Complete Streets

Has the moment finally arrived for a national complete streets law?

After a unanimous vote by its transportation committee last month, Manhattan Community Board 5 voted unanimously last night for DOT to study a complete streets redesign of Fifth and Sixth Avenues to better accommodate pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders on two of the busiest avenues in Midtown.

The campaign for a more bike- and pedestrian-friendly design on crowded Fifth and Sixth Avenues has crossed its first major milestone, with Community Board 5's transportation committee advancing a resolution asking DOT for a complete streets study.

The sidewalks of Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Midtown are packed -- sometimes overflowing -- and the streets see some of the highest bike volumes in the city. While this should be one of the world's premier walking districts, both avenues are designed primarily to move motor vehicles, and injury and fatality rates are high. Since last summer, Transportation Alternatives has led a campaign to improve conditions for walking and biking on Fifth and Sixth.

Last fall, Lou Huang was at a community meeting for the initiative to redesign Second Street in San Francisco. Planners handed out paper cutouts, allowing participants to mix and match to create their ideal street. Huang, an urban designer himself, thought the exercise would make for a great website. Now, after months of work beginning at a January hackathon with colleagues at Code for America, it is a great website.

If Ontario Street in Cleveland, Ohio, is any indication, a complete streets policy is no guarantee you'll get a safe place to ride a bike, or even a comfortable place to walk.

Nearly 500 cities, states, and counties around the United States have enacted complete streets policies, according to Smart Growth America. Now a bipartisan team of lawmakers has introduced legislation to make it a matter of national policy that streets should be designed not only for driving, but for walking, biking, and transit as well.

Last night, Manhattan Community Board 7's transportation committee debated the merits of bringing protected bike lanes and pedestrian refuges to Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues between 59th and 110th Streets. This would be a big gain for the Upper West Side, which currently only has one mile of protected bike lane on Columbus Avenue. After years of debate and negotiation, residents are growing impatient with the committee's indecisiveness on street redesigns that make walking and biking safer.

The New York City Department of Transportation is nurturing a culture of safer streets that it expects to outlast the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, DOT policy director Jon Orcutt said at last Friday's Regional Plan Association annual assembly.