Today’s Headlines

  • Bill de Blasio Camp Says He Would Not Remove Prospect Park West Bike Lane (TransNat)
  • Council Progressive Caucus Calls for Road Pricing and BRT Network (CapNY)
  • DOT: Winter Cycling Up 23 Percent, April to October Numbers Mostly Unchanged in 2012 (NYT)
  • Lhota: No Inspector General (Politicker); GOP Candidates Agree NYC Trash Belongs in NJ (DNA)
  • Acevedo Pleads Not Guilty, Defense Attorney Says DA Can’t Prove Manslaughter (News, Post)
  • After Failing to Totally Beat the Rap, Kevin Spellman Awfully Sorry About Grandma Killing (R’dale Press)
  • Death of Mark Chanko, Struck by Driver on Upper East Side, Aired on Television (News)
  • Smith-9th Subway Station to Reopen in April (Bklyn Paper, 2nd Ave Sagas)
  • Rave Reviews for Pedestrian Bridge From Brooklyn Heights to Brooklyn Bridge Park (NYT)
  • Schneiderman Conducts Sting for Bogus Auto Inspections (Post, News)
  • Want a Rent-Free Home Office in NYC? NYT Columnist Explains How.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

  • Bklynite

    The firm commitment from De Blasio on PPW is significant.

  • Not surprised to see winter cycling up so much, but really surprised the fair-weather numbers aren’t higher. Judging from my commute (however subjective), I was sure we would see 20-40 percent increases.

  • Jonathan Rabinowitz

    If the Squibb Bridge over Furman St to Brooklyn Bridge Park does not need those ugly suicide fences, why do other city bridges need them?

  • I’m also surprised cycling numbers were not up more over previous years. I think some of this is probably due to not doing counts at ANY of the new lanes on 1st/2nd and 8th/9th Avenues. I’ll bet that the 8th/9th Avenue lanes are are stealing some riders away from the greenway and that the east side lanes on 1st/2nd Avenues are full of people who start and end their trips in Manhattan.

    It’s great to encourage people to ride from the outer boroughs to Manhttan, but the largest areas for growth are going to be in trips under one or two miles. Riding from the East Village to Midtown wouldn’t be counted by DOT, but I’ll bet it’s a popular route judging from the traffic I see on 1st/2nd Avenues during rush hour.

  • Park user

    Don’t worry, @google-eef301554c27cc8ed15647362dd9f850:disqus – as soon as someone drops something from the bridge there will be hysterical calls to cover the thing up.

  • JK

    How would DiBlasio remove the PPW lane? Would he ignore the community board votes and start conducting business by the mayoral fiat he condemns? Would he ignore the support of the vast majority of neighbors? He’s acknowledging political reality on this one street in West Brooklyn. He can still do everything to forever delay protected bike lanes elsewhere. If bike lanes need three or four community board votes to be approved — which few things do — we are not going to see many more in the next decade.

  • Rider

    And think of all the people riding from Bushwick or Williamsburg to jobs in elsewhere in Brooklyn. There are about a bazillion bicycles changed everywhere in DUMBO, yet not one of the riders they belong to would be counted in these stats.

  • Anonymous

    How would [someone other than DiBlasio] remove the PPW lane? Would [s]he ignore the community board votes and start conducting business by the mayoral fiat he condemns? Would [s]he ignore the support of the vast majority of neighbors?

    1) Quickly.

    2) Yes.

    3) Yes.

    4) Yes.

    Until they put in those pedestrian islands, I was sure that thing was a goner the instant a new mayor took office. Now I think the only thing stopping them will be the expense, noise, and difficulty of tearing out those blocks of concrete.

  • Anonymous

    I bet the growth in intra-Brooklyn commutes (esp. where commute = “Off to my coffee shop office”) is much larger than 23%. On a day as cold as this, I used to never see another cyclist on the road during my five miles each way. But this morning there were probably a dozen.

    And about half of them had to deal with a guy illegally driving an excavator (one of those construction vehicles with the arm and scoop on the front) down Flatbush Avenue and then onto Vanderbilt.

  • moocow

    I agree with both of you, I am not sure if JK was trying to make the point, but saying he wouldn’t do something that would be really hard/unpopular to do anyway, isn’t making much of a stand. Call it a straw stand, or something…

  • fj

    Great that the Brooklyn Heights pedestrian bridge is now open with the Brooklyn Bridge Park night lights back in service.

  • Anonymous

    Agreed. My personal riding habits and what I observe on the road points to a big increase in trips that start and end in Brooklyn (and a few parts of Queens as well.) There are intra-Brooklyn trips that would take an hour by subway (often you have to go through Manhattan and transfer) which are 15-20 minutes on a bike.

  • Anonymous

    That NYT column about the woman learning to love alternate side parking was kind of galling.

    They decide to buy a car, despite the fact that this couple lives in BK heights, she works from home while he works in Midtown. They are certainly entitled to spend their money on whatever luxury items they choose, but they then decide to store it for free on the street, and she is complaining about having to waste her time moving it for alternate side (until she figures out she can make productive use of the hour she spends sitting in the illegally parked car waiting to move it back across the street.)

    A monthly spot in a garage in that neighborhood is probably available for about $300. The street parking is free, but you pay in time. This woman illustrates the perverse incentives of this mispricing. We associate the allocation of goods according to who is willing to spend the most time waiting for them with soviet-era lines for toilet paper. But here we are in NYC in 2013 doing that exact same thing with parking spots.

  • Reader

    It’s also a great indicator that the “working class stiff” car owner is a myth. Who, other than the relatively wealthy or job secure, can afford to sit in their cars for an hour waiting for the street sweeper to pass on by?

  • moocow

    Soviet Era toilet paper lines and waiting and doing other ridiculous things in order to park your car (for free) is a fantastic comparison.

  • Anonymous

    “won’t remove THAT bike lane”. I think the word “that” is key. He may not change PPW, but the rest of the bike lane network is probably toast under De Blasio — Mr. Outer Boro. The fact that he still uses the canard that JSK didn’t consult communities makes him suspect.

  • Maybe we can shut them up this time, with a body count. Compared to the very real dangers that motorists impose on themselves and everyone else, the threat of pedestrians dropping crap off bridges is an absolute joke. If we carried out our danger mitigation in a rational way, we’d have speed bumps on every street before we considered fences for pedestrian bridges.