A rendering of the kind of development possible under the Economic Development Corporation's plans for the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area. EDC calls for 500 parking spaces at the site: more than the zoning code allows.

The Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, or SPURA, is the largest undeveloped, city-owned area south of 96th Street. Located along the south side of Delancey Street at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge, SPURA currently consists of five empty lots, the leftovers of a 1967 slum clearance project. Though mid-century towers-in-a-park style housing was built elsewhere on the site, these lots have remained vacant since the tenements were torn down 45 years ago, displacing a population that was two-thirds black and Hispanic.

Since the 1960s, one proposal after another has been floated for the SPURA site, only to fall victim to the complicated politics of development in an economically-divided neighborhood that has grappled with the challenges of both disinvestment and gentrification — and which happens to be represented by powerful Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Parking remains the only use of the lots.

Now, however, the potential for progress appears closer than ever. A plan from the city Economic Development Corporation [PDF], based on principles put forward by Community Board 3 [PDF], is moving through the city’s land use review process, as outlined in this very helpful post from The Lo-Down. CB 3 will vote on the plan, which differs in certain ways from what it proposed, Wednesday night. The borough president will also weigh in before the City Planning Commission and the City Council take binding votes.

It’s exciting to see anything moving forward on the site, and there’s much to like about this proposal for a major mixed-use development. EDC would build 900 new units of housing, half of which would be designated affordable housing. Another 660,000 square feet would be used for retail, offices and community facilities. Unlike the urban renewal projects nearby, these buildings would engage the pedestrian realm with active ground floor uses and a continuous street wall.

But on one issue, at least, EDC’s plan for SPURA goes awry: parking. The agency is requesting special permits allowing the construction of 500 parking spaces, all underground. That total is higher than what is allowed under the city’s zoning code and higher than what was requested by the community board.

Building additional automobile storage would inevitably mean more cars on the already-deadly Delancey Street and more congestion on the already-clogged Williamsburg Bridge. At the same time, four subway lines meet at the corner of Essex and Delancey, offering ample transit access to the site.

Currently, there are around 400 public surface parking spaces on the site, according to the Lo-Down (there is also a smaller amount of parking set aside for trucks). CB 3, for its part, asked only for the new project to replace the spaces for private cars and not the spaces for commercial vehicles and trucks.

The city’s zoning code would allow even fewer parking spaces on the site. Under Manhattan’s parking maximums, no more than one parking space is allowed for every 4,000 square feet of commercial space or five residential units. Under those ratios, parking at the proposed SPURA project would be capped at 345 parking spaces.

EDC argues that the agency needs to both replace the existing parking and provide additional spaces for those using the new development. “The ULURP application meets the Community Board’s guidelines for replacement parking below ground while allowing for some additional parking to meet a portion of the demand expected by the new development,” said EDC spokesperson Kyle Sklerov. The 100 additional spaces are less than the new demand for parking spaces pseudo-scientifically predicted by the project’s environmental impact statement, and Sklerov would not say how EDC determined that was the correct number of new spaces to provide, nor did any official EDC documents about SPURA.

EDC has argued in the past that it should replace all the parking that previously existed on a development site and then build any parking it predicts will be necessary for the new growth on top of that (see, for example, Flushing Commons in Queens). That logic ought to be thrown right in the dustbin.

First, it represents a one-way ratchet toward car-dependency. If the number of parking spaces in New York City can only increase, that leaves only two options: an ever-growing number of cars in the city, or acres of costly, unused garages. Neither is an attractive or sustainable future.

Second, EDC’s desire to replace all parking spaces represents a unique double-standard for development. Imagine a developer knocking down a three-story rowhouse to build apartments in an area where the zoning caps heights at ten stories. The developer wouldn’t get to build a 13-story building to replace the lost housing. Why are the zoning code’s limits on parking treated so differently than its limits on housing?

The bike-share siting process has been praised by several community boards, and like all the other CBs within the bike-share service area, Brooklyn CB 2 hosted a public workshop where participants expressed their preferences for station locations. But the Brooklyn Daily Eagle makes it seem as if the entire program was sprung on the unwitting district overnight. Under the headline “Heights battles bike stations,” the paper quotes Judy Stanton, executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, who complains that bike-share will take up street space better suited for parking cars.

Of course, the fact is bike-share will increase options for getting to and from Brooklyn Heights and other neighborhoods, not limit them. For every parking space that’s no longer available for cars, the neighborhood will gain many more public bicycle docks. Siting the stations in the street will preserve a much more important commodity than car storage: the neighborhood’s scarce sidewalk space.

To help ensure that rationality prevails, head to tonight’s meeting, to be held at 6 p.m. in the Founders Hall Auditorium at St. Francis College, 180 Remsen St.

Investigations into the deaths of Stefanos Tsigrimanis and Clara Heyworth were compromised by the NYPD "likely to die" policy.

In March, Council Member Steve Levin sent a letter to NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly questioning the practice of assigning the Accident Investigation Squad only in instances where someone is killed or is believed likely to die. Currently, crashes that result in injuries that are not considered fatal are handled by precinct cops who are not trained to conduct full-scale investigations. According to testimony presented at the February council hearing on NYPD traffic enforcement, held three months ago today, that policy is inconsistent with state traffic code.

Wrote Levin: “As [a full] investigation is only authorized to be carried out by AIS and as AIS limits itself to the investigations of those accidents in which one has either died or is deemed likely to die instead of all accidents that result in serious injury, I do not see how the NYPD can reasonably claim to be in compliance with Article 22, Section 603-A of the New York Vehicle and Traffic Rules.”

While requesting that Kelly initiate a change in the “likely to die” rule, Levin was also preparing legislation to amend the NYPD patrol handbook to conform to state law. However, according to a Levin spokesperson, “The bill will move forward as a resolution because it has been determined that the City Council does not have jurisdiction to amend the NYPD Patrolman’s handbook.”

Delayed AIS deployment in cases where injuries were initially not thought to be life-threatening has severely compromised fatal crash investigations. When a doctor told officers that cyclist Stefanos Tsigrimanis wasn’t in mortal danger after he was hit by a driver in Brooklyn, AIS did not return to the scene for 46 days. Because NYPD did not know that Brooklyn pedestrian Clara Heyworth had died after she was struck by an unlicensed driver who was believed to be drunk, AIS was not dispatched until at least three days after the crash.

“Council Member Levin does hope that the NYPD is responsive to the resolution and recognizes the need to more vigorously investigate accidents involving pedestrians, cyclists and motorists,” the spokesperson said.

Another nascent bill mandating that at least five officers per precinct be trained to conduct AIS-scale investigations will also take the form of a resolution, according to the spokesperson.

Other issues raised at the February hearing, both pertaining to public disclosure, will be addressed through legislation. One bill would require that the names and contact information of each precinct’s traffic safety officer be posted online.

The second bill would amend Jessica Lappin’s NYPD crash data law. Levin’s office says the bill would require that all traffic crash reports include a “detailed list” of moving violations issued at the scene, and that reports must indicate whether AIS, the patrol supervisor, the precinct detective squad or the highway unit were summoned. Reports would also show whether a breath test from a calibrated machine was administered at the scene and, if so, the results of the test.

In addition, the council would change the way NYPD reports crash data. Under the amended law, reports would include data calculated citywide, as well as by borough and precinct. The amendment would require that data reports be posted on the NYPD web site in an open data format, rather than PDF files (it’s possible this provision will be superseded by an upcoming vote on a separate bill). All monthly and annual reports would be posted on the NYPD web site for a period of five years.

At the hearing in February, NYPD attorney Susan Petito told Lappin that the department is concerned that data released on a spreadsheet could be manipulated “to make a point of some sort.”

The Nationals' new stadium has turned a dead urban zone into a hotspot. Photo: NRDC Switchboard

But that doesn’t stop too many cities, and there are examples of places that have gambled on sports facilities and won big.

There’s a new member of that club now: Washington, DC. It’s been nearly 10 years since the city green-lighted a package of 30-year bonds for a new home for the Nationals baseball franchise in a depressed southeastern section of the city. Kaid Benfield at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Switchboard blog reports that the investment is paying off:

According to developers in the area, building didn’t really become financially feasible there until the city committed to the ballpark. Today, the neighborhood’s new projects are about 30 percent built. In addition to the new commercial properties, the area’s residential population has increased from about 1,000 to more than 3,500 and should eventually reach 16,000.

It is especially heartening that even those originally opposed to the stadium like what they see. Neighborhood resident Naomi Monk was a prominent skeptic, arguing that the park would only be an eyesore benefiting millionaire players and businessmen, with nothing in it for low-income residents. But in March she told Fisher that “I have to say, it’s been for the betterment of the community. Our crime seems to be under control. The neighborhood looks 100 percent better. The new housing is a great improvement.”

I’m not going to make a broader point about the extent to which public investment in sports is a good thing. It’s likely situational and, though it has been enormously beneficial here in Washington twice (though in the case of Verizon Center the city paid only for infrastructure), and it also appears to have been beneficial in nearby Baltimore, the facts and circumstances vary.

Benfield reports that the tax issued on big businesses to support the stadium is bringing in twice what was expected. Plus additional property taxes related to new investment have added $13 million to the city’s coffers. Nice, for a change, to see a city enjoying a windfall at this moment in history.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Bike Delaware shares a League of American Bicyclists’ report showing that one in four collisions between cyclists and cars involve cyclists being hit from behind. Bike Portland reports the city’s first open streets event of the season attracted an astounding 28,000 people. And Transit in Utah says sustainable transportation advocates need to do a better job developing sales pitches and buzz words.

A map of the coming bike-share system with circles scaled to represent the size of stations. Image: Steven Romalewski

Hungry for more bike-share maps? Yeah, us too. Thanks to Steven Romalewski, the director of the CUNY Graduate Center’s Mapping Service, we’ve got our fix.

In a post on his Spatiality blog, Romalewski uses GIS to analyze the 413 bike-share stations posted on DOT’s website so far. One map, shown above, shows each station with the size of the station displayed graphically. At a glance, you can see the number of docks per station decrease as you move away from employment centers and subway lines, or into Brooklyn and Queens. For an interactive version, click here.

Romalewski also found that the locations of the bike-share stations tracked the map of the subway system relatively closely — no surprise, since that’s where the density, destinations and demand are. Half of all stations are within one avenue block of a subway station, according to his analysis. Only 21 stations are more than a half-mile from the subway (the furthest is on the Hudson River Greenway, four avenues from the Port Authority).

In this map, the size of the circles marking bike-share stations represent the proximity to a subway station. Image: Steven Romalewski

Check out his full post for more cool data, including the proximity of bike-share to bus stops and how closely station sitings match online submissions for desired bike-share locations

“In general it seems that the proposed kiosks match the overall location patterns of the crowdsourced suggestions, and also support the goal of facilitating first/last mile transportation,” Romalewski concludes. “I was skeptical of the program at first (and I’m still a bit wary of so many more bikes on the road all of a sudden — I walk in fear when I cross a city street, because of cars and bikes). But now that the Citi Bike program is moving closer to reality and the numbers look so good, I’m looking forward to trying it out.”

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Photo: Niles Ray

Reader Niles Ray sends in this bird’s-eye view of bike lane construction on Eighth Avenue at 37th Street.

The extension of protected bike lanes on Eighth and Ninth Avenues was proposed by DOT last year, and won subsequent community board approval. The lanes and pedestrian islands will provide safer passage for cyclists and pedestrians north to 59th Street, providing access to the huge numbers of jobs in west Midtown.

Factoring in proximity to bike lanes, street connectivity, topography, and commuter cycling rates, the Bike Score algorithm rated Minneapolis America's most bikeable city. Image: Walk Score

The people behind Walk Score, the real estate rating service that goes by the slogan “Drive Less, Live More,” are out with a new rating system, based on hard data, that should prove useful to prospective city dwellers: Bike Score.

The company launched the Bike Score website today, using its new algorithm to rank the ten most bikeable cities in the country. (We covered their release of city rankings for transit last month.) Minneapolis ran away with the top prize with a 79 percent bikeability rating. San Francisco tied Portland for number two, despite the fact that hilliness was a factor. D.C. and New York also placed highly (while the NYC core rates very highly on Bike Score, the bike lane deserts outside the center city score quite low).

The staff of Walk Score is made up of a whole lot of bike commuters. No wonder they were excited to launch a new bikeability ranking. Photo courtesy of Walk Score

In other bikeability rating news, the League of American Bicyclists released its 2012 list of Bicycle Friendly Communities today. There’s a lot of overlap between the BFCs and the Bike Score winners, but they are compiled use vastly different methodologies. For one thing, you won’t find two of the League’s top three cycling cities on the Bike Score list because Bike Score, so far, only looks at cities with populations over 200,000. Sorry, Boulder and Davis.

Colorado and Montana did well in the League’s rankings this year. Missoula and Durango moved up to gold, and the Colorado towns of Gunnison and Aspen made it onto the list for the first year, rolling in at the silver level. Look for your city on their updated BFC list [PDF].

The League bases its BFC choices on somewhat subjective criteria. They look for the “five Es”: engineering, education, encouragement, evaluation & planning, and enforcement. Decisions are made by staff and external reviewers, in consultation with local stakeholders.

Bike Score, on the other hand, is based on pure numbers. Individual addresses are rated on a scale of 0-100 based on four factors:

• the availability of bike infrastructure (with on-street and off-street facilities weighted differently)
• the hilliness of the area (the one factor a city can’t control)
• amenities and road connectivity
• the number of bike commuters (because “biking is social” and there’s safety in numbers, explained Walk Score’s chief technology officer and co-founder Matt Lerner)

To then determine the score for the city, the individual address scores are used to compute scores for each block, and then the block-by-block scores are weighted by population density.

“For every location in the city, we add up the number of meters of bike lane, and there’s a distance-to-K function so the closer you have a meter of bike lane, the more valuable it is, and we don’t give you any credit after about a mile out,” said Lerner. “For every address, we do that calculation. It’s a new metric that is really about a specific location, not about the city overall. So what we’re really measuring is, for average person in that city, how good is biking.”

Note: The capability to score your own home isn’t available on the website yet, as it is for Transit Score and Walk Score, but Lerner says they hope to enable that soon so real estate agents can use Bike Score to advertise the homes they have for sale, as they do now with the other two. Walk Score has an Apartment Search function that allows renters to search by nearby amenities, distance to transit, commute time, price, number of bedrooms – and, of course, Walk Score. It interfaces with craigslist to show the complete ad all in one place with the walk/bike/transit information.

Right now you can plug in any address in the country and get a Walk Score for it, but even once Bike Score’s full functionality is rolled out, it won’t be so widespread. “With Bike Score we have to go out and get bike lane data from each city,” Lerner said, “so it’s more of a manual process.” They’re taking votes via Twitter for the next cities they should score.

Will outsourcing parking meter operations be the path to widespread use of high-tech solutions, like the real-time sensor being piloted here in the Bronx? Might those tech improvements be paired with a commitment from the city to put an appropriate price on curbside space? Photo: Noah Kazis

New York City is still interested in contracting out the operations of its roughly 82,000 metered parking spaces, according to a report in today’s Wall Street Journal. A prime motivation, it appears, is the belief that a private company could more quickly roll out high-tech additions to the city’s parking system, such as sensors that provide real-time parking data. In the next few weeks, City Hall will put out a request for qualifications to put together a short list of potential private partners.

The city won’t be privatizing two of the most important components of parking policy with the biggest impact on transportation, however. Both the ability to set the price of a metered space and to enforce parking violations, the Wall Street Journal reported, will remain in the hands of the public sector.

The push to privatize parking meter operations stems from a broader interest in privatization under former Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith. An RFP released last February asked banks for their best ideas on what city assets and operations could be privatized, with parking specifically identified as an area of interest.

To the extent that privatizing meter operations is just an administrative decision — can a private company collect coins from and maintain parking meters more efficiently than public employees? — it’s unlikely to significantly affect the health of the city’s transportation system. It’s still reassuring that Deputy Mayor Robert Steel told the Journal that New York City had learned from the Chicago parking meter debacle and isn’t looking to use privatization as a one-shot injection of revenue.

But if the city ultimately uses outsourcing as an opportunity to bring New York’s on-street parking into the 21st century, the effects could be far-reaching. Real-time parking sensors, one technology mentioned in the article, form the underpinnings of San Francisco’s innovative SFPark system, which uses that data to price on-street parking based on demand. New York City installed its own sensors as a pilot program over the winter, but doesn’t yet have a plan for widespread deployment. Pay-by-phone technology, which saves drivers the walk and worry of feeding the meter, has proven wildly popular where implemented.

According to the Journal, New York City won’t be giving up two of the most important parking policy levers: meter rates and enforcement. Given the current state of curbside management, retaining the ability to set meter rates is a mixed blessing.

To be sure, setting the price and use of curbside space is an essentially public function. A private company would set prices to maximize revenue, but a public authority might have different goals, depending on local priorities. A city might have good reason to favor loading over parking, or local long-term parkers or visiting short-term parkers.

At the same time, New York City’s on-street parking is wildly under-priced, when it is priced at all. On a typical commercial street outside Manhattan, the price for parking spot is fixed at $1.00 per hour. Where the city has introduced better calibrated parking policies, the streets function more efficiently.

In Park Slope, for example, doubling the price of a meter during peak hours allowed more total cars to park on the neighborhood’s commercial streets while simultaneously decreasing overall traffic. Allowing more people to reach an area by car while decreasing congestion is a rare win-win.

So while private incentives and the public good aren’t perfectly aligned when it comes to parking, in New York City they’re largely cutting in the same direction. Allowing the private sector to set meter prices might be the best possible way to get to the right price in a city where politicians fight tooth and nail to keep parking cheap.

The best-case scenario would be for the city to use the technology upgrades theoretically provided by a private parking contractor to set smarter, higher prices on its own. If the city or its contractor use new technology to make parking more convenient for drivers but don’t pair it with other reforms, it would be a huge missed opportunity.

Outsourcing enforcement might be an even more controversial move, but one with enormous promise. Right now, New York City’s parking enforcement is marred by politically driven, unequal treatment. Anyone with a parking placard, whether real or fake, can park where they like with impunity. The police allow Sunday church-goers to double-park for entire blocks of major thoroughfares like 125th Street or to block bike lanes on handshake deals. And of course, the police themselves disregard any and all parking regulations near their own precinct headquarters. Putting enforcement in private hands could eliminate this kind of political privilege in parking.

In Europe, where forward-thinking parking policy is a major component of sustainable urban planning, private parking enforcement is not uncommon, according to the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. In Stockholm, for example, two private security companies get paid based on how well they enforce the regulations. To renew its contract with the city, one firm was required to boost compliance from 59 percent of cars parked legally to 75 percent within two years.

Any potential parking privatization is still a ways away and the details have yet to be negotiated. But the Wall Street Journal article certainly gives the sense that the city could be going after a big change to the way parking meters work in New York. It’s a rare chance to administer some medicine to the parking system by putting in place necessary but unpopular changes to pricing and enforcement, while sweetening the deal with high-tech goodies for drivers. It looks like we’ll find out whether the Bloomberg administration seizes that opportunity in the coming weeks and months.

Roosevelt Avenue west of 126th Street in Flushing, where cyclist Mireya Gomez was killed on Friday, May 11. Image: Google Maps via Gothamist

A cyclist killed Friday evening near Citi Field in Queens has been identified by NYPD as Mireya Gomez, 50.

According to reports in Gothamist and the Post, Gomez was westbound on Roosevelt Avenue at approximately 5:45 p.m. when she was struck just west of 126th Street by the driver of a Nissan Altima traveling in the same direction. Police initially identified the victim as a male in his 40s.

The driver, identified as a 50-year-old man, remained at the scene. It is unclear how he failed to see Gomez as he approached from behind at eye level in broad daylight. Nevertheless, “no criminality is suspected,” an NYPD spokesperson told Streetsblog.

There is a discussion over at Gothamist concerning dangerous conditions on Roosevelt Avenue. Another cyclist was killed at Roosevelt and 126th in 2000, and three were injured between 2007 and 2009, according to Transportation Alternatives’ CrashStat. Data show that six pedestrians were also hurt in crashes at the same intersection between 1995 and 2008.

This fatal crash occurred in the 110th Precinct. To voice your concerns about neighborhood traffic safety directly to Deputy Inspector Ronald D. Leyson, the commanding officer, head to the next precinct community council meeting. The 110th Precinct council meetings happen at 7:00 p.m. on the third Monday of the month at the New York Bethzatha Church of God at 85-20 57th Avenue in Elmhurst. Call the precinct at 718-476-9310 for information.

Gomez is one of at least two people killed in traffic in the city since Friday, with both crashes occurring in Queens. Early Sunday morning, a pedestrian was struck at Greenpoint Avenue and 46th Street in Sunnyside, in the 108th Precinct. Driver Sayesh Avedis was charged with manslaughter, homicide and DWI, according to DNAinfo. NYPD could not yet release the name of the victim.

Chicago's transportation "action plan" calls for increased camera-based traffic enforcement. Image: Chicago DOT

Published last week, the “Chicago Forward Action Agenda” [PDF] places a very strong emphasis on safety, in addition to setting admirable cycling ridership targets and goals for transit investment.

Highlights include:

• A target of zero traffic fatalities annually in 10 years. (The city has been averaging about 50 a year.)
• 20 mph zones in all the city’s residential areas.
• A five percent bike mode share on trips less than five miles. (Currently 1.3 percent of Chicagoans travel by bike, but in the central city the figure is as high as two percent.)
• An emphasis on street maintenance, or “fix it first.”

In his introduction, Emanuel makes it clear that it’s a new day at Chicago DOT: “Where we once built expressways that divided our communities, we are now reconnecting neighborhoods with new bus lanes and extensive and expanding bicycle facilities that offer safe, green, and fit ways to travel for all ages.”

To achieve the safety targets, the plan makes a commitment to address problem intersections, calling for the city to “analyze all fatal crashes involving pedestrian and cyclists” and improve the city’s top 10 traffic collision locations annually. The city’s ability to install speed enforcement cameras — recently granted by the state legislature and City Council — also figures prominently in achieving the safety targets.

The document reinforces the city’s promise to invest in new infrastructure to improve bicycling and transit, including the already-stated goals of building out protected bikeways and high-quality rapid busways. Among other projects, the plan calls for the installation of 500 new bike racks per year and 100 transit-priority traffic signals.

The “Action Agenda” appears to be modeled after New York’s sustainable streets strategic plan, laying out a roadmap for Chicago DOT over the “next 24 months.” The safety benchmarks are especially ambitious. No other major American city has set a goal of zero traffic deaths, a target first pursued by Scandinavian governments through a set of wide-ranging policies guided by the principle known as “Vision Zero.”

With six lanes of moving traffic, Fourth Avenue is wide and dangerous. From 2006 to 2011, seven people were killed while walking on Fourth between 65th Street and 15th Street, while dozens more were seriously injured. Since last year, DOT has been meeting with CB 7 and local organizations to plan improvements to the street, and this evening the city will present its proposal at a public hearing — two days before CB 7 is scheduled to vote on it. A strong turnout in support of a safer Fourth Avenue could help save lives.

Here are the highlights — check out the calendar for the whole spectrum of events this week.

• Today: At this public hearing sponsored by Brooklyn Community Board 7, DOT will make a presentation on proposed safety improvements for Fourth Avenue. Following the public hearing, there will be a meeting of the Fourth Avenue Working Group. 6:30 p.m.
• Tuesday: For two years, Transportation Alternatives has been helping a group of young people in the Bronx fight for a safer intersection. After thousands of signatures in support of traffic calming for 172nd Street and Townsend Avenue in the Mount Eden neighborhood, they won! Join TA and the Bronx Helpers for a block party to celebrate a little victory that’s going to make a Bronx neighborhood a whole lot safer. 5:30 to 7 p.m.
• Also Tuesday: DOT will present updates on the 86th Street project and the Fourth Avenue Task Force to the Brooklyn CB 10 transportation committee. 7 p.m.
• More on Tuesday: At a meeting of the Brooklyn CB 2 transportation committee, DOT’s bike-share team will present proposed locations for Citi Bike stations. 6:00 p.m.
• Wednesday: DOT and the MTA hold an open house to present design ideas and solicit public comments on Webster Avenue Select Bus Service. 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
• Thursday: In Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, there are New Yorkers who rely on buses to get from A to B. But even the most important buses in the neighborhood, like the B4, often don’t run up to snuff. Join TA, Assembly Member Steven Cymbrowitz and Sheepshead Bites for a Sheepshead Bay Transit Rider Town Hall. 7 p.m.
• Saturday: Test ride a bike-share bike, ask questions and give feedback about the program at a Brooklyn Flea bike-share demonstration. 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Keep an eye on the calendar for updated listings. Got an event we should know about? Drop us a line.

This campaign season, opponents of smart growth policies are running against urbanism in greater Portland. Photo: The Oregonian

Even in Portland, a group called the Oregon Transformation Project is running candidates to overturn the region’s longstanding commitment to urbanism. Engineer Scotty at Portland Transport posits that the smart growth opponents are motivated by self-interested fear of the urban renaissance:

Some density opponents are staunch conservatives, motivated by cultural politics, free-market economics, or political solidarity with other conservative constituencies such as big oil. Many other density opponents come from the left — viewing big-ticket capital transportation projects (as well as urban renewal projects designed to encourage infill) as little more than corruption and cronyism, indistinguishable (other than in scope) from the antics of Wall Street banksters, with greenwashing being used to deceive a gullible public. But a common theme that motivates many of the critics on both the left and the right, is a dislike of density itself.

A billboard run by OTP compares a picturesque view of Mount Hood with a grainy, black-and-white photo of downtown Portland, with the words “CONGESTION DENSITY CRIME” lying under the latter. The implication being that if the current course continues, much of Clackamas County will soon resemble the worst attributes of Portland. There seems to be a fear that single-family neighborhoods all over the tri-county area will soon be overrun by apartment housing of the worst sort, and that middle-class communities will be transformed overnight into budding Rockwoods. In some cases, this fear is expressed in near-apocalyptic terms, with dire warnings about an urbanist tyranny literally forcing people out of homes and cars and into Soviet style block housing. (The term “Potemkin Village” gets used quite a bit as well — although the term originates from Tsarist Russia and has nothing to do with communism or forced living arrangements.)

For many people, public investment in new urbanism represents public disinvestments in where they live. One other geometric fact about density is that unless the local population explodes, density can’t go up everywhere. If the overall population stays more or less constant, and one neighborhood sees its density rise, then simple mathematics dictates that some other community will see its population decline. Property values and tax base will go down; and the quality of services will decline, leading to a vicious cycle of decay.

Given all of that, it’s not surprising that a backlash is continuing to brew. The recession hit many people hard, and when government elects not to maintain the status quo, it’s not hard to see how people feel abandoned or even threatened. People are attached to their homes, and will often go to great lengths to defend them.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Extraordinary Observations examines how college graduates cluster in cities. A View from the Cycle Path looks at average commuting distances across Canada’s largest cities. And Human Transit analyzes Tweets about transit agencies in an attempt to assess performance.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

The Fowler Square pedestrian plaza debuted today and is already being used. Photo: Brownstoner

Fort Greene’s newest public plaza opened today and Brownstoner was on the scene to capture the moment. The plaza, which reclaimed space for pedestrians on a short, lightly-trafficked block of South Elliott Place between Fulton Street and Lafayette Avenue, connects the sidewalk to an existing public triangle.

Even though construction only finished today (because the plaza materials are epoxy, gravel, granite blocks and planters, it only took about a week to install, Brownstoner reported), it’s already getting use. One of those now-iconic folding tables had a crowd of people gathered around it.

At the request of the community board, DOT will be evaluating the impact of the street reclamation on traffic flows and pedestrian life over the summer.

In addition to creating new public space, the plaza shortened this crosswalk on Lafayette Avenue, improving pedestrian safety. Photo: Brownstoner

Under a plan selected by the MTA, bus rapid transit would run along Staten Island's North Shore, with local bus routes feeding into the dedicated infrastructure. Image: MTA

The MTA announced yesterday that if it builds a new rapid transit line along Staten Island’s North Shore, it will opt for bus rapid transit over light rail, an MTA spokesperson told Streetsblog. The obstacle now, as always, is money.

The proposed BRT line would run along Staten Island’s North Shore, which is twice as densely populated as the rest of the island. Even though no rapid transit exists in the area, over a third of residents take transit to work, relying entirely on buses.

Along much of the route, the busway will use the existing right-of-way of now-shuttered rail service. In some places the tracks are still there; in others, they are overgrown with vegetation or even underwater. At the western terminus of the right-of-way, the system would turn inland and run to the West Shore Plaza in mixed traffic.

In a presentation delivered yesterday at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, [PDF] the MTA outlined its decision to pursue bus improvements over light rail. Though light rail would be marginally faster than buses — and likely higher-capacity — the busway option has two decided advantages, according to the presentation.

In Port Richmond, bus rapid transit would run on an existing elevated structure, refurbished for buses. Image: MTA

First, by using an “open” busway design, in which multiple bus routes can shared the dedicated transit infrastructure before branching off, the busway can speed trips for people across more of the island. As such, the MTA predicts higher ridership on the BRT option than on light rail. Second, the MTA estimates the capital costs of the busway to be far lower than light rail: $371 million versus $645 million.

North Shore bus riders would see their travel times to the St. George ferry terminal cut by around half.

At the same time as the MTA is pursuing the restoration of rapid transit to the North Shore, the city Department of City Planning and Economic Development Corporation are at work on a wide-ranging plan to revitalize the area, including pedestrian and bicycle improvements and efforts to promote mixed-use development. If both the planning and transit improvements move forward, the area could be truly transformed.

At least on the transit side, however, this project isn’t going anywhere without money (it also needs to go through design and engineering work and environmental review before it could be “shovel-ready”). MTA chief Joe Lhota has repeatedly said that the debt-strapped authority’s next capital plan will focus on improving the existing system, not expanding it. While a Staten Island busway is an order of magnitude cheaper than current MTA megaprojects like the Second Avenue Subway, right now there’s no indication at all of how the MTA will fund its capital needs.

I know we were all anxious to get a look at the map, and the anticipation has been intensifying recently, but come on. This is a ridiculous choice of words to set the stage.

For a real example of transportation planning “shrouded in secrecy and speculation,” try getting any info out of the Cuomo administration about the financial plans for the new Tappan Zee Bridge. (Still waiting for the Times story on that one.) The formation of the bike-share map has been a model of public engagement that other transportation projects would do well to emulate.

Siting the bike-share stations is complex stuff. Planners have to consider a lot of factors, from station density and bike-share usage patterns to how much light is available for the solar-powered kiosks and whether they will be compatible with existing street furniture. Hundreds of sites have to fit the criteria and mesh together as a network.

Having covered the planning and initial public rollout of bike-share station locations, it’s just hard for me to imagine how the whole thing could have been more open and interactive. First there was the web portal that was bombarded with requests for bike-share stations. Then came months of public workshops at community boards, beginning in February, where participants could look at potential station locations on the streets they know best, and tell bike-share planners which ones to keep and which ones to dispose of.

Last month, DOT started presenting partial bike-share maps to community boards, going through the draft locations in each community district. (After one of these meetings the Times even published a draft map of stations on the west side.) At a Manhattan CB 3 committee meeting on April 11, DOT policy director Jon Orcutt said the whole map was still in development and not far enough along to post online yet. When district manager Susan Stetzer asked to have a copy of the neighborhood bike-share map to show the rest of the community board, Orcutt said it would be available upon completion of the full service area map a few weeks later, in plenty of time for the May CB 3 meeting.

Here we are, a few weeks later, and the system map is online, weeks before community boards will vote and more than two months before the system goes live. How secretive.

Bike-share stations will be densely spaced, meaning a bike is never more than a few blocks away within the service area. Image: NYC DOT

Putting 420 big blue dots on a map of New York really crystallizes what had been abstract so far: Bike-share is going to blanket the core of the city. If you live, work, study, or socialize in Manhattan below 60th Street or northwest Brooklyn, there’s going to be a station within a few blocks of your apartment, your office, your subway stop, your favorite cafe or that out-of-the-way gallery you’ve been meaning to check out.

Within the service area — which will include ten stations in Long Island City from the outset — there’s pretty much a consistent grid of stations, meaning ready access from just about anywhere. The station density is higher in some places (check out Washington Square) and lower in others (Midtown is a bit sparser than downtown), but essentially there’s nowhere without good coverage.

The one major exception is insular south Williamsburg, where local Hasidic leaders have fought bike infrastructure and complained about the mere presence of cyclists. There, a square of more than half a mile in each direction is entirely without a station. Other gaps exist — there aren’t any stations on the narrow streets of Little Italy, for example — but outside of south Williamsburg’s Satmar neighborhood none seems large enough to really impede the use of the system.

DOT has also released a map [PDF] showing how far bike-share will extend once fully deployed next year. As previously reported, the system will extend north to 79th Street in Manhattan and south toward Prospect Park in Brooklyn, as well as a few more blocks deeper into Queens:

Bike-share will expand out to its full size of 10,000 bikes and 600 stations by next spring. Image: NYC DOT

What’s interesting here is that the map looks almost identical to the service area recommended by a 2009 Department of City Planning study. The Phase 1 service area, that is. DCP also recommended that bike-share expand two more times. Phase 2, which would cover all of Manhattan, most of the South Bronx and western Queens and more of Brooklyn, would triple the size of the system, from 10,000 bikes to 30,000. “These phases should be introduced as soon as possible,” recommended DCP.

That kind of bike-share expansion is a project for another mayor, of course. But just remember: all those blue dots on today’s map might be just the beginning.

The Department of City Planning recommended that Phase 2 of bike-share cover large swaths of every borough but Staten Island, and all of Manhattan.

The West Town Girls' Bike Club in Chicago's Humboldt Park. The neighborhood, once resistant to bike infrastructure, now embraces it. Photo: Grid Chicago

The perception of bike infrastructure as a sign of gentrification used to hold sway in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood too. But John Greenfield at Grid Chicago reports that attitudes toward bike lanes in this Latino and African-American neighborhood have shifted from resistance to enthusiasm:

People in Humboldt Park, a largely low-income Latino and African-American community on Chicago’s West Side, once opposed bike facilities as well. So it was a good feeling yesterday when I took my first spin on new buffered bike lanes under the giant Puerto Rican flag arches of the neighborhood’s Division Street business strip. I viewed them as a sign of how much attitudes about cycling have changed in Humboldt Park over the last decade. And as the city moves forward with the Streets for Cycling plan to install 100 miles of protected bike lanes within Mayor Emanuel’s first term, the story of the Division Street bike lanes offers a lesson on the need to engage local people in the process.

In 2003, the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) installed bike lanes in gentrified, bike-crazy Wicker Park, located just east of Humboldt Park, on Division from Ashland Avenue to Western Avenue, the border between the two neighborhoods. The stretch of Division in Humboldt Park between Western to California Avenue, known as the Paseo Boricua (“Puerto Rican Way”) and defined by the flag arches, is the same road width. But Chicago aldermen have final say on whether bike facilities get built in their wards and Billy Ocasio, Humboldt Park’s alderman at the time, opposed extending the lanes into his ward, according to CDOT spokesman Pete Scales.

The Paseo, lined with Puerto Rican cafes, restaurants, bodegas and salsa clubs, has retained its character over the past decade, but times have changed since Ocasio vetoed the lanes. Wilson, who’s white, says he worked hard to get the blessing of local community leaders before opening West Town on the Paseo in 2009. Since then his organization has taught safe cycling and mechanics skills to hundreds of at-risk kids in Humboldt Park. The store also offers affordable repair services in a neighborhood that already had a vibrant cruiser bike culture as the home of the Chicago Cruisers, a mostly Puerto Rican club that organizes rides with dozens of members parading on classic Schwinns.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Transportation for America outlines its “Transportation Vote 2012″ campaign to bolster smart transportation policies in the upcoming election. Mobilizing the Region reports on how the Connecticut Legislature blew it this session when it came to transportation safety measures. And Walkable Dallas Fort Worth explains why the city’s grand plans for a central park are unlikely to succeed.

This is cool. After receiving thousands of suggestions online and hosting dozens of public workshops about where to site bike-share stations, Alta Bikeshare and NYC DOT have finished a draft map of the initial service area and posted it online this morning. The boundaries for the first phase, which will launch this July, are (roughly): 59th Street, Atlantic Avenue, and Lewis Ave/Bushwick Ave. (Update: There are also ten stations in Long Island City.) The service area is slated to expand to the Upper West Side, Upper East Side, Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Prospect Heights and Crown Heights by next spring.

The station locations are still subject to change prior to launch, as DOT continues to present maps to community boards. If you zoom in and click on locations, you can see how many bicycle docks will be available at each, and whether the station will be located in the curb lane, on the sidewalk, or in a park/plaza.

I’m just starting to browse around the map. Give your first impressions in the comments.