East Village

A quick update on the status of bike infrastructure in the city's plans for the East Side. We asked DOT whether the agency is considering protected bike facilities as part of the Bus Rapid Transit corridor planned for First and Second avenues. The press office says:

Advocates and volunteers working for protected bike paths on the East Side, flush from last month's highly encouraging Community Board 8 vote, delivered more than a thousand handwritten letters yesterday to City Hall, supporting protected bike lanes on First and Second Avenues. Keep an eye on this story. It's a big one.

A reader sent in this picture of the scene at First Avenue and 4th Street in Manhattan this morning. I won't speculate too much about what sheared the roof off this minivan or what happened to the people involved. Perhaps the car was pried open deliberately to rescue those inside. Details are scarce: An investigation is underway, according to the Gothamist newsmap, and we have a request in with NYPD for more information.

Police, witness and media accounts vary -- widely -- as to what exactly happened in the East Village yesterday afternoon. The NYPD version goes something like this:

Early this month Streetsblog regular ddartley tagged a series of shots for the Flickr feed showing the aftermath of a driver-cyclist collision on the edge of Stuyvesant Town. According to Dartley, the cyclist was a restaurant delivery man, on the job when he was hit.

The reconstruction of East Houston Street will include wider medians, bigger sidewalks, fewer traffic lanes, and a new bike lane. But instead of installing a physically protected path for cyclists, the city plans to paint a buffered, Class 2 lane. The project, which received funds freed up by stimulus spending, will go out to bid this summer.

Early Saturday morning, two 26-year-old women were killed while trying to cross 14th Street at First Avenue in the East Village. According to the Daily News and other outlets, Stephanie Dees (right) and Ann Sullivan were both hit by a taxi traveling west on 14th, and Dees was hit by a second cab, apparently heading east. Reports vary, but most say Dees died at the scene, while Sullivan was pronounced dead at nearby Beth Israel Medical Center.

A Streetsblog reader named Jessica sends along yet another story of the NYPD's failure to treat bike commuters as full-fledged citizens of the City of New York: 

Now for something completely different: Clarence Eckerson snapped these photos of a double bike lane on both sides of Second Avenue between 1st and 2nd Streets. The new street design also includes a rather massive bike box.