Pedestrian Infrastructure

The intersection of 30th Avenue, 33rd Street and Newtown Avenue was the site of DOT's first-ever one-day demonstration plaza. Will it get a permanent public space enhancement?

Yesterday, the city of Chicago rolled out a sweeping new plan for pedestrian safety [PDF]. With some 250 recommendations -- including traffic-calming measures like pedestrian islands, chicanes and midblock curb bumpouts -- Chicago joins cities like New York and Portland in formalizing a plan to meet targets for reducing pedestrian injuries and deaths.

In the Norwood neighborhood of the Bronx, there are no crosswalks connecting to the central public space, Williamsbridge Oval Park. Much of the street that surrounds the park even lacks sidewalks. Fed up with what they say is inaction from DOT's Bronx office, local residents are now appealing to the top with a letter to Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan [PDF].

Facing a small but influential opposition to a permanent plaza in Astoria, DOT installed a one-day demonstration on Saturday to give neighborhood residents a sneak peak of how the street could be transformed. The demo, a first for DOT, was installed before Queens Community Board 1 votes on the proposal on September 11.

Although the project covers only half to the distance initially proposed thanks to foot-dragging by the local community board (the other half may be implemented next year), safety enhancements along 19 blocks of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard are in place and giving pedestrians more room to cross the street. When complete, the boulevard between 134th and 153rd Streets will include left turn lanes, wider median pedestrian islands, and one less through lane in each direction. With current nighttime speeds averaging 50 mph, the road diet will have an impact on calming the avenue's deadly traffic.

Manhattan's Fifth and Sixth Avenues are two of the busiest bicycle routes in the city, even without protected bike infrastructure to make cycling appealing to a broader range of New Yorkers. They are also major pedestrian thoroughfares in need of safety upgrades. While DOT's "6½ Avenue" project can help relieve some of the crowding, both avenues devote wide expanses to motor traffic and could use the kind of overhaul that the city has used to improve conditions for walking and biking on other major streets.

The construction barriers are down and the tables and chairs are out on Allen Street in Chinatown. While there's still some planting and other work left to be done, the public spaces are already magnets for people. The median bikeway on the three-block stretch between Hester and Delancey is also open and rideable again.

Thanks to @J_uptown for tipping us off to this transit enhancement in the making (and providing the Seinfeld-inspired headline). The fresh sidewalk addition here is a bus bulb for Select Bus Service on First Avenue. When it's in working order, bus drivers won't have to pull over to the curb to pick up and drop off riders, and passengers waiting for the bus won't have to share scarce sidewalk space with passersby. There are ten bus bulbs coming to the SBS route on First Avenue, and two slated for Second Avenue.

Transit-oriented development is a virtuous circle. New transit infrastructure makes it easier and faster to get to a place, and then that place grows. New development in turn leads to demand to justify better infrastructure, and more tax dollars to pay for it. That, in a nutshell, is the story of how Manhattan grew into what it is today, first around streetcars, then els, and eventually the subways.