DCP Official: Parking Minimums Buy Support for Upzonings
We reported yesterday that Department of City Planning Sustainability Director Howard Slatkin recently announced that his agency "believe[s] there are opportunities to lower parking requirements" in a ring of neighborhoods around the Manhattan core. This would be an important step forward in overhauling decades-old policies that lead to more traffic and less affordable housing. Importantly, Slatkin also revealed a major reason why the department sees mandatory parking minimums as so important -- it's all about the politics of development.
May 11, 2011
Private Trash Hauler Critically Injures Woman at Essex and Delancey
A private sanitation truck driver hit a pedestrian at the intersection of Essex and Delancey Streets yesterday afternoon, dragging her under the truck. She was transported to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition with severe trauma to her legs, according to the NYPD.
May 11, 2011
Today’s Headlines
Even Breathalyzer-Giving Highway Cops Fixed Tickets (NYT) Fixers Got Their Own Tickets: to Yankees, Mets, and Giants (News) After Watching New PSAs, Post Says Even DOT Thinks Cyclists Are Jerks (Post) Second Anti-Bike Share Post Editorial in One Week Warns of Litigious New Yorkers Brand New Riverside Boulevard Already Needs Traffic Calming Median (DNAinfo) City … Continued
May 11, 2011
DCP Likely to Propose Lower Parking Minimums for NYC’s “Inner Ring”
In its recent update of PlaNYC, New York's long-term sustainability plan, the city committed itself to the proposition that “requiring too much parking to be built in a dense city like New York can encourage driving, contribute to congestion, and unnecessarily raise the cost of new development.” That was a major breakthrough given the Department of City Planning's previous reluctance to admit that parking minimums induce traffic, but PlaNYC's lack of substantive commitments to parking reform left many wanting.
May 10, 2011
NYPD Bike Blitz Cheat Sheet Tells Cops to Enforce Bogus Traffic Laws
Sometime between the ticket one cyclist received for turning right on red into Central Park and the ticket another received for riding with a bag slung over her handlebars, it became abundantly clear that NYPD's "Operation Safe Cycle" is not really about safer cycling. Instead of applying the NYPD's vaunted data-driven policing techniques to encourage safer and more courteous cycling behaviors, the department's bike blitz seemingly consists of harassing cyclists and slapping them with large fines for the most minor transgressions.
May 9, 2011
Mayor’s Budget Includes Parking Meter Rate Hike, Red Light Cam Expansion
Mayor Bloomberg's budget proposal, which was released today, still includes a plan to increase parking meter rates across the city, a plan which the City Council scuttled once in January. The transportation budget also includes an increase in revenue from an expansion of the city's red light camera program.
May 6, 2011
Behind the Scenes of a Marcia Kramer Hit Piece
Ever wondered what goes into the making of a Marcia Kramer hit piece, those nearly-perfected hatchet jobs on whatever DOT safety improvement is on her radar that week? We got to watch Kramer in action at Wednesday's transportation committee meeting as she gathered footage for her most recent attack on the city's plaza program.
May 6, 2011