The Bronx

The Bronx River Greenway has given many South Bronx residents a place to feel comfortable biking, but the streets nearby are often filled with speeding drivers navigating sometimes-confusing intersections. A project adding bike lanes, curb extensions, and lane striping aimed to fix that -- and since the end of the summer residents have seen some of the results. An anonymous reader who lives in Soundview and commutes by bike through the area sent in some photos showing the changes.

A cyclist was struck and killed by a driver this morning in the Bronx, and EV Grieve reports that a restaurant worker who was hit by a motorist last week while biking in Brooklyn died from his injuries.

Three people were killed by motorists in NYC since last Friday, including two hit-and-run victims. Two of the victims were also senior citizens.

Three pedestrians were killed by drivers, including two who fled the scene, in Queens and the Bronx over the weekend. A senior was seriously hurt in another hit-and-run crash, also in Queens.

Friends gathered at a Bronx courthouse last week calling for justice for Abigail Lino, who was one of at least four New York City pedestrians killed by hit-and-run drivers in August.

This morning, U.S. DOT announced the winners in the latest round of its highly-competitive TIGER grant program. While upstate New York won grants for two projects -- a highway teardown in Rochester and a complete streets project in Olean -- New York City missed out, with applications for ferry improvements, a greenway connection in the Bronx, and the redesign of a busy intersection in Downtown Brooklyn failing to make the cut.

Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem isn't the only green space receiving traffic calming improvements this summer. In the Bronx, Friends of the Williamsbridge Oval waged a fight with DOT to get crosswalks and pedestrian space near their park in the Norwood neighborhood. Now, a plan [PDF] presented to Community Board 7 this spring has been implemented.

All too often, a New York City driver jumps a curb, strikes a pedestrian (or 10), and is on his or her way without so much as a traffic ticket. If the motorist is a repeat drunk driver, or if the crash kills a teenager, it might grab the public's attention for a moment. But usually, victims are transported to the hospital, debris is swept away, and as far as police and prosecutors are concerned, all is forgotten. No investigation. No arrests. No summonses.

On Sunday, a group of about 30 cyclists, organized by the Bronx Activist Committee of Transportation Alternatives, rode on the Bronx's newest bicycle lanes in Co-Op City. The lanes, which run on 222nd Street, Co-Op City Boulevard, and soon Bartow Avenue, provide connections within Co-Op City and to the Bronx River Greenway.