Department of Environmental Protection

Last week's Chinatown disaster has prompted a good bit of discussion about idling vehicles. As it happens, two bills are wending their way through the City Council that would tighten idling restrictions and foster improved enforcement.

Comptroller William Thompson and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer want the city to enforce a law mandating that sightseeing buses reduce harmful emissions. Meanwhile, a citizen group called "Tour Buses No -- Tourists Yes" also wants the buses off residential streets.

Streets near the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the LIRR's Atlantic Terminal are set to receive a basket of pedestrian improvements that may get underway as soon as November. Speaking last night to the CB2 transportation committee and about a dozen other residents, DOT's Chris Hrones laid out plans for new pedestrian spaces and traffic signals -- including a Barnes Dance (exclusive walk signal) at the intersection of Flatbush and Fourth Avenue.

Today Transportation Alternatives released "Streets to Live By" [PDF], the report previewed last week in the Observer. It seeks to define what makes a street livable and to synthesize a broad range of data, culled from numerous cities, on the effects of policies that put pedestrians first.

Mayor Bloomberg and city agency commissioners answered questions in Riverdale last night.

If Mayor Bloomberg is indeed looking inside his administration for the next head of DOT, at least some advocates of progressive planning would like him to consider Emily Lloyd, the commissioner of the city's Department of Environmental Protection.  "It would be awesome if we had someone like her," said Fred Kent, president of the Project for Public Spaces. "She's really a very practical, thoughtful, holistic person. It's a quality that would be unusual in a DOT."