East Harlem

Select Bus Service is up and running along First and Second Avenues, bringing rapid bus enhancements to the second busiest bus line in New York City. Though riders will need some time to adjust to the new system, many are already praising the faster service.

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.

Select Bus Service remains on track to debut on October 10, confirmed NYC DOT and the MTA at a meeting of the project's Community Advisory Committee last night. Bus service improvements along the corridor are as crucial as ever and will be bolstered by camera enforcement, which DOT announced would be in effect starting in November. The changes that take effect in 25 days, however, won't be the full complete streets package originally promised. Above 34th Street, bike lanes and pedestrian refuge islands were unceremoniously stripped from the plan some time this spring.

One of the biggest planning stories of the last decade is undoubtedly the opening of the New York City waterfront to the public. Across much of the city, however, the automobile still occupies the prime waterfront spaces. 

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.

Three days after 6-year-old Max Mendez was killed by an MTA tow truck operator while walking with his mother to the Wagner Pool at 124th Street, the story that's emerging suggests that motorist negligence may have contributed to the deadly collision. The only constant among the press coverage, however, is that the police suspect "no criminality."

Officials held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the suburban-style East River Plaza shopping complex today. The fleet of cars that the city's leading politicians and developers arrived in barely registered in the mall's giant parking lot.