Community Boards

At a lengthy meeting Wednesday night, the transportation committee of Community Board 7 passed a resolution in support of the "concept" of protected bike lanes on Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues from 59th to 110th Streets. The 6-2 committee vote came after testimony from area residents, business people, and community board members from Hell's Kitchen and midtown, who noted the safety benefits and other improvements separated lanes have brought to their districts.

Community boards in districts east and west of Central Park will hold sessions tonight on cycling infrastructure and safety.

We've got another dispatch from the ongoing bike lane drama that is Kent Avenue. At Wednesday night's information session hosted by Brooklyn CB1, the DOT team gave a short presentation [PDF] outlining their plan to address truck traffic changes caused by converting Kent to one-way flow. Then the public was invited to comment.

If you care about safe biking in Williamsburg and Greenpoint and you'd like to see the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway eventually reach completion, you'll want to show up at tonight's Brooklyn CB1 transportation meeting. The Kent Avenue bike lane is item number one on the agenda.

Tonight's Manhattan CB3 committee meeting is an important one for advocates looking to make the current round of pedestrian and bike improvements on Allen and Pike Streets more permanent. This is a major reclamation project [PDF] stretching from Houston to the East River and a big success for bottom-up planning.

I didn't get to watch last night's Democratic mayoral debate between Bill Thompson and Tony Avella, so I missed the high drama that ensued when the candidates were asked if they'll retain Janette Sadik-Khan as transportation commissioner. Good thing Brian Lehrer played excerpts on his show this morning (check the 13:40 mark). Now I know the answer from both: "No."

Last September, Manhattan Community Board 12 tabled a resolution in support of a new Greenmarket for W. 185th Street in Washington Heights. The effort to locate the market was community-driven -- a neighborhood resident gathered 1,000 signatures in support of it -- the board's parks committee was enthusiastically in favor, and the city's Greenmarket office was in the process of securing a tow truck to remove errant vehicles. But the idea stalled when a handful of area residents predicted the market would draw noisy early-morning crowds, and complained that it would tie up the street's 19 parking spots for a few hours a week.

These days, it's not often that we get to report about New York City community boards pushing DOT for more progressive street designs. So sit back and enjoy this post. If you read Streetsblog regularly, it'll blow your mind.

The Kent Avenue bike path was not the most hotly debated item at last night's Brooklyn CB1 meeting. That distinction belongs to the rezoning plan for the area known as Broadway Triangle. But DOT's team still encountered some skepticism from North Brooklyn residents concerned about truck traffic. The revised plan [PDF], which calls for a two-way protected bike path on Kent with one-way auto traffic, would divert southbound trucks along a different route.