Pedestrian Infrastructure
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Putting the Public Back in Midtown’s Privately Owned Public Spaces
"It's a private property with public access," a security guard explained after stopping me from taking photos of a mid-block passageway through the Metropolitan Tower on 56th Street. The space in question, which connects 56th to 57th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, is one of more than 150 privately owned public spaces in central Midtown, many of which are products of a 1980s zoning program to improve pedestrian circulation. In exchange for development bonuses that today are worth millions of dollars in rentable square footage, developers were supposed to build and maintain publicly accessible mid-block passageways to help ease pedestrian congestion on the heavily used north-south avenues. The problem is many of these semi-public spaces now appear so private, most walkers wouldn’t even know to use them.
May 22, 2012
Double Bus Lane and Sidewalk Extensions to Boost East New York Transit Hub
The Department of Transportation unveiled a new design for one of Brooklyn's most important transit hubs at a community board meeting Monday evening. By turning a single block of Van Sinderen Avenue into a one-way street, DOT plans to improve bus service and build new pedestrian space at East New York's Broadway Junction, which serves five subway lines and five bus routes [PDF].
May 18, 2012
CB 7 Approves 50-Block Ped Safety Project for Sunset Park’s Fourth Ave
In an overwhelming 31-2 vote (with three abstentions), Brooklyn Community Board 7 passed a motion last night in favor of re-engineering Fourth Avenue in Sunset Park for greater safety. The NYC DOT project [PDF] will add a substantial amount of pedestrian space at intersections from 65th Street to 15th Street, widening medians and narrowing crossing distances on the 88-foot wide street.
May 17, 2012
Big Sidewalk Extensions Coming to Bowling Green
Pedestrians at the southern-most tip of Manhattan are getting a lot more space to walk, thanks to a DOT proposal [PDF] first reported by DNAinfo last week.
May 8, 2012
Eyes on the Street: Neighbors Get Better Bike Lane
Somehow we doubt it's going to make Iris Weinshall, Norm Steisel and Louise Hainline feel any better (what with the threat of another lawsuit), but construction is now underway on pedestrian islands along the Prospect Park West bike lane.
April 24, 2012
New WHO Tool Calculates the Health Savings of Bike/Ped Infrastructure
Sidewalks, bike lanes, traffic calming projects -- they save lives. Not just by protecting cyclists and pedestrians (not to mention motorists), but by encouraging physical activity that leads to a healthy life.
March 23, 2012
Can Staten Island’s North Shore Become NYC’s Next Great Neighborhood?
Staten Island's North Shore is one of the city's great sites of opportunity. The neighborhoods along the Kill Van Kull are twice as dense as the rest of Staten Island, but lack any transit option beyond the bus. There are historic town centers at St. George and Port Richmond, but car-centric planning deadens street life. The waterfront, much of which still hosts a vibrant maritime industry, is only accessible to the public at three locations in six miles.
March 9, 2012
Flushing Transpo Project Boosted Safety While Curbing Congestion
It might not be as bold or attention-grabbing as the overhaul of Times Square and Herald Square, but a set of changes made to New York City's third-busiest pedestrian intersection is having its own quiet success. In Downtown Flushing, a 2010 project that expanded sidewalks, daylighted dangerous intersections, and introduced numerous turn restrictions is boosting safety even while traffic flows more smoothly, according to a new evaluation from NYC DOT [PDF].
March 5, 2012
A Day in the Life of a Pop-Up Café
Take a break this weekend from the unrelentingly bleak news about Governor Cuomo's stealth attack on the transit system, and enjoy this time-lapse of the new pop-up café at Local on Sullivan Street. Up until this July, a camera at this location would only have recorded the occasional act of parallel parking and feeding the meter.
December 9, 2011
Eyes on the Street: “Bowtie of Death” Needs a New Nickname
DOT has largely completed an overhaul of the complicated intersection of Broadway, Amsterdam and 71st Street, a year after presenting the plan to Community Board 7 (hat tip to the West Side Rag, which noted the new infrastructure last Thursday).
October 31, 2011