Community Boards

Residents of the Zerega Avenue section of the Bronx are upset that beds for the sick will be putting a crimp in neighborhood parking stock.

The Grand Army Plaza Coalition, which recently won a grant from the Design Trust for Public Spaces, has launched an Ideas Competition for its Reinventing Grand Army Plaza project. If you want to participate, answer the following questions in full sentences, and email your responses by the end of the week to survey@reinventingGAP.org.

It looks like the street redesign around the Manhattan entrance of the Manhattan Bridge is nearing completion. Considering that Transportation Alternatives has been pushing for these fixes for years, that was pretty fast. DOT presented its plan to the local Community Board, to unanimous approval, in July; sketched out the lines on the street in August; and here we are.

It looks like 5th Precinct Commanding Officer Gin Yee, the Sheriff of Chinatown, is laying down the law once again. A Streetsblog tipster spotted these tow trucks as they were removing government placard abusers from their illegal parking spots in Chinatown. While it's refreshing to see the police "towing their own," the tipster notes that as soon as the trucks pulled away a new group of placard abusing government employees swooped in to claim the empty parking spaces.

We're just catching up to this piece of good news in The Villager last week:

This scene was photographed by Flickr photographer BicyclesOnly on Saturday. Read his note below. Hopefully someone will ask members of Manhattan Community Board 8's transportation committee if this sort of car crash meets their rigorous aesthetic standards. Last January, CB8 rejected a proposal to physically protect Park Avenue's pedestrian refuge areas because they didn't think bollards, barriers or planters could be made to look pretty enough. Streetsblog readers will also remember CB8's transportation committee as the group that tried to kill DOT's crosstown bike route plan for the Upper East Side last summer. It looks like CB8 is still trying to kill it. The 91st Street bike lane is on the agenda of their December 10 meeting: 

Opponents of the Department of Transportation's plan for a new Lower Manhattan crosstown bike route are expected to make a show of force at tonight's Community Board 2 Transportation Committee meeting in an effort to preserve a few dozen on-street parking spaces along Carmine and Bleecker Streets. Bicycling advocates are urging their supporters to show up as well.

Hundreds of Manhattanites braved an indoor congestion zone Thursday night, struggling to find a seat before the New York City Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission hearing. The packed forum attracted hundreds of spectators, leaving balcony-only seating in the Hunter College auditorium.

The MTA has been taking a lot of flack following yesterday's dust-up over MTA workers seizing bicycles locked to the Bedford Avenue subway station stairwell railing in Williamsburg. Perhaps the wrong transportation agency is taking the hit on this one.