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World-Class Avenues for the East Side: What Great BRT Looks Like
The biggest sustainable transportation story in New York right now is how DOT and the MTA plan to design Bus Rapid Transit corridors for the East Side of Manhattan. Will we get world-class avenues that attract more riders to the bus, relieve the jam-packed Lexington subway line, make cycling safer, and enhance the pedestrian environment? If so, the city will improve life for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and set a tremendous precedent in sustainable street design. If not, the standard for BRT corridors will be set low as the city starts rolling out up to a dozen more routes.
November 18, 2009
NYC’s Next Four Years: From Good Enough to Great
Mayor Bloomberg has already shown how much his administration can accomplish in just a few years. Since Janette Sadik-Khan's appointment to head the DOT in 2007, the city has striped hundreds of miles of bike lanes, reclaimed acres of street space for pedestrians and improved bus travel for tens of thousands of New Yorkers. "More of the same" is no longer a dirty phrase when it comes to local transportation policy. During the next four years, the mayor needs to accelerate this progress, and introduce a few key innovations to maximize the value New Yorkers get from their new streets.
November 11, 2009
Broken Streets Theory: How to Alter the Psychology of Reckless Driving
Jessie Singer has a great feature in the latest issue of TA's Reclaim magazine (now available online), examining the NYPD's failure to curb dangerous driving. After pushing down violent crime rates so effectively based on data-driven analysis, she asks, why don't police use the same techniques to tame the life-threatening hazards of New York City traffic?
October 29, 2009
Top to Bottom, NY Legal System Fails the Vulnerable on Our Streets
Safe streets advocates are understandably excited by the prospect of a Manhattan district attorney with an interest in holding dangerous drivers accountable for the death and destruction they impose upon the city every day. But few, if any, expect radical change right away. As attendees at Tuesday's legal symposium on vehicular crime learned, even prosecutors who pursue the cause of traffic justice are often stymied by weak laws and courts that tend to be forgiving of motorists who maim and kill.
October 28, 2009
Second Life: NYC Parking Meters to Reincarnate as Bike Racks
New York's trusty single-space parking meters are a dying breed. They've served commercial corridors admirably, but they're rapidly giving way to muni-meters (which are much better suited for innovations in curbside pricing, like DOT's PARKSmart program).
October 28, 2009
Vance Renews Traffic Safety Pledge at Meeting of Legal Minds
Judged by statistics on violent crime, New York may be the safest big city in America. But its amazingly low murder rate masks a less encouraging trend: With 300 city-wide road deaths a year, reckless driving now rivals homicide as a mortal threat.
October 27, 2009
Last Night’s CB Action: A Big Vote of Confidence for Protected Bike Lanes
Manhattan Community Board 8 issued a strong call for safer streets on the Upper East Side last night, voting 38 to 1 for a resolution supporting protected bike lanes. The reso asks DOT to come back to the CB with a neighborhood bike plan that includes physically protected lanes, though it refrains from mentioning specific routes.
October 22, 2009
Vance to Speak at Traffic Justice Symposium
Next Tuesday's legal symposium on vehicular homicide, presented by Transportation Alternatives, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and the Benjamin N. Cardozo
School of Law, will feature a prominent special guest: presumptive Manhattan DA-elect Cy Vance.
October 21, 2009
Legal Minds Converge to Tackle Traffic Justice; Will Team Vance Attend?
In the past 30 days, no fewer than seven pedestrians have been killed by motorists in New York City. True to form, the only drivers to face charges were those found to be intoxicated. The rest were granted instantaneous pardons by NYPD, several without as much as a blemish on their driving record.
October 15, 2009
Tomorrow: TA Rides for James Langergaard on Queens Boulevard
This past August, a young cyclist and a beloved Transportation Alternatives volunteer, James Langergaard, was struck and killed by a car at Queens Boulevard and 69th Street.
October 1, 2009