Traffic Calming

Running between Fifth Avenue and FDR Drive, 106th Street in East Harlem should provide a key bike connection between Central Park and Randall's Island. NYC DOT is proposing a road diet and painted bike lanes [PDF] to improve safety on the street, and Community Board 11's transportation committee could vote on the plan soon.

Vox, the much-anticipated Ezra Klein/Matt Yglesias reporting venture, launched earlier this week to wide fanfare, and one of the first articles explained that "traffic deaths are way, way down" in the United States.

Over the weekend, advocates from Right of Way and residents in a dozen Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens neighborhoods installed dozens of "20 Is Plenty" signs, which urge drivers to slow down, and asked Mayor de Blasio to keep his promise to fast-track Slow Zone installations. The neighborhoods represented in yesterday's demonstration are among those that have either had their applications for 20 mph zones rejected by DOT or are waiting up to two years for the city to implement the traffic calming program.

Wednesday night, Harlem road diet supporters and opponents met in an attempt to find common ground on what can be done to improve safety on Morningside Avenue. The move comes in advance of DOT releasing a second plan for the street, after its first design encountered opposition from Community Board 10.

Jay Street, the north-south route often overshadowed by nearby car-clogged Adams Street and Flatbush Avenue, is a major artery in the heart of Downtown Brooklyn, flush with pedestrians going to and from the subway and cyclists heading to the Manhattan Bridge. It's also overrun with illegally-parked drivers, creating an obstacle course for anyone trying to navigate the street.

Before there were hashtags and #sneckdowns, there was Michael King, taking pictures of residual snow on NYC street corners. A principal with NelsonNygaard, King is an architect by training and a pioneer of traffic calming street design in the United States. He captured these images to show how much asphalt can easily be claimed to make streets safer.

Earlier this month, Brooklyn Community Board 3 voted against a 20 mph Slow Zone in Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant. In a recent interview, CB 3 Chair Tremaine Wright told Streetsblog that the board voted against it in part because dangerous driving is not an issue in the neighborhood, and Slow Zone supporters did not demonstrate that the plan would address a real problem.

Since our last round-up, the sneckdown has drawn attention from publications as varied as The Economist, The Week, Fast Company, Village Voice, Atlantic Cities, and Treehugger. With coverage and photos piling up like so much traffic-calming slush, sneckdown emissary and archivist Clarence Eckerson posted a detailed explainer, dating the concept back to the 1990s. Meanwhile, the city of Raleigh asked residents to send photos of "wasted space at intersections." Clearly, even amid the chaotic weather, the idea that there should be more room for people on U.S. streets has struck a chord.

Community Board 7 in Brooklyn continues to emerge as a force for safer neighborhood streets.