This kind of reenforces the idea that bicycles are for upper middle class yuppies. Mostly white too.

Ultiminately, there’s a very simple cohesive transportation strategy that does serve the needs of all street users, stimulates local businesses and has good majority polling data from Quinnipiac.

* Build out the bike lane network (and bike share) to provide a healthy alternative for people to move around the city and extend the reach of mass transit.
* Encourage affordable mass transit to move people around the city efficiently with appropriate levels of service 24/7
* Penalize dangerous and obnoxious motorist behavior that frustrate other street users including other motorists
* Focus on improving safety of most vulnerable street users – disabled, elderly, children, pedestrian/cyclists

Full text of her email below:

“Thanks for taking the time to read and respond to our recent transportation report, Mr. XXXX.  I appreciate you sharing your comments and feedback with us.The Fair Parking Legislative Package that we recently passed was in direct response to the many stories we’ve heard about New Yorkers receiving parking tickets that they clearly didn’t deserve. Yes, our motivation in passing these bills was to provide some relief to motorists while promoting more judicious parking enforcement and fairer ticketing practices citywide.   However, that certainly doesn’t mean that we aren’t focused on addressing the entire range of our city’s diverse and varied transportation needs, including mass transit. In fact, if you recall, in our first transportation report we spoke about many of our initiatives to help improve transportation, make our sidewalks and streets safer to travel, provide greater information to the public in regards to safety, and ensure that our communities have a greater say in the proposed transportation and roadway changes affecting our areas.   Since then we have held hearings on MTA signal inspections and accessible pedestrian signals.  We have issued detailed recommendations to the MTA about how to prevent another disaster like the Christmas blizzard of 2010.  And we have continued to work closely with our constituents and advocates to help ensure that the full range of our city’s transportation needs are being addressed.  I’m more than happy to provide you with additional information about these initiatives, if you like. Again, I appreciate you sharing your comments and feedback with us.  Given all the challenges we face, especially when it comes to transportation, it’s important for us to continue working together and to find common ground where we can.

Thanks again.

 Best,
Chris Quinn
Speaker

cc: Transportation Committee”

I think we are going to see a lot of dangerous red light running from
Clinton getting onto the bridge.

Well it’s not red light running if the traffic agent is waving them through

I also cross Delancey on Clinton (to get to the other side, not to get on the bridge) heading north on my daily commute home.  Though, if Clinton will now get all the bridge traffic, I might take a different route.  Can they finish the construction on Allen already!

On the latter issue, it is my hope that editors and writers at the dailies will try bikeshare this summer and gain an entirely new perspective on things.

There are also some inexplicable lane additions. For example, four lanes of westbound traffic come off the bridge. Three lanes can proceed straight, while one is forced to turn right on to Clinton. However, IMMEDIATELY west of Clinton, a fourth lane is added again, inducing faster driving speeds again. Why? There can’t possibly be a bottleneck there, since DOT determined that three westbound through-lanes were sufficient at Clinton, and demand isn’t created mid-block. Perhaps the turn lanes two block away backs up a bit, but that seems like an unreasonable amount of congestion to accomodate. Like Gehl says, if you plan for traffic and congestion, you’re going to get traffic and congestion.

All in all, though, this is an awesome set of improvements, and I can’t wait for them to be implemented. I understand not wanting to push for too much, too quickly. That said, there are several places that this plan can be made better without harming traffic. I also think that DOT is not likely to get this much political cover for increasing congestion for the sake of safety in other locations. Their reluctance to do so, I think, is evidence of their car-centric past and their desire to simply nibble at the edges for the time being. At some point, however, we will run out of low-hanging fruit, and I’m not holding my breath for the congestion pricing messiah any time soon.