-North and the LIRR to do the same.

7. Allow bikes on buses
Tell the MTA that its time to wake up from its Rip Van Winkle-like slumber and, like cities all over the world, make it possible to put bikes on buses. Prioritize bus routes crossing bike-inaccessible bridges such as the Verrazano Narrows and longer-distance Long Island Bus routes. Bikes should also be permitted in the luggage bays of express buses.

8. Accelerate development of the East River Greenway.
The state legislatures must pass legislation to approve the conversion of a sliver of the Robert Moses Playground to Greenway. Make it happen, Governor.

9. Make a real commitment to pedestrian and bicyclist safety.
Re-invent the Dept. of Motor Vehicles' Governor's Traffic Safety Committee as a forum for inter-agency traffic safety planning and policy. Improve the reporting and analysis of car crashes. Create an online crash database and map to inform planning. Allocate federal HSIP funds fairly: Bicyclist and pedestrian deaths and injuries account for more than 55% of the New York City total traffic deaths yet these modes receive less than 5% of New York City transportation safety funds and 8% of federal safety funds. That's a crime.

10. Make sure federal funds are used to achieve broader transportation goals.
The State Dept. of Transportation should set aside at least 15 percent of its federal CMAQ funds for bicycling and pedestrian projects. Most important, CMAQ grants should reflect the broader policy goals of reducing motor vehicle trips and promoting transit, cycling and walking. Tell the highwaymen to take a seat.