Streetsblog New York City

When the First Avenue project is complete, car owners will park on the right side of that thermoplast buffer, and cyclists will ride on the left. Photo: Liz Patek

Reader Liz Patek sends these shots of the new road markings on First Avenue in the 60s. The protected bike lane that Manhattan Community Board 8 approved last summer is going in.

Until now there was no bike infrastructure at all on First Avenue between 60th Street and 72nd Street. Filling that gap is DOT’s top construction priority as the agency builds out plans for protected bike lanes and pedestrian refuges on First and Second Avenue up to 125th Street. Farther uptown, work on the East Harlem bike lanes will begin on Second Avenue between 100th and 125th Street. Construction was originally supposed to start this spring — it’s not clear if that timetable still holds after the local community board waffled on the project before committing to it again.

This is one of those moments where you have to sit back and take stock. Five years ago, the idea of merely striping thermoplast on lightly-trafficked crosstown streets ran into a buzz-saw at Community Board 8. Now, after a lot of hard work by advocates, volunteers, city officials, and community board members, streets engineered for safety are coming to vital transportation corridors in a new part of town. Congrats to everyone involved.

Approaching a mixing zone-in-progress. Photo: Liz Patek

Bike parking at the Woodley Park Metro station.

As a New Yorker in DC for the National Bike Summit this week (stay tuned for the upcoming Streetfilm), my eyes popped at the sight of the ample-yet-filled-to-capacity bike racks at many Metro stations. Bike-to-Metro trips increased at a rapid clip in the aughts, and in 2010 WMATA, the agency that runs Metro, laid out a plan to triple the number of riders who arrive by bicycle by 2020 and quintuple the volume by 2030. Most stations outside the downtown core already have dozens of racks and secure bike lockers.

In New York you can probably count the number of subway stations with comparable levels of bike parking on one hand (maybe one finger). But when bike-share launches this summer, bike-transit connectivity within the service area will skyrocket.

Photo: Shannon Park

Via Shannon Park (@GothamGoddess), this was the scene on Park Terrace West at Isham Street in Inwood this morning. Hard to tell how the driver of the SUV managed to mount a parked livery cab, but we do know a few things.

Park Terrace West is not a wide, speed-inducing roadway. It’s northbound-only with parking on both sides, and is flanked by a park and apartment buildings. This block of the street is curvy and, if you’re driving it, goes uphill. Not to say that drivers don’t speed through regularly — they do, of course — but I can only imagine what you’d have to do to catch air at this spot, just a few yards beyond the Isham intersection.

We also know that the building in the background, to the right, is a school. On nice days like today, Isham serves as its playground. While that segment of the street, directly in front of the school, is cordoned by NYPD sawhorses on weekdays, Isham is also a thoroughfare for kids on field trips to Inwood Hill Park, who cross where this driver apparently barreled through. Out of frame to the immediate left: a daycare center.

Isham Street constitutes the southern border of the proposed Inwood 20 mph zone. Would the zone prevent people from getting hurt or killed at the hands of drivers like this one?

Here’s another shot of the NYPD bike corps in glorious action. Our tipster says this driver was nabbed after running a red on Ninth Avenue near 34th Street.

As the saying goes, twice is coincidence, three times is a trend. A Streetfilms t-shirt to the next reader who sends in a pic of pedal-powered NYPD traffic enforcement.

Submitted by Streetsblog reader Hilda, this was the scene at Eighth Avenue near West 44th Street this morning. Writes Hilda: “And I will note that the cop on the bike HAD TO LEAVE THE BIKE LANE to go around the cab before pulling out his ticket book.”

We can only assume none of his colleagues were watching.

Via Bowery Boogie, two photos of bike-riding NYPD officers writing up two other cyclists for running red lights at the corner of Bowery and Delancey.

The Good: NYPD officers on bikes are not a sight you see every day. Bicycles can help police get around better in heavily congested areas and break down officers’ windshield perspective.

The Bad: The NYPD continues to target cyclists in its traffic enforcement efforts while ignoring more dangerous threats. In 2011, the police handed out almost 50,000 tickets to New York’s cyclists, but just over 25,000 to truck drivers.

The Ugly: Bowery and Delancey, where the cops are handing out these tickets, is one of the area’s most dangerous intersections. Over five years, 82 people were injured in traffic crashes at the intersection, and one year ago last week, a tractor-trailer driver killed a pedestrian at the corner. Here, even more than usual, the police need to be focused on improving safety, not hitting quotas or making a statement. Read more…

Southwest corner of Park Terrace West and W. 218th Street. Photos: Brad Aaron

The city recently replaced four parking spots at Park Terrace West and W. 218th Street, in Inwood, with a no standing zone. The 34th Precinct reportedly requested the change to give drivers exiting Park Terrace West, a northbound one-way street, a better view of east-west traffic on 218th.

Inevitably, car owners accustomed to parking at the intersection complained, and those complaints, many of which were posted on a neighborhood email list, led to a story by DNAinfo. Here’s a taste:

At least seven residents said they were ticketed or towed after the new signs went up late last month.  Local parenting email list InwoodKids was recently flooded with parent complaints about the new parking regulations.

Inwood mother Beth More said she and her husband were ticketed and towed in the new zone on Jan. 5 after arriving home from the holidays.

“We had no idea the new signs were posted,” she told DNAinfo. “In fact, we were sure our car was stolen at first and never even thought to look up.”

The couple has appealed the $75 parking ticket and will fight for reimbursement of the $185 tow charge.

“I, like many others in the neighborhood, question if this really was a matter of safety or simply an opportunity for the city and police precinct to ticket more,” she said.

Several city and police sources said summonses issued just days after the new signs were installed are likely to be dismissed.

In case the no standing signs still don’t get the message across — a possibility, considering the illegally parked car out of frame in the above photo — on Sunday I saw a couple of homemade posters warning drivers not to park near the intersection.

I have driven this corner. I also walk it regularly. As a driver it was very difficult to detect whether cars on 218th were approaching without either inching into the Park Terrace West crossing or nosing into cross traffic. As a pedestrian I also appreciate that drivers have better sightlines. While it’s understandable that some were angry about being caught off guard, the idea that the city would look to raise revenue by clearing four parking spots at a blind intersection — and installing the proper signage, no less — smacks of Agenda 21-level paranoia.

Read more…

A reader passed along this photo of a new sign announcing that Fowler Square, a small triangle of grass in Fort Greene, is in line for a public space upgrade courtesy the Fulton Area Business Alliance and NYC DOT’s plaza program. Head to the Facebook group advertised on the sign and there’s more information. The next public workshop to help design the space, for example, will be on Thursday, February 16, at 6:00 p.m.

In past meetings, Community Board 2 endorsed the idea of a plaza wholeheartedly, according to a report in the Brooklyn Paper. Supporters haven’t always made a strong showing: At one meeting, some residents complained that by cutting off through traffic on a block of South Elliott Place and creating more space for pedestrians, the plan would “countrify” an urban area.

In what’s starting to be an annual tradition, Streetsblog’s first reader-submitted photo of 2012 shows a bus stop pole brought low by the impact of a motor vehicle. 2011 got off to a similar start.

This is the B69 stop at Vanderbilt and Atlantic, a stone’s throw from where Forest City Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation want to build an enormous surface parking lot, beckoning people to drive to the new Barclays Center arena. The motorist who slammed into this pole had to drive across the Vanderbilt Avenue bike lane before wrecking city property. NYPD’s public information office had no details about the incident, which indicates that any bus riders or cyclists present at the time of the crash escaped with their lives intact.

Before the holidays, we caught word of three other curb-jumping incidents in Manhattan, at least two of which were known to have caused serious injuries. Not even the sidewalks are safe from driver recklessness. Meanwhile, City Council Transportation Committee Chair James Vacca spent the end of 2011 on a media tour talking up his commitment to bike enforcement.

This crash occurred in the 88th Precinct. The commanding officer there is Deputy Inspector Anthony Tasso. If you’re concerned about traffic safety and want the 88th to do something about it, you can bring it up at the next community council meeting. The 88th Precinct community council meets on the third Tuesday of each month. Locations vary. Call ahead (718 636-6526) to confirm meeting dates and times.

Photos: Liz Patek

Streetsblog reader Liz Patek sent in these photos of the aftermath of a Tuesday afternoon crash at 68th Street and Broadway, in front of the Loews Lincoln Square movie theater. Liz writes:

Police were still on the scene. From talking to people, it appears that the cab backed up at a high speed around the corner from 68th to Broadway in order to get a parking spot. One of the people I spoke to was hit by the cab. She was OK. Two other pedestrians were injured and taken away in ambulances before I arrived. According to another witness, one of the other pedestrians who was hit got pulled under the cab and dragged for several feet. The driver also took out the street light.

NYPD had no information on the crash, and we could find no media reports. All of which is a pretty good indicator of how common these non-fatal crashes with injuries are. For every fatality that is written up somewhere there are dozens of “minor” crashes like this one. If you saw what happened here or have any info, let us know in the comments.

This crash occurred in the 20th Precinct. The commanding officer there is Deputy Inspector Brian A. McGinn. To voice your concerns about neighborhood traffic safety directly to McGinn or other precinct higher-ups, drop in on the next community council meeting. The 20th Precinct council “usually” meets on the fourth Monday of each month, except in July and August, at the 20th Precinct station house, 120 W. 82nd Street, at 7:00 p.m. Call ahead (212-580-6428) to confirm meeting dates and times.

Read more…