Bridges

Transportation Alternatives Queens Committee Chair Mike Heffron sends along this report from last night's traffic commission hearing at York College in Jamaica, Queens.

On Sunday, January 6, over 200 people gathered to remember those killed by motor vehicles while biking and walking the streets of New York City in 2007. StreetFilms was there for the Street Memorial Project's 3rd Annual Memorial Ride & Pedestrian Walk. So were the parents of 27-year-old Sam Hindy, who was killed trying to navigate the Manhattan Bridge by bike in November. During the event, Sam's father, Brooklyn Brewery founder Steve Hindy, placed his son's death in the larger culture of an American car culture gone out of control:

The "Fixie Flasher" strikes again.

It looks like the street redesign around the Manhattan entrance of the Manhattan Bridge is nearing completion. Considering that Transportation Alternatives has been pushing for these fixes for years, that was pretty fast. DOT presented its plan to the local Community Board, to unanimous approval, in July; sketched out the lines on the street in August; and here we are.

This photo comes to us from Bicyclesonly who is uploading photos (of, you guessed it, bicycles only) to Flickr and tagging them "streetsblog." By tagging your photos as such, they will automatically pop up on our newly revamped "Contribute to Streetsblog" page over there in the upper left corner of the screen. You can upload videos to YouTube and links to de.licio.us and tag them "streetsblog" also.

I'd bet that people walking outnumber people bicycling across the Brooklyn Bridge by at least 100 to one. I cycle across the wooden-slatted walkway that soars over the top of the bridge regularly now, and every time I do so I think about this. My rolling bicycle negates the space for scores of people every second, forcing them into a relatively skinny strip that is half as wide as the whole walkway.

DOT plans to build a physically-separated two-way bike lane on this one block stretch of Canal Street at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge. The project also includes pedestrian safety fixes.

In other parks news, as reported on Streetsblog in June, the car-free High Bridge is poised to undergo a long-awaited restoration. Built as part of the Croton Aqueduct, the bridge connects Washington Heights in Manhattan with the Bronx neighborhood of High Bridge, near Yankee Stadium. In April, during his PlaNYC unveiling, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the city would be allocating $60 million to restore and reopen the High Bridge, which has been closed to the public since 1970; another $5 million will come from a Congressional earmark.

Streetsblog tipster Geoff Zink reports "this morning there were two friendly DOT guys on the Brooklyn side of the Manny B handing out flyers regarding the reopening of the north side bike lanes. Gotta love the new DOT!"