Pedestrian Infrastructure

DOT's plans to redesign two Prospect Heights intersections to improve safety earned the endorsement of Brooklyn Community Board 8's transportation committee last Tuesday. The plan also includes an "optional" painted bike lane along Washington Avenue between Eastern Parkway and Atlantic Avenue [PDF].

It’s rescission time again, folks. That Washington lingo for “gimme gimme.” We had a name for people who “rescinded” gifts back in elementary school but it’s ethnically insensitive so I won’t say it. Suffice it to say, if little kids call you a name for doing something, it’s probably not a super popular thing to be doing.

Construction on a slate of pedestrian and bike improvements for Grand Army Plaza is scheduled to move forward this summer, NYC DOT announced this Saturday. The redesign includes a major expansion of the pedestrian islands at the north side of GAP and the addition of a two-way, protected bicycle connection linking Union Street to Eastern Parkway on the southern side. It does not include the two-way, protected bike lane on Plaza Street shown in DOT's 2010 presentation on this same project, which Community Boards 6 and 8 both approved last year.

Brooklyn's only proposed pop-up café won the approval of Community Board 2 last night in an 18-10-1 vote, allowing the city to replace on-street parking with public seating. This pop-up is sponsored by the Ecopolis Café on Smith Street, which will pay the cost of building the temporary public space.

In a unanimous voice vote last night, Brooklyn Community Board 6 passed a resolution supporting NYC DOT's proposed modifications to the Prospect Park West bike lane. The changes include building raised pedestrian islands, adding bike "rumble strips" at crosswalks, and narrowing the buffer between the bike lane and parked cars at the northernmost end of the street. The resolution includes several other requests, asking DOT to search for ways to add on-street parking spots on PPW and side streets, and to monitor safety stats on the redesigned street for the next three years.

What's a road diet? Quite simply, traffic-calming expert Dan Burden told Streetfilms, "A road diet is anytime you take any lane out of a road."

For years, state DOTs have exploited a loophole of federal government policy that allowed them to build massive, publicly funded projects without accommodating non-motorized users as long as they could show that "due consideration" had been given to bicyclists and pedestrians.

Construction is underway at the intersection of 23rd Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, where DOT is building new pedestrian refuge islands and a sidewalk extension to provide some extra space around a busy subway station. The intersection, currently in the 99th percentile for severity-weighted traffic injuries in the city, will also have its signals adjusted to give pedestrians more conflict-free time to cross the street. The new plaza extends across two of Seventh Avenue's six lanes on the southern side of the intersection.

At the foot of the Roosevelt Island Bridge, DOT is showing off how a few simple improvements can turn a dangerous intersection into a safer one. It's not a flashy redesign -- just a pair of pedestrian refuges and improved crosswalks -- but it's a good example of the street safety improvements that are becoming increasingly common.