Public Space

Three thousand free wooden bikes would allow for rapid circumnavigation on looping, leafy paths.

It seems inconceivable given the overwhelmingly positive developments of the past few weeks, but the city wants to increase parking in Manhattan by some 20,000 spaces, and is defending itself in court for the right to do so.

Every week, KCRW radio's Marc Porter Zasada sets out to fathom Los Angeles on his show The Urban Man. This week he talks about neighborhoods, how fragile they are and how easily they can be lost to bad traffic engineering:

 The NYC Transit Pipe and Drums Corps marched in the Inwood annual Memorial Day Parade on Monday, on a route that followed Broadway from 200th Street almost into the Bronx before taking Seaman Avenue, where the above photo was taken, to Inwood Hill Park for a wreath-laying ceremony honoring America's war dead.

Happy Memorial Day weekend from Streetsblog. If you're driving out of town, consider paying down your carbon debt with a solar-powered barbecue -- just make sure to wear sunscreen while you're using it. See you Tuesday

Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson was in Portland recently where he caught up with a neighborhood "Intersection Repair" project.

The Department of Transportation has unveiled plans to turn the gritty Pearl Street Triangle in DUMBO into a public plaza. The plaza will be similar to the one DOT creaed on Willoughby Street in Downtown Brooklyn last year. The Triangle currently serves as a parking lot.

As so often seems to be the case in outer borough community meetings, a good portion of last night's discussion centered around the question of automobile storage. While there were none of the histrionics of the 9th Street traffic calming meetings, some of the most intense concerns were expressed by people who use the 300-space Wollman Rink parking lot for visits to the park and for Q train park-and-rides. They want to make sure that a sufficiently large (and free) parking lot is designed into the new plan.