Transportation Policy

DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall's speech was, for many long-time Livable Streets advocates, the single most remarkable aspect of yesterday's Manhattan Transportation Policy Conference. As Jon Orcutt at TSTC noted, Weinshall's speech "laid out an array of measures to improve New York's pedestrian and bicycling environments, soften the quality of life impacts of heavy traffic, and begin to reclaim the sheer urban acreage given over to automobiles." Added up, these measures appear to represent the beginnings of an altogether new set of transportation, land use, and public space policies for New York City and, as Orcutt writes, "a significant departure" from past priorities.

Three congestion charging rumors, all from excellent, though, un-named sources:

I'm up at Columbia University covering Borough President Stringer's Transportation Policy Conference, live:

It looks like the City's promise to build out the bike network is already bearing fruit. Streetsblog reader Alex Kahl sends along these photos of new bike lane markings being striped on W. 77th and W. 78th Street near Columbus Avenue. Unlike the new, Class III, "shared lane" markings spotted yesterday in the middle of Clinton Street near Delancey, it looks like these are going to be Class II lanes running along the side of the street. 

You know that a change in the zeitgeist is afoot when Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's transportation policy conference tomorrow provides fodder for the New York Post's Page Six:

An outraged reader points us to Benepe's Bike Blog where journalist, cyclist (and sister of New York City's Parks Commissioner) Jennifer Benepe has been working to improve bicycle access to the George Washington Bridge.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is holding a day-long forum on Manhattan's transportation future. Enrique Peñalosa, former Mayor of Bogota, Colombia, will be the keynote speaker. This should be a great event. Peñalosa is the inspiring and visionary politician who transformed his city of 7 million into a model for sustainable urban transportation.

After Copenhagen, I visited Holland for a few days as a part of my German Marshall Fellowship. I will be writing more about some of the people I met and spoke with there, but for now I just wanted to share these photos from Amsterdam: