Parking

Staying on the cars-parked-in-bike-lanes theme...

This photo comes from a recent entry on MyBikeLane.com. Jessica writes:

Streetsblog has gotten a hold of a draft of DOT's plan to widen the sidewalk and install new bike racks at the Bedford Avenue L subway station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As diagrammed above, the plan calls for the elimination of five motor vehicle parking spaces on N. 7th Street at Bedford Avenue, alongside the subway station stairwell on the southeast corner (see the corner at the bottom of the diagram).

Some of us at Streetsblog headquarters were talking about putting together a sidebar listing of recommended books to reinforce the commentary you find on the blog. I put together a few brief recommendations of five of my favorites, but we're also interested in learning what you've all been reading and what you'd suggest to others, so treat this as an open thread on livable streets-related books now that we're in the midst of the holiday gift-buying season.

You've got to hand it to Clarence Eckerson. The producer of Streetfilms managed to turn around a video of this morning's press conference announcing the new Bruce Schaller study of Soho streets (PDF) in less than four hours and it's a really nice piece of work. My only gripe is that he edited out the taxi cab blasting its horn in the middle of Schaller's talk. Anyway, here is video of this morning's press conference including lots of great, weekend footage of Soho streets:

A Porsche, an ambulette, Paul Steely White, Bruce Schaller and a vendor compete for street space in Soho

This Morning's Forum: Road Pricing Worked in London. Can It Work in New York?

Norman "the Human Tape Rec'oder" Oder , the hardest working advocacy journalist in New York City, has really been digging in to the important but not-particularly-sexy issue of parking policy at Forest City Enterprise's proposed "Atlantic Yards" development in Brooklyn.

It is hard to tell exactly where the sidewalk meets the street above, where cars dominate the streetscape and wreck the pedestrian experience. Maybe that's what's to be expected in Los Angeles, where the photo was taken.