I don’t see where/how to vote.

Yeah, I’m not seeing any vote facility in either IE or Chrome, but it is showing me the running tally, which may not be desirable pre-voting.

“Did she personally sponsor the raids on the transit money? Did she advocate or twist arms to make sure it happened? She was one of many who voted for those measures.”

She stood out for the reason mentioned. She showed up and criticized the state government she oversees for the problems caused to other people by decisions she assented to. She didn’t do more damage than anyone else, but she stood out for hypocrisy.

I don’t write for Streetsblog, but this drives me nuts too. As we face an institutional collapse due to the deals, favors and debts of the past coming due in recession, the last thing I want to see is state legislators kept in office by those who benefitted by those deals, favors and debt showing up to criticize those presiding over the collapse while trying to minimize the damage. Shut up, take your winnings, and move to Florida with your supporters.

That was it (the conflicting IP address) – thanks.

Will Iris move up the charts now that she has signed that letter in today’s NYT?

Write-in vote for “Urban Abomination of the Year” — Atlantic Yards

I love the Streetsies.

It’s great that you guys finally got the People’s Choice voting option up and running.

@NattyB:

I hear you about the east side bike lanes. I live in Spanish Harlem and I cut across to HRGW to bike down to SoHo, an additional 3 miles out of my way just so I can be safer. and I only do that once or twice a week, the rest of the time I just take the subway. Build it and they will come.

East side has no access between 34th and 125th. Or 34th and 62nd (East River Greenway), and I wouldn’t want to be riding on the ERG late at night.

Connecting 34th to 125th would open up so many more commuters and general biking usage on the east side, I think as far as biking infrastructure goes, that’s the single best thing the city could do in manhattan. Heck, even just extending the bike lanes to 62nd street would be better than what is there now.

The incomplete and uncertain Bikeway north of 34th definitely has to win street safety nadir of the year–we won it and then they took it away! Until it’s built, for relatively calm routes through Midtown East I use Lexington and Park. For a protected ride, I take West Drive to Broadway headed downtown and detour all the way to the HRGW only for uptown.

Best Livable Streets moment is really tough. The PPW rally was so well attended, had a great feeling, was lots of fun. But the CB7 vote on the Columbus Avenue bike path that carried by only one vote was an incredible nail-biter and represented a remarkable culmination of years of sustained effort, and the statements by the various speakers summed up everything the livable streets movements stands for.

And I wasn’t at the Jax Heights march for the play street, but the video made it look awesome.

And the submission of the 2,500 letters to Bloomberg was pretty awesome, too.

So, Del, what if the people on that street really want a play street? Do they have to ask the chief of staff to move in order to be “deserving of consideration”?

I know this is random, but I like to look towards the future!

Can anyone here tell me if there has ever been a concerted effort to pedestrianize St. Mark’s Place? (I know that many residents would like to see sidewalks widened again, which would be a good start…)

I imagine a redesigned Astor Place – currently a disaster of roads – transitioning to a beautiful pedestrianized St. Mark’s Place all the way to Tompkins Square Park. The avenues, of course, would be kept open to traffic, but St. Mark’s would be pedestrianized on each block with retractable bollards installed to allow for cleaning, late-night deliveries and perhaps early morning (i.e. 4 AM when deliveries would also be occurring) taxi service from clubs/bars.

It wouldn’t be hard – just widen the sidewalks dramatically and remake the carriageway with some sort of attractive paving block. I imagine the whole set-up would operate similar to many of the streets in the center of “Old Amsterdam” over in the Netherlands.

What do you think? Any tweaks you guys would make? Am I being impractical? Can you post any links to serious studies?

That’s a nice proposal – I didn’t know it existed! I would love to see more light rail/modern streetcar in NYC as I think it would help to “civilize” surface transport in NYC (I’m very disappointed, of course, that there are no serious plans for light rail to take over for buses on the 34th ST Transitway…), discipline cars and just make the streetscape more interesting.

Hmmmmm – the M8 totally slipped my mind. Two options:

1.) Widen sidewalks on St. Mark’s and adopt a “transit mall/plaza”-style approach ala Denver (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2296/2148407756_12ae6d3343.jpg). Sensors on the M8 bus would automatically bring down retractable bollards (a trolley or light rail vehicle, of course, would obviate the need for bollards as you’d have a track running down the middle of the new mall/plaza).

2.) Shift the M8 bus down to E. 6th ST for St. Mark’s Place portion of route and adjust remainder of route accordingly. Enact more elaborate pedestrianization of St. Mark’s given absence of transit.

Of the two, option #1 would probably be more realistic for the culture of NYC and most welcomed by businesses seeking a compromise between enhanced public space and consumer access to stores/restaurants. And option #1 with a quiet, sleek, and clean modern streetcar would, of course, be better than a bus. Again, I think Amsterdam provides a great example of running light rail/modern streetcar through crowded pedestrian areas.