Pedestrian Infrastructure

Manhattan Community Board 11's transportation committee voted in favor of a slate of safety improvements along the Harlem River waterfront last night, a project that will give New Yorkers better access to the underutilized Harlem River Park. Changes like pedestrian refuge islands, sidewalk extensions, and leading pedestrian intervals got a thumbs up from committee members, but they put on hold a plan to reverse the direction of a service road along 135th Street. DOT's full plan is available for download in this PDF.

We reported recently that the federal government was demanding $2.2 billion back from state DOTs in rescissions -- money that was already allocated to states that they were then asked to give back. Bike and pedestrian advocates were worried that states would disproportionately target active transportation projects for cuts, instead of carving into car-centric programs. They were right.

The long history of violent traffic crashes where Broadway, Amsterdam and 71st Street converge is about to take a turn for the better. This intersection was the site of 19 pedestrian and cyclist injuries between 2004 and 2008. Earlier this summer, in the course of a few hours, two people were injured in separate crashes while walking in this area.

Last Saturday, a group of volunteers with Transportation Alternatives set up a table on East 117th Street, gathering handwritten letters urging Mayor Bloomberg to extend protected bike lanes up to 125th Street, as originally planned. I've been meaning to write up a short dispatch about it all week. After a short period where we've seen some highly sensationalized bike coverage on CBS2 (last night's installment being the exception), grand theories about bike-related culture wars in the Daily News, and equivocating from Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith about the administration's commitment to street safety improvements north of 34th Street, lets get back to the basic reasons why the way we allocate street space matters.

It’s payback time again for state DOTs. The fine print on the jobs bill Congress just passed includes a $2.2 billion rescission from state transportation funding, and projects to make biking and walking safer are especially at risk of losing out.

Reader Lisa Sladkus sent in these photos of new pedestrian refuges on West End Avenue in the 60s. Above is the refuge that just went in at 66th Street, and after the jump you can see one on 61st Street. Both are awaiting plantings in their tree pits.

Last night Manhattan Community Board 4 voted unanimously in favor of an 11-block extension for the Eighth Avenue bike lane, which would bring the protected bikeway up to 34th Street. In an interesting flourish, the board asked that the extension include separate left-turn phases for bikes and cars.

The Queens Plaza North bike lane will run in a center median. Image: NYCEDC Protected bike paths are coming to Queens Plaza as part of a major redesign of the area by the city’s Economic Development Corporation. Construction work to transform the dangerous, overwide streets and surface parking at “the gateway to Queens” has been … Continued