Eyes on the Street: Summer Streets Gallery #1

bikes_and_peds_share.jpg

Reader Jen Petersen sends this shot of the intersection of Lafayette and Spring on Saturday, along with her observations of how pedestrians, cyclists, and everyone else shared the road during Summer Streets:

In the absence of special pavement markings delineating lanes for walkers, runners, cyclists, rollerbladers/skaters, people with children (and strollers), and others, we had to be responsible for our footprints. The burden of regulating our interactions and avoiding altercations was on us; NYPD was only keeping the current conflict-free where it met automobiles at transverse streets. And so it seems when we travel at more-or-less the same speed, and the journey is itself the destination, we somehow figure out how to use each other as signposts. Now if we could just figure this out on a workday, in all five boroughs…

More reader-submitted photos after the jump, and more to come tomorrow…

park_51st.jpg

prant1_1.jpg

prant2.jpg

Top photo of Park Avenue north of Grand Central: Philly Bike Coalition/Flickr
Bottom two photos: Jeff Prant

Taking a breather by the south facade of Grand Central. Photo: BicyclesOnly/Flickr

bike_share_station.jpg

Free bike rentals on Lafayette. Photo: Philly Bike Coalition/Flickr

puppy.jpg

Puppy on board. Photo: cafrizell/Flickr

Thanks for adding your pics to Streetsblog’s Flickr pool — there’s more on the way!

  • I’ve always been pro jaywalking for this very reason. If drivers and riders and walkers have an expectation of a clear path and the right of way, they will act like it. I think this would explain how the managed chaos of some European streets works better for all concerned.

  • Braddy

    Summer Streets is already a brilliant success, and the next two Saturdays will be even bigger. Having experienced it, maybe even some of the businesses along the route will figure out how to make it work for them.

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Does Summer Streets Need a “Fast Lane”?

By Brad Aaron |
This weekend, on the second Saturday of Summer Streets, the first thing my wife Jennifer and I noticed as we ascended the ramp from 42nd Street to Park Avenue was the quiet. I mentioned to Jennifer that I had come across a blog comment likening the scene to the New York portrayed in the post-apocalyptic […]

“Summer Streets” Aren’t Enough

By Sarah Goodyear |
New York has them. San Francisco has them. Portland, too. Now St. Louis might be getting its own version of Summer Streets. Streetsblog Network member St. Louis Urban Workshop is happy with Mayor Francis Slay’s proposal to close some of the city’s streets to motor vehicles on summer weekends. But the blog calls for more […]

How Do You Summer Street?

By Nick Grossman |
Planning to do something fun this Saturday at Summer Streets? Let us know!  We’d like to help facilitate the planning of ad-hoc events along the route. Did you realize that most of the side streets adjacent to the route are also closed? So there’s plenty of room to, say, organize a game of stickball.  We’ve […]

Q&A: Trottenberg Previews Tomorrow’s “Shared Streets” Debut

By David Meyer |
Summer Streets takes a big step forward this weekend with “Shared Streets: Lower Manhattan.” From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. tomorrow, DOT will open up a 60-block radius in the Financial District to pedestrians and cyclists, limiting motor vehicle access to residents, deliveries, and emergency vehicles [PDF]. The event evokes the concept of “shared space” — […]