Aaron Naparstek

On Friday, Department of Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall stood up in front of 600 people at Borough President Stringer's Transportation Policy Conference and said that her agency was serious about reducing car use in New York City. It was a great policy speech.

Text of Enrique Peñalosa Speech Online (Gotham Gazette) The Proletariat and the Parking Lot (NYT) … And a Battle Over Government Employee Permit Abuse (NYT) Out for a Stroll: Mother killed, daughter hurt in Bklyn hit-and-run (CBS2) Taxi Picks Up African-American Man at 2 am! (NYT) First Rush Hour Test Of Manhattan Bridge Closure (NY1) Firefighters … Continued

Saturday, October 14, 9 am to 5 pm. Recycle-A-Bicycle Queens Shop Fifth Street at 46th Avenue, Long Island CitySavvy Cyclist Class

Friday, October 13, 2006, 7 pm

DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall's speech was, for many long-time Livable Streets advocates, the single most remarkable aspect of yesterday's Manhattan Transportation Policy Conference. As Jon Orcutt at TSTC noted, Weinshall's speech "laid out an array of measures to improve New York's pedestrian and bicycling environments, soften the quality of life impacts of heavy traffic, and begin to reclaim the sheer urban acreage given over to automobiles." Added up, these measures appear to represent the beginnings of an altogether new set of transportation, land use, and public space policies for New York City and, as Orcutt writes, "a significant departure" from past priorities.

Three congestion charging rumors, all from excellent, though, un-named sources:

Weinshall Points to the Future (TSTC) New Traffic Plan In Times Square Favors Pedestrians (NY1) Borough President Scott Stringer’s Transpo Policy Speech (YouTube) Answers to City’s Traffic Woes Could Arrive Via Bogotá (NY Sun) Talking Heads’ David Byrne Bikes for Beep (NY Mag) Biking With Penalosa and Byrne to the Conference (Eckerson) Burden Claims Jane … Continued

I'm up at Columbia University covering Borough President Stringer's Transportation Policy Conference, live:

The Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway Inititiave is one of the most inspiring and visionary development projects going in New York City right now. The project is very grassroots. Over ten years ago, three Brooklyn residents, Brian McCormick, Milton Puryear and Meg Fellerath got it in their heads that Brooklyn's waterfront should have a bike path and linear park just as good as the popular Hudson River Greenway in Manhattan (see the rendering of Columbia Street at right).

It looks like the City's promise to build out the bike network is already bearing fruit. Streetsblog reader Alex Kahl sends along these photos of new bike lane markings being striped on W. 77th and W. 78th Street near Columbus Avenue. Unlike the new, Class III, "shared lane" markings spotted yesterday in the middle of Clinton Street near Delancey, it looks like these are going to be Class II lanes running along the side of the street.