Bike to Work Day is Friday, May 16. Check Transportation Alternatives' Bike Month site for events.
Bike to Work Day is Friday, May 16. Check Transportation Alternatives' Bike Month site for events.
From Streetfilms' animation division comes the third installment of traffic-calming shorts from Elizabeth Press. First she brought you chicanes, then the raised crosswalk. Now comes the diverter, which Elizabeth explains like so:
Diagonal diverters, half closures, entrance barriers, median barriers, semi-diverters; traffic calming techniques come in all shapes and sizes. They can help create more livable communities. As demonstrated in this short animation, once the diverters are in place, traffic decreases on the side street. Cars on the side street must turn left, but cyclists can continue straight. This makes the side street safer for cyclists and pedestrians.]]>
As a new class of automobile owners floods the streets of India with cheap cars, the city of Delhi is trying to stem the tide with a new Bus Rapid Transit program. Unfortunately, along with the cars has come the requisite sense of entitlement and modal prejudice, as EMBARQ reports:
]]>This last week Delhi began a trial run for its first bus rapid transit corridor, a 5.8 kilometer stretch in the southern part of the city. To put it mildly, the start has been anything but stellar: a Google News search for "brt delhi" comes up with over 70 news articles from the last week, almost all of them sensationally pessimistic. Here are a few of the headlines: "BRT nightmare for school kids on way home," "Kids bear the brunt of BRT mess," "Delhi bus corridor: Fiasco continues," "BRT corridor chaos worse than ever."
From what I've heard from our experts in Mumbai, the project has had several hiccups like lack of signage, signal systems not working properly, bus breakdowns, and motorcycles and bicycles entering the bus lanes. But overall these are problems that can be fixed with time and bus operations can be improved.
What seems to be a bigger problem than the hitches and hiccups of the system itself is the destructive roll that the media has played, unfairly skewing the coverage of the trial run to make the problem seem worse than it actually is.
Ken Coughlin, occasional Streetsblog contributor, long-time coordinator of Transportation Alternatives' Car-Free Central Park campaign and all-around mensch suffered a heart attack on Saturday. T.A. board member Jeff Prant and executive director Paul Steely White visited Ken at St. Lukes Roosevelt on the Upper West Side on Sunday. They say he's in relatively good spirits and will undergo triple bypass surgery tomorrow.
Over the last ten years or so, Coughlin has personally overseen the collection of more than 100,000 signatures in support of a car-free Central Park. When I spoke with Ken a few weeks ago he was optimistic that we would see a three-month car-free trial in Central Park this summer. But with Memorial Day approaching, there has been no word from DOT, Parks or City Hall as to whether that will be the case.
Here at Streetsblog we're thinking of him, wishing him luck and looking forward to seeing him back out in the park this summer (hopefully not collecting signatures).
Getting in on the Bike Month action, City Room has DOT bike program coordinator Josh Benson answering reader questions this week. As of this writing, over 100 comments have come in since the thread opened yesterday afternoon. While many concern the usual stuff -- cars encroaching into bike lanes, problems finding secure parking, etc. -- some are more esoteric. One reader suggests a city tax credit for bike commuters, while another wants city-issued baseball bats to keep drivers in line. "Ed" wonders if Benson is BikeSnob, and "BikerGrl2008" cuts to the chase with comment #1:
There’s a spot open on my bicycle built for two. Will you join me?
That you, Julia?
Photo: City Room
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With a 6-0 won-loss record and a 0.81 earned run average, Cleveland Indians southpaw Cliff Lee is, for the moment, the hottest pitcher in Major League Baseball. HIs delivery is so smooth, so perfect looking, it's hard not to think Sandy Koufax.
Last Wednesday, Streetsblog tech director Nick Grossman and I journeyed up to the Bronx to watch Lee pick apart the Yankees over-priced line up (yes, I'm an Indians fan), handing Yankees ace Chien-Ming Wang his first loss of the season. Unfortunately, I took the D train to get to the stadium. Had I left a couple of hours earlier on the 4 train, I might have been as lucky as baseball blogger Rich Lederer:
]]>We caught the 4 Train from Grand Central to Yankee Stadium. After getting a bite to eat in the food concourse, we hopped onto the subway at about 3:45 pm. Our car was crowded so we found ourselves standing in the middle, holding onto the rails for safety. After we got situated, Joe whispers to me, "I'm 95% certain that's Cliff Lee standing next to you" (notice the arm of my brown jacket in the foreground). I look up and, sure enough, it looks just like the Cleveland lefthander.
In any event, while making eye contact with Lee, I make a pitching motion with my left hand as if I were throwing a breaking ball. He gives me a quizzical look so I mouth "Cliff?" He nods his head. Conscientious that I'm wearing a NY hat for the first time in my life, I point to it and tell him that I'm from Long Beach, California and not really a Yankees fan. Lee smiled and shook his head. I explained that Joe and I were on a father-son baseball trip and had already been to Fenway Park the previous weekend and were going to our first Yankees game that night, and to Shea Stadium on Friday night.
There wasn't a single person other than Joe or me who had any inclination that Cliff Lee was standing on the subway, holding onto the rail tightly with his left arm.
On Friday, Streetsblog looked at how northern Virginia can't get enough road widening. As a follow-up, Gary Toth of Project for Public Spaces directed us to another example of how smart growth faces hurdles in the places that need it most -- in this case, the Trenton suburb of Bordentown, New Jersey (right: the main drag). Residents in the village of 4,000 recently voiced their opposition to a proposal that would encourage mixed-use and infill development, reports the Burlington County Times:
The ordinance would allow for the addition of up to 100 dwellings downtown. It would allow developers to put apartments or condominiums above storefronts and would increase the allowable height for buildings. Currently, developers have to obtain variances to do such things.
The rejection of the zoning changes was stoked by fears that the town's historic character would be threatened, among other things:
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Last week, Cap'n Transit posted a series about running express bus lanes over bridges and tunnels, which would boost the capacity of crossings and put them on a de facto road diet. These steps will "get rapid transit value even on non-rapid bus routes," he says:
What if we had an XBL on every major bridge and tunnel? We could take all the buses that pass nearby and feed them through it, bringing people into Manhattan where they can get to jobs easier. This would be a form of BRT, even if it doesn't have fancy brands or fake subway stations.
Enhancing the appeal of transit while taking away lanes for private cars is a fantastic recipe for mode switch. And doing it on the city's biggest bottlenecks could capture some of the virtuous cycle benefits that might have materialized had congestion pricing passed.
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The bloggers at Hawthorne Street put together this dandy little short -- you could even call it a Streetfilm -- to illustrate the dangers of crossing Ocean Avenue at the southeast entrance to Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Cars turning onto Ocean from Parkside Avenue pose a constant threat to people in the crosswalk, even while pedestrians have a walk signal.
With the adjacent area of the park slated for a major re-design, the Hawthorne Street folks are urging the inclusion of pedestrian and bike improvements in the plan. You can help them get the message across next Monday, May 19th at 6:30 p.m., when a public hearing on the re-design will be held at Wollman Rink.
A simulation of how the Ocean and Parkside intersection could better serve pedestrians comes after the jump.
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Suburbanites in northern Virginia are finding their streets more clogged with traffic than ever, and, as the Washington Post reported earlier this week, they aren't about to get bailed out by road-widening projects. Here's the crux of the problem, told from the Post reporter's decidedly windshield perspective:
Thoroughfares like Rolling Road are the blood vessels that connect suburbia, the secondary roads that carry commuters to interstates, residents to supermarkets and children to school. They include Braddock Road in Fairfax County, Colesville Road in Montgomery, and even such larger highways as routes 7 and 50. They are the roads that Washington area residents traverse every day, sometimes several times a day.
Just months ago, Northern Virginia residents and elected officials were expecting hundreds of millions of dollars in improvements to such roads. Now, because of budget cuts and state lawmakers' failure to reach a deal on regional transportation funding, drivers can expect only more misery.
The Virginia Department of Transportation recently announced a 51 percent cut in the region's road-building program. Dozens of projects have been eliminated or postponed indefinitely. And rising maintenance costs are eating away at what little remains.
The Post assumes that expanding road capacity is the only answer, and casts the problem as purely a budgetary shortfall. It neglects to mention the role of land use in bringing about this state of affairs. The pattern described in the article is similar to what regions all over the country are facing, as past decisions to separate housing from other land uses come back to haunt them in the form of ever-mounting traffic.
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From online mag Yanko Design comes a wacked out concept in pedestrian safety:
The Virtual Wall provides a barrier made up of plasma laser beams depicting pedestrians doing what they do best and any car that crosses that barrier suffers the consequences. Okay so maybe those lasers aren't powerful enough to do any harm but the effect is enough to make drivers and pedestrians alike follow crosswalk rules to the tee.
Not that these should ever be necessary in a civilized urban environment, but we can almost hear Richard Brodsky spouting off about the high-falutin' walled-off elitist pedestrian class.
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From Transportation Alternatives' Queens Committee Chair Mike Heffron:
At the Queens Community Board 2 general meeting on Thursday, May 1, with no vote by board members, Chair Joe Conley delayed the board's input on the Department of Transportation's planned pedestrian and cyclist improvements to Vernon Boulevard, an important link in the proposed Queens East River Greenway. DOT can move forward with the Greenway plan with or without CB 2's approval.
The DOT plan [PDF] calls for removal of the majority of parking along the East River side of Vernon from 45th Ave to its termination at Main St. In place of parking the DOT plans to put down a painted bike lane in both directions, with painted buffers between the lanes and auto traffic. Also proposed are additional traffic calming improvements along Vernon and a pedestrian relief Green Street to be installed at Queensbridge Park. Two weeks prior the proposal was unveiled to CB 2's Land Use Committee, which voted unanimously in favor.
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The latest figures from the Paris Vélib bike sharing program are in. User stats and survey results are posted on the official web site, but for those who don't parlez Français, here's a summary:
Vélib-style bike rentals come to the U.S. this month in Washington, D.C.
After the jump, for you French speakers, Parisians talk about the program -- one of many ways the city is beating traffic.
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Attention aspiring Streetfilm directors: U.S. PIRG has noticed that transit doesn't seem to be on the radar of most pols, so it's enlisting the YouTube generation to help lawmakers see the light. From the U.S. PIRG website:
Are you tired of being stuck in traffic? Shouldn’t we have better options? In the last decade, people went from spending 18 hours per year stuck in rush hour traffic delays to a whopping 38 hours. And as we all know, time spent stuck in traffic is time you never get back.
We want you to create your most persuasive video about why we need more and better public transportation. What’s your vision of a 21st century transportation system? We'll use the winning videos to help decision-makers imagine a better future. Your video will be a critical part of an effort to educate city councils, legislatures across the country, and lawmakers in Washington, D.C.
Videos must be submitted by July 4th. A few are already online -- Clarence, meet your competition.
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In contrast -- or, conceivably, as a complement -- to the L.A. Times portrait of city cycling, here's a Streetfilm from Elizabeth Press, shot yesterday at Transportation Alternatives' Bike Month NYC kick-off.
At a press conference held in the new 14th Street plaza, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan talks about present and future street-level improvements, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe sums up progress on greenways, and Health & Mental Hygiene Assistant Commish Jane Beddell promotes biking as part of the solution to the city's obesity problem. TA's Paul Steely White then gives a quick run-down of some of the 200+ Bike Month events.