There are a wealth of new ways to count successes and failures in New York City.
First, the good news: Here's a hat tip to the number-crunchers and graphic designers at the Department of Transportation for creating a new bike counter that puts all the agency's numbers in one place. From it, you can easily see that, though April 14, the Queensboro Bridge hosted 432,666 bike trips this year. And on the average day in March (which was cold!), there were nearly 5,000 trips. Those numbers show why the QBB is leading the league!
And you can already see the benefits of the McGuinness Boulevard bike lane:
So far this year, 3,068,236 bikes have tripped the agency's 20 automated counters, which is roughly 2 percent more than the same period last year (which was a lot warmer).
Broadening out from just bikes, our friends at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering have created their own tracker — this one to gauge the ongoing success of congestion pricing (send the link to U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy!). From this counter, you learn at a glance that on some streets in the congestion relief zone, vehicle speeds have more than doubled due to the reduction in traffic! Want to know more? The school will kick off its fancy dashboard with a seminar on Thursday, April 17., fearturing Charles Komanoff, Rachel Weinberger and Brian Fritsch. Click here for details and to sign up.
And we would be remiss if we didn't point out that Streetsblog has its own new tracker — one that reminds us again of the terrible job our political elite and its law enforcement muscle does in getting the worst drivers off the street. Data journalist Michael Cahana created for us, so please scroll through it:
In other news from a slow day on the livable streets beat:
- Speaking of things to count, how about we do a recount on how much the 79th Street corridor is going to cost. (I Love the Upper West Side)
- Amtrak and NJ Transit say they've fixed their track and power problems. (Gothamist)
- The new curbside trash bins are here! The new curbside trash bins are here! (Gothamist)
- Not rocket science: A strong majority of people like the Underhill Avenue bike boulevard. (BK Reader)
- A day late, but every dollar counts when it comes to the Queensboro Bridge pedestrian path. (LIC Post)
- The new public toilet in Tompkins Square Park is really having a moment. (Hell Gate)
