Aaron Naparstek

Looking down Park Slope's 9th Street at Prospect Park West. They call this "excess capacity."

Tonight, 6:30 pm at Old First Church on 7th Avenue and Carroll Street, the transportation committee of Brooklyn Community Board 6 hosts a blockbuster follow-up meeting to the "One-Way? No Way!" extravaganza of March 15.

All across the city neighborhood groups are coming together to re-envision and plan their own communities. In the last few months we've seen valuable community-planning processes taking place in Hell's Kitchen, the Meatpacking District and, to a certain extent, along Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. People aren't waiting around for real estate developers or city agencies to tell them how their neighborhoods should be. They are going out and doing the thinking and planning themselves.

A certain sense of entitlement emerges in the UncivilServants comments section. Posted verbatim, no spelling check:

Brooklyn Council member Lew Fidler (above) is circulating an anti-congestion pricing resolution urging Mayor Bloomberg to oppose any form of road pricing. Fidler's resolution appears to be a shot across the bow in preparation for the mayor's forthcoming Long-Term Planning and Sustainability speech. Last week, Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff hinted that the speech would include "bold and creative" transportation policy ideas that come with a cost. Fidler, reportedly, will announce his resolution this coming Wednesday. 

 

With DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall set to depart city government in three weeks, sources say that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is close to announcing her replacement. The Mayor's choice will have a profound impact on day-to-day neighborhood life as well as the City of New York's long-term future. Though the DOT commissioner job search has barely been covered by the local press, this may very well be one of the most important decisions of the last 1,000 days of the Bloomberg Administration.

Last Tuesday night Ryan Russo and Josh Benson from the Department of Transportation presented a plan to Manhattan's Community Board 2 to create a safer east-west bike route across Lower Manhattan. With three cyclists having been killed on Houston Street over the last two years and major reconstruction of the street currently underway, members of CB2 led by Ian Dutton have been advocating for  a physically-separated bike lane to be built on Houston Street.

Yesterday, Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff and MTA President Lee Sander delivered a pair of one-two speeches at the annual meeting of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council. Sadly, the report I wrote up yesterday afternoon was eaten by my blog software. It was really good too. Much more entertaining than this one. What are you gonna do?

The Fifth Precinct in Lower Manhattan has a new commanding officer, a local boy, Dep. Inspector Gin Yee, and he's not afraid to tow some cars, even if they belong to his co-workers. In fact, he's already towed 15 cars, 12 of which belonged to NYPD officers. Downtown Express reports: