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The Department of Transportation Takes on Bad Intersection at 95th Street

On November 17th, the New York City Department of Transportation made a big safety improvement for walkers and cyclists when it closed the entrance to the Henry Hudson Parkway at the busy intersection of 95th Street and Riverside Drive, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. There, an exit/entrance to the highway cuts through Riverside Park at street level and forces park and greenway users to brave highway traffic to cross from one part of the park to another. This location is also important because it is a crucial access point to the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway.

For years, neighbors and park users have urged the Department of Transportation to do something about this dangerous Upper West Side intersection. For instance, in 1996, T.A. asked the Department to traffic calm the location by widening sidewalks and installing a median island. In response, the Department of Transportation marked the street with white stripes and installed plastic bollards demarking sidewalk widenings. This was a good start, but not enough to change the fundamental problem of walkers and cyclists having to negotiate heavy traffic coming on and off the highway; some drivers turn at high speeds and are hard to see. The Department of Transportation’s recent closure of the entrance half of the access ramp is a major step forward for walkers and cyclists. However, there is more work to be done; walkers continue to face very aggressive turning and red light running motorists.

Sutton Place Group Bashes Cycling:
Well Heeled Group Crushes New Lanes

This summer, the Sutton Area Community neighborhood association bullied City Hall into scrapping plans to place north-south bike lanes on Sutton Place as part of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway. Sutton Place is a low-traffic, north-south street one block East of First Avenue, between 53rd and 59th Streets in Manhattan. Not satisfied with its success in quashing this lane, the group has continued to protest bicycling, the new bike lanes on 54th and 55th Streets and the greenway. In its Fall news bulletin, the group wrote that, "This invasion of recreational bikers is a threat to our community’s quiet enjoyment by exacerbating the already cacophonous rush hour traffic."

The group’s bulletin also claimed that the three blocks of new bike lanes "on 54th and 55th Streets interfere with resident vehicle loading/unloading." However, double-parking, regardless of the presence of a bike lane, is illegal in New York City.

In a written response to the Sutton Area Community, T.A. suggested a meeting between the group, City agencies and City Council members so that the "implementing agencies can provide justification for the greenway’s design and explain how on-street bicycle lanes and off-street greenway paths benefit your community."

The Sutton Area Community’s shrill opposition to all bicycling improvements is disappointing given that the group supports commonsense measures like the Department of Transportation’s crackdown on newspaper boxes.

Read more about bike lanes and greenways.

Another Fare Hike Possible in ’05 as MTA Debt Bomb Explodes

State Comptroller says the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) may have a $1.2 billion budget gap by 2005. His estimate of the gap is $360 million larger than that of the MTA. Hevesi says the MTA is being unrealistic by counting on a big infusion of aid from the state legislature and New York City. He predicts a hike in fares and bridge tolls by 2005. The MTA says it will hold the base fare at $2 until 2007, but may reduce discounts; a discount reduction is equivalent to a fare hike for anyone using a monthly, weekly or multi-ride MetroCard, which is the vast majority of transit riders.

Read more about transit issues.

Letters

A small sampling of the e-mail T.A. receives

Motorcycles Locked to Bicycle Racks

Is it legal to lock a motorcycle to a bicycle rack? A motorcycle has been locked to the rack I normally use for the last month or so. It takes up the space of two bicycles and is in a heavily biked area (Prince and Broadway). If I encounter its owner, I would like to be able to advise her/him to remove the motorcycle and find a parking garage for it—not a bike rack!

Submitted anonymously

Laws of New York City
Chapter 4 – Traffic Rules
Section 4-01 WORDS AND PHRASES DEFINED
Subdivision (b) Definitions. The following words and phrases, when used in these rules, shall, for the purpose of these rules, have the meanings respectively ascribed to them as follows: […] Vehicle. Every device in, upon, or by which any person or property is or may be transported or drawn upon a highway, except devices moved by human power or used exclusively upon stationary rails or tracks.
Section 4-08 PARKING, STOPPING, STANDING
Subdivision (e) General No Stopping Zones (Stopping, standing, and parking prohibited in specified places). No person shall stop, stand, or park a vehicle in any of the following places, unless otherwise indicated by posted signs, markings or other traffic control devices, or at the direction of a law enforcement officer, or as otherwise provided in this subdivision: Part (3) Sidewalks. On a sidewalk.

Missing Link on the Hudson River Greenway

What is happening with the delayed construction of bike path on the West side of Manhattan in the 80s?

Bob E.
T.A. Member

According to the site (www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/mwg/maps_2_3_2.html), the Riverside Park connector will be built between 2008 and 2018. However, according to sources at the Parks Department, it aims to build the connector in the next two years. Whether the Parks Department is able to do so depends on raising money.

Write to Deputy Mayor Doctoroff and urging the City to build the connector as soon as possible. You can use the fax form in the above article or write to:

Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff
City Hall
New York, NY 10007

Physically Separated Bike Lanes

I have just returned from Barcelona, Spain where I saw a brilliantly simple solution to the challenge of bike lanes as a truly safe path on heavily trafficked streets. They solve the problem of cars and taxis disregarding the designated bike lane by placing the lane between the sidewalk and a line of parked cars. In this way no driving space is lost while the line of parked cars serves as a barrier against ongoing traffic. The attached picture illustrates this best.

If New York City could make bike travel safe as a real mode of city transportation, think of the economic, health, environmental, noise and traffic congestion benefits. Is this solution too simple, ingenious and cheap to warrant adoption?

Elisha F.
Mt. Kisco, NY

Write to the New York City Department of Transportation and urge it to install more physically separated bike lanes:

Commissioner Iris Weinshall
NYC Department of Transportation
40 Worth Street
New York, NY 10013
E-mail: www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/maildot.html 

The City has also installed physically separated bike lanes at confusing intersections like Herald and Madison Squares. See transalt.org/campaigns/reclaiming/herald.html  and transalt.org/press/magazine/003Summer/04bikelane.html.

For a few months in 1980, New York had physically separated bike lanes similar to the ones you saw in Barcelona. The City laid down curbs on 6th Avenue and other north-south avenues to keep motorists from driving and parking in the bike lane. Unfortunately, pedestrians, vendors and delivery carts quickly took over the lanes and businesses complained because the physical separations made deliveries difficult. In the end, the lanes were politically unpopular and so the City removed them.

Holiday Cars in Prospect Park

Dear Tupper Thomas [Prospect Park Administrator],

They say "It's the thought that counts," but I have to say "Thanks, but no thanks" to the DOT's special Holiday Drive Schedule in Prospect Park. I hope you can use your office, your Bully Pulpit, to help the DOT and Parks Department see the light on this quality of life issue that affects all Brooklynites.

I am a bicycle commuter, a daily user of the Prospect Park drives who rides approximately 4,000 miles a year in Prospect Park alone. For the past year and a half or so I, and other bicyclists, skaters, runners, casual strollers and playing children, have enjoyed the safety and serenity of the limited traffic hours in Olmsted's masterpiece of urban park design. That's why I was so dismayed last week when I encountered cars zipping by me (dangerously close, well over the speed limit) and discovered that the advent of twelve-hour-a-day motor traffic was upon me; needlessly threatening my safety, and assaulting the quality of life that we Brooklynite's have come to cherish in our urban oasis of "meadow, wood, and water." I was shocked because it was my perception that the experiment of the "year round" summer schedule of rush-hour-only motor traffic was a sensible and smashing success, enjoyed by all.

I live close to the Parade Ground; my children play AYSO soccer there and also practice in the park. We sled and skate there in winter, walk to evening concerts in the summer, and picnic under the lindens, sweet gums and massive, English elms. My wife and I were married in the Picnic House seventeen years ago.

Heretofore I haven't been a staunch advocate of the position that the park be completely car-free at all times. I believed that a couple of hours of weekday motor traffic during rush hours was a reasonable compromise in order to speed motorists home and relieve traffic congestion on the residential streets of Park Slope, Windsor Terrace and Flatbush. Occasionally, I use the park drives as a motorist.

Going through the park saves me about two minutes of drive time as opposed to going around the park. That's a savings I (and I think, all Brooklynites) can live without—certainly between 9 am and 5 pm—and perhaps all the time. The toll on our safety isn't worth the price of cars in the park. The insignificant inconvenience of a slightly longer drive will pay dividends of an improved quality of life.

Why should the motor-car rule in the park when there are plenty of roads for them, as well as a great public transportation system in Brooklyn? Olmsted certainly didn't envision it that way. His park drives were designed for the horse-and-carriage, his park paths designed specifically for the pedestrian and bicyclist.

Changing the park drive hours now, during the Holiday season, is dangerous and confusing to all who have become accustomed to the extended "summer hours." I urge you to expand, rather than curtail those car-free hours.

Public schools will be closed for twelve days, from December 24th through January 4th. Children will be using the park all the time during the Winter Recess. And I must point out that the low, winter sun, shining in motorists eyes as they head west on the heavily used West Drive, makes conditions especially hazardous for children trying to cross the drive during the afternoon hours.

Lastly, I urge the DOT, along with the Parks Department, to implement the three-month trial of totally car-free hours in Prospect Park that was discussed among those departments and various pedestrian advocacy groups a while back. The success of extended summer-hours warrants such a trial, and may prove to be welcomed, and appreciated, by all of Brooklyn.

Sincerely,
Bennett F.

Cc: Iris Weinshall
Councilmember Bill De Blasio
Lori Ardito, Brooklyn Borough Commissioner
Transportation Alternatives

T.A. Inspires Toronto

Dear T.A.:

I’ve recently subscribed three new T.A. members: Myself (lapsed from some time ago), my partner and Toronto’s new mayor David Miller.

In a refreshing breath during his election campaign, Miller had the courage to speak of the possibility of road tolls. It’s not the first time he’s challenged the supremacy of the car.

It pleases me that T.A.’s enlightening magazine will cross my mayor’s desk periodically. (Indeed Toronto urban guru Jane Jacobs, a New York City-native, was one of Miller’s staunchest endorsers.) His political platform is to “clean up Toronto.” Miller understands that street litter is inconsequential compared to the two-ton hunks of metal that populate our city—terrorizing, polluting and impeding the efficient flow of traffic. We are counting on Toronto’s new city council to clean our air and civic space—by elevating the status of bicycling, walking, and public transit. Thanks for the inspiration from New York City!

Yours truly
Anne H.
Toronto, Canada

Good luck! We will be cheering for you.

T.A. has many volunteer opportunities.  Please visit our site to learn more about how you can help.  Come to the Volunteer Mailing Party on Wednesday, December 17th at 6 pm at the T.A. Office (115 West 30th, #1207)! Free beer, soda, snacks and scintillating conversation. 

Saturday, December 13, 9:45 am. Bound Brook to New Brunswick, NJ. NY Transit windows of PENN Station, 8th Ave. section, upper level (do not use 7th Ave. section). Shorewalkers.

Sunday, December 14, 9 am. Nyack. Loeb Boathouse. Fast & Fabulous.

Sunday, December 14, 10 am. Flat Rock Nature Preserve. City Hall. 5BBC.

Tuesday, December 16, 10 am. TBA. The Loeb Boathouse. The Weekday Cyclists in NYC.

Friday, December 19, 8 am. Easton, PA to Bethlehem, PA. Port Authority bus terminal near white commuter statues. Shorewalkers.

Saturday, December 20, 9:15 am. Bike Chocolate. South Ferry. 5BBC.

Sunday, December 21, 9:30 am. On a Winter's Night. Cunningham Park. 5BBC.

Sunday, December 21, 10 am. Xmas Lights in Dyker Heights & Dim Sum. City Hall. 5BBC.

Sunday, December 21, 4 pm. Lights in the Heights Ride. City Hall. Time's Up!

Tuesday, December 23, 10 am. TBA. The Loeb Boathouse. The Weekday Cyclists in NYC.

Friday, December 26, 7 pm. Critical Mass. Union Square Park North. Time's Up!

Saturday, December 27, 10 pm. Riverside Ride. Columbus Circle. Time's Up!

Sunday, December 28, 9 am. River Road. Loeb Boathouse. Fast & Fabulous.

Sunday, December 28, 10 am. Midi-evil Xmas in the Cloisters. City Hall. 5BBC.

Sunday, December 28, 4 pm. Lights in the Heights Ride. City Hall. Time's Up!

Tuesday, December 30, 10 am. TBA. The Loeb Boathouse. The Weekday Cyclists in NYC.

Wednesday, December 31, 10:45 pm. New Year's Eve Ride. Union Square Park North. Time's Up!

More Rides and Walks....