Aaron Naparstek

Streetsblog has gotten a hold of a draft of DOT's plan to widen the sidewalk and install new bike racks at the Bedford Avenue L subway station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As diagrammed above, the plan calls for the elimination of five motor vehicle parking spaces on N. 7th Street at Bedford Avenue, alongside the subway station stairwell on the southeast corner (see the corner at the bottom of the diagram).

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A Bike Parking Building Boom in Portland (and Brooklyn Too) BikePortland.org reports that four new "Bike Oases," sleek, roof-covered, bicycle parking facilities (pictured above) will be installed on a popular shopping boulevard by spring. PDOT has also been converting car parking spaces into on-street bike parking. This is something that bicycle commuters who park-and-ride to the Bedford Avenue L subway stop in Brooklyn have been trying to get for a couple of years now. Well, good news: Last night DOT informed Brooklyn Community Board 1 that they will be eliminating five car-lengths of parking space on the southeast corner of N. 7th Street and Bedford Avenue and installing bike racks. As far as I know, the project sets two new precedents: First, DOT's creation of a bike park-and-ride at a subway stop and second, an outer borough neighborhood willingly giving up car parking spaces to bicycles or, well, anything, for that matter. Details to come.

As expected, word came out of Governor-Elect Eliot Spitzer's headquarters this morning that he will recommend the appointment of Elliot "Lee" Sander as executive director and CEO of the MTA. Sander is currently corporate senior vice president at DMJM Harris, a leading transportation engineering firm and director of the Rudin Center for Transporation Policy at NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

You've got to hand it to Clarence Eckerson. The producer of Streetfilms managed to turn around a video of this morning's press conference announcing the new Bruce Schaller study of Soho streets (PDF) in less than four hours and it's a really nice piece of work. My only gripe is that he edited out the taxi cab blasting its horn in the middle of Schaller's talk. Anyway, here is video of this morning's press conference including lots of great, weekend footage of Soho streets:

A Porsche, an ambulette, Paul Steely White, Bruce Schaller and a vendor compete for street space in Soho

Pedestrian injury and fatality data from the Transportation Alternatives Crash Map

Map from the city's PlaNYC web site. See more maps at Gothamist.