South Bronx

When it opened its doors this spring, the Gateway Center mall was plugged as a boon to the South Bronx. So invested was the Bloomberg administration -- along with city taxpayers, thanks to subsidies granted by the NYC Economic Development Corporation -- that the mayor himself participated in the grand opening of the center's Home Depot store.

Former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, widely credited as the architect of PlaNYC, spoke at the Museum of the City of New York last week on the potential impact of Mayor Bloomberg's signature program. According to City Room, Doctoroff considers the two-year-old environmental blueprint on par with such grand projects as Central Park and the development of the Manhattan street grid.

We've got a few more details about another local ped-bike project getting a lift from stimulus cash. The street improvements announced for Hunts Point and Port Morris in the Bronx will fund the first three sections of the South Bronx Greenway. This project has been years in the works. When complete, it will bring 11 miles of pedestrian and bicycle paths to neighborhoods where places to play and bike are scarce, and where childhood asthma and obesity rates run high.

Bronx electeds joined DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan yesterday to mark a completed round of ped-bike enhancements to the Grand Concourse and 161st Street. The package includes the newly ped-friendly Lou Gehrig Plaza (in front of the Bronx County Courthouse), and wider medians and bike lanes along one section of the Concourse. The project was launched in early 2006, while Iris Weinshall was in charge at DOT.

These DOT photos [PDF] show off the revamped Bronx Hub -- the shopping district and transit nexus in Melrose that just received a slew of livable streets improvements. Planters, surfacing, and a few strategically placed concrete islands demarcate pretty substantial new swaths of pedestrian space, including a block-long plaza (shown above and in bird's eye view below). There's also a short stretch of exclusive bus territory and some interesting bike lane treatments. Follow the jump for more pics.

Not that we need more evidence that the Yankee Stadium parking deal was rancid to the core, but a Saturday story in the Times reveals the sad details of the Bloomberg administration's push for luxury game day digs -- a 12-seat suite in left field -- for which it traded 250 spots to the team.

Work is underway on a major livable streets makeover [PDF] for the Hub -- a shopping mecca in Melrose that some have called "the Times Square of the Bronx." The DOT plan simplifies a complex traffic pattern where three streets converge. In the process, space is transferred from vehicles to sidewalk extensions, pedestrian refuges, and a new, block-long public plaza.

The Congress for New Urbanism released a highly entertaining top ten list today: the North American highways most in need of demolition. At the top is Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct, a structurally damaged elevated highway that, if removed, would free up 335 acres of public land by Elliott Bay.

A few weeks ago, Streetsblog regular Susan Donovan snapped some pics of sidewalk-hogging cars parked near Yankee Stadium and added them to our Flickr pool. Today she (and her photos) appeared on New York 1, in a report filed by Susan Jhun that looks at the mess caused by game-day parking. Score one for TV coverage of pedestrian rights: