Streetsblog New York City

A rendering in section of NYU's proposal for a pedestrian-only Washington Place, between Washington Square Park and Broadway.

Earlier this week, Community Board 2 in Greenwich Village held a public meeting to get feedback on NYU's proposal to pedestrianize Washington Place, part of a larger plan to improve public space in the school's core campus. Nearby residents aren't happy with the number of cars that park in the area now, but (surprise!) they don't want to do what's necessary to improve things, either. A tipster sends along this recap:

Tuesday night's CB2 meeting on pedestrianizing Washington Place turned nasty. There were about a dozen or so residents speaking decidedly against restricting car access, including a couple folks who infused a lot of hostility to the entire discussion. Even though residents complained that it was being used as an NYU parking lot, they also loved the fact that you can always make great time speeding down this incredibly wide street.

Even the idea of taking away parking to plant trees seemed controversial to this crowd; they preferred the space to be taken from pedestrians. They were very hostile to the NYU presenters, and belligerent to the half dozen or more folks who thought more space for pedestrians was a good idea.

I hope this was simply a case of them hating the messenger (NYU) but not necessarily the idea of giving more space to pedestrians. Still, there were a lot of motorheads in the room. There was, however, a good showing on the pro-pedestrian side: George Haikalis, Barry Benepe, T.A. and a few others were there to fly the flag. Still, it's disappointing to think that this is the community that closed the leg of Fifth Avenue that used to run through Washington Square Park many years ago. Seems like the Jane Jacobs legacy was lost on this crowd.

The full plan, called NYU Plans 2031, consists of an array of measures intended build the school's central campus within its existing footprint, while simultaneously improving the public environment. A full, up-to-date explanation, with renderings, is available in this PDF.

"NYU realizes that the pedestrian experience in their core area is not very pleasant," says Ian Dutton, vice-chair of CB2's transportation committee, who spoke favorably of the pedestrianization plan. He notes that most of the cars on this stretch of Washington Place are usually circling for parking, and that if full-on pedestrianization doesn't happen, NYU will most likely take other measures to improve the streetscape, like a greening program and adding street amenities.

Image courtesy of NYU

Tonight, Community Board 2's Transportation and Institutions Committees will hold a joint meeting to hear proposals from NYU to reclaim road space for pedestrians in the campus core area.

Details have not been announced, but a tipster tells Streetsblog that possible proposals range from removal of parking spaces to allow for wider sidewalks and other pedestrian amenities to the complete pedestrianization of Washington Place between Broadway and Washington Square Park.

Reviving memories of last year's protest of a Village crosstown bike route, we're told that opposition to whatever emerges is already mounting.

Residents of the Zerega Avenue section of the Bronx are upset that beds for the sick will be putting a crimp in neighborhood parking stock.

The Bronx Times reports that a new four-story building on the corner of Herschell Street and Westchester Avenue, with apartments and a ground-floor medical facility, will be exempt from parking requirements.

Neighbors of Zerega were riled up over the Herschell project and fearful that another medical facility would eat up even more parking spaces in an already congested area.

[T]he good news for Zerega residents is that the Herschell facility shouldn't be opening anytime soon. According to the Department of Buildings, construction is in the very early stages.

According to data from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, about 70 percent of households in the vicinity own at least one car. It's also the district represented by state senator and congestion pricing editorialist Jeff Klein, who believes charging 4.9 percent of his constituents to drive into Lower Manhattan "threatens to cut into the very heart which defines the culture of this city."

Not far to the southwest, the tenants association of Sound View Houses is fighting the development of a 124-space parking lot for private apartments. At a CB 9 meeting last November, according to the Daily News, "Tenants and community leaders shouted down the plan."

Though HA officials say the parking lot is underutilized, tenants insist it is sorely needed.

"If you don't get to the parking lot at a certain time, you don't get a spot," said Mary McGee, president of the tenants association.

Area residents say parking is a challenge even on a good day on streets around the development and throughout the community, which has alternate-side-of-the-street parking rules.

Nobody wants this in Sound View," said Shirlee Evans, president of the 43rd Precinct Community Council. "We're going to need more officers and firefighters."

On Monday, July 9 the transportation committee of Community Board 8 on Manhattan's Upper East Side took up the issues of congestion pricing and a new pair of crosstown bike lanes.

Congestion pricing, it turns out, was the evening's non-controversial issue. Even after a series of impassioned speeches against Mayor Bloomberg's traffic reduction plan the committee voted to support it, 10 to 4 with one abstention.

"You've treated us to quite a debate," Dept. of Transportation Bike Program Coordinator Josh Benson said as he stood up to present the 90th and 91st Street bike route plan (download it here).

"You haven't heard anything yet," heckled one member of the crowd.

Ryder Pearce sells DOT's Upper East Side bike route plan to a skeptical Community Board 8.

Benson then introduced DOT staffer Ryder Pearce, a youthful member of the City's Urban Fellows program, making his first-ever Community Board presentation.

As a part of the City's ongoing bike network build-out, Pearce said, DOT plans to stripe new, Class II bike lanes along E. 90th and E. 91st Streets with a small segment running along E. 89th Street near the East River and a special treatment for the pedestrian-only block of 91st Street between Second and Third Avenues.

"As you can see there are no crosstown routes on the Upper East Side right now," Pearce said, pointing to the New York City bike map. The new lanes would connect the East River Greenway directly to Central Park's 90th Street entrance, also known as the Engineer's Gate. Along the way, the bike route would link Carl Schurz Park, Gracie Mansion, Asphalt Green and the Guggenheim Museum and "would provide for the growing residential population" living in new towers around York and East End Avenues, a long walk from the nearest subways.

Controversy over the bike route centered around the one-block stretch of 91st St. running through the Ruppert Yorkville Tower Condominiums. The block has been closed to motor vehicle traffic since the 1970s and is considered by many to be a neighborhood "play street."

In order to foster ideas on how to reclaim 9th Avenue from Lincoln Tunnel traffic, the Clinton/Hell's Kitchen Pedestrian Safety Coalition (CHEKPEDS) sponsored a six month community input process designed by Project for Public Spaces. The process began with a design workshop in January, and has evolved into an impressive final report (PDF). Some highlights from the report:

When asked to describe the issues facing Clinton/Hell's Kitchen, local residents and business owners identified safety, traffic congestion, and lawlessness as their top challenges. These problems hamper the access of many user groups and diminish the identity of 9th Avenue. Unchecked traffic and congestion are the root of each problem identified.

Resident survey questions asked users to indicate their primary means of mobility. Despite the fact that 25% of Community District 4 residents own a car, survey responses show that very few residents use private automobiles as their primary mode of transportation. 

Monday night I attended Manhattan Community Board 8's pedestrian and cycling safety forum. There was an All-Star cast of panelists. Former DOT Commissioner Sam Schwartz, Manhattan DOT Commissioner Margaret Forgione and Director of Street Management and Safety Ryan Russo, Matthew Bauer of the Madison Ave BID, Traffic Enforcement Agents as well as other transportation experts.

There were the usual complaints about cyclists running red lights or riding on the sidewalks and the level of enforcement that should be put forth, but generally the conversation was more directed at making people safe from automobiles in the district. Almost everyone was supportive of bike lanes as a way to provide cyclists with a safer place on the road and minimize conflicts with other street users, but there was an exchange between one of the Community Board members and Mr. Russo that brought up something fairly fundamental to me.

The Community Board member stated that she saw biking as purely recreational, not for commuting or running errands, which just sounds crazy but, hey, when you want to keep all residential and commercial zoning completely separate to the point where you won't site a greenmarket in a school playground, why not extend that to every aspect of life. She added that bike lanes should be built for the recreational user in mind as opposed to the commuter.

Mr. Russo vigorously defended the idea that bikes are currently and will increasingly be used across the city for everyday commuting and local errand running where good bike lanes and bike parking make that possible. He then repeated the Mayor's pledge to build out the bike lane network by several hundred miles over the next few years and set up more city racks for parking. He then added that in the Upper East Side that they are considering some bike lanes to connect the East River Greenway to Central Park.

In some strange twist of logic, even though DOT disagreed with the concept of biking as only for recreational users, the DOT's bike lane network extension in my area seems to be mostly geared toward recreational users. I fully support the idea of integrating the greenways with the Central Park loop, but if the DOT's goal is to increase the number of commuter cyclists on the Upper East Side, the bike lanes that would make much more sense are extending the current Second Ave bike lane north from 14th Street to 125th Street and the existing First Avenue bike lane south from 72nd Street down to Houston. This would increase the number of cyclist commuters on the Upper East Side and East Harlem dramatically. It would also provide commuter cyclists coming over the Queensboro bridge access to a good North/South bike lane network.

But number of biking commuters doesn't seem to be the measurement the DOT is working toward. Their primary measurement is the number of directional bike lane miles they lay each year. A more meaningful and ambitious goal would be to set a target to double or triple the number of commuting cyclists in the city. Here on the Upper East Side, a goal like that would mmediately change DOT's mindset from increasing lane miles to using bike infrastructure to help relieve overcrowding on the Lexington Avenue subway line.

If increasing the number of bike commuters was the metric by which DOT measured the success of its bicycling program, the alignment of future bike lanes and the sensitivity toward making biking accessible to the average commuter would be much different.

Photo of First Avenue Bike Lane at 85th Street - Glenn

Community Board 6 was grumpy about the idea of bike lanes on 9th Street.

At last night's Community Board 6 meeting in Brooklyn DOT Deputy Commissioner Michael Primeggia's "One Way? No Way!" proposal was shot down decisively, the Grand Army Plaza bike and ped improvements passed unanimously, and the 9th Street pedestrian safety, traffic-calming and bike lane project was, after a lengthy discussion, sign-waving and a split vote, "tabled" for further discussion with DOT. Members of CB6, apparently, prefer to maintain 9th Street's status as the neighborhood street with the most appalling number of car crashes, injuries and fatalities.

The quote of the evening came from Bob Levine, head of the Ninth Street Block Association when he said -- and to fully appreciate it read it using your best 1940s movie German accent -- "We need to find the best Solution to the Bicycle Problem." (E-mail Transportation Alternatives for your free copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Cycling).

The animosity on display last night against bicyclists was intense. One could have left the meeting thinking that New York City's crushing traffic congestion, parking angst, endless horn honking, pedestrian injuries and fatalities, asthma- and cancer-causing particulate matter, greenhouse gas emissions, high automobile insurance rates, the $3 gallon, and addict-like dependence on oil from countries that hate America must be the fault of Park Slope residents who would like a safe way to ride a bike to the 9th Street YMCA. Fortunately, we got most of the discussion on video tape so you'll be able to see the profound dysfunction of New York City governance on the local level for yourself.

In honor of last night's meeting we've created a new category here at Streetsblog called "Community Board Reform." This is the first post. Here is Gowanus Lounge's coverage of the meeting:  

During a nearly 3 1/2 hour meeting last night in Park Slope, Community Board Six disposed of the one-way proposal for Sixth and Seventh Avenues that had sparked an outpouring of neighborhood opposition. It also decided not to act on a surprisingly controversial plan to install bike lanes and other "traffic calming" measures on Ninth Street. (Contrary to an incorrect NY Sun headline proclaiming a victory for the plan.)

Council Member Bill DeBlasio arrived while the meeting was underway and spoke in support of the proposals, noting that he'd gotten a commitment from the Police Department not to ticket cars that are double-parked in the bike lanes and from DOT to continue the bike lane down Prospect Park West so that bicyclists would enter the park at 15th Street rather than 9th Street. (The double parking issue emerged as the crux of neighborhood opposition to the plan, with residents fearing that a bike lane would interfere with their ability to double park while picking up people or running into a store.) The board, meanwhile, said it had gotten about 140 emails and faxes in favor of the proposal and 80 opposed. The Board's Transportation Committee had voted in favor of the plan.

Board Member Bob Levine, who also heads the Ninth Street Block Association, led opposition to the plan, saying that steps needed to be taken to address the "bicycle problem" and that the plan was "idiotic and asking for trouble." Several members, however, spoke strongly in favor of the proposal. One noted that "bike lanes will make cycling much safer" and that "If I were parking my car on Ninth Street, I'd rather step out into a bike lane than speeding traffic." Another said that bicyclists are a public safety threat and that "bicyclists should be licensed."

"I thought if there is going to be a good place for a bike route, this is it," said member Louise Finney, who is also a Trustee of the Park Slope Civic Council. "This would be a great traffic calming device."

Board Member Anthony Pugliese, who is an organizer with the District Council of Carpenters, got a laugh from crowd, speaking in favor of the proposal and saying, "What is this, Bensonhurst? These are bicycles.

In the end, the Community Board voted to send the proposal back to its Transportation Committee for further discussion with DOT and to ask DOT not to act until the discussions are completed.

The Board also voted unanimously to support significant traffic and pedestrian improvements to Grand Army Plaza.

Photo: Robert Guskind

Tonight, 6:30 pm at Old First Church on 7th Avenue and Carroll Street, the transportation committee of Brooklyn Community Board 6 hosts a blockbuster follow-up meeting to the "One-Way? No Way!" extravaganza of March 15.

While I haven't managed to get a look at DOT's proposal, we know a few things about it: It will include some pedestrian improvements at Grand Army Plaza, new bike lanes for Red Hook and a new design for 9th Street. The Grand Army Plaza changes, supposedly, include some of the improvements that the community has been advocating via the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. The Red Hook bike lanes sound pretty straightforward. As for 9th Street, DOT wants to do the following:

• Install two bike lanes heading in each direction.
• Stripe a median down the middle of the street with left-turn bays for cars at the intersections.
• Eliminate one travel lane in each direction.

Not surprising -- it's Brooklyn, folks! -- there is some opposition brewing to the 9th Street changes, the bike lanes in particular. Below is a discussion thread I found on the Brooklynian web site. Fans of MyBikeLane.com will have to wrap their heads around the idea that their bike lanes are actually blocking motorists ability to double-park. Is it only a matter of time before someone starts MyDoubleParkingSpot.com?:

Ninth Street Residents and Businesses

The Mar. 29, 2007 meeting of the Transportation Committee of Community Board 6 will discuss adding a painted centerlane (similar to Prospect Park SW) for left turns, AND bicycle lanes.

That will mean there will be only one lane for driving, and NO ability to stop your car to drop off/pick up at anytime because you will be blocking the bike lanes.

Please come out to the meeting to voice your opinion/opposition to these changes

Transportation Committee of
Community Board Six
Mar. 29, 2007
6:30 PM

Old First Reformed Church
729 Carroll Street
(Corner of 7th Avenue)