The Bronx

Arthur Avenue in the Bronx is famous for its Italian food. Now, it's also notable as the only place with NYC's latest parking technology: sensors in the ground providing real-time data about parking availability, and a system that enables parkers to pay by phone. Mayor Bloomberg, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, and Frank Franz, manager of the Belmont Business Improvement District, launched the programs earlier this week. While the technologies could help advance curbside parking reforms, the pilot programs aren't being paired with new pricing or enforcement strategies that would reduce double-parking and cruising for spots.

In early February, DOT repaved Katonah Avenue in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx, leaving a smooth black surface with no markings. Shortly after a nearby resident called 311 a few weeks ago, a crew was sent out to mark where the crosswalks should be, and the double-yellow stripe was installed. Residents are still waiting for crosswalks. It's a particular worry at P.S. 19, where students cross Katonah Avenue daily.

A woman was struck and killed by a driver who jumped the curb and drove across a field near the Bronx Botanical Garden last weekend.

While the city's refusal to remove the Sheridan Expressway left South Bronx advocates frustrated, the fight to transform the under-used highway continues, with the city's federally-funded planning study on track for completion in June. A presentation to community partners last week [PDF] shed new light on options the city is considering, offering some hope that the highway's footprint could be drastically reduced, essentially becoming a surface road.

The Bronx River Greenway, threaded along the waterfront between expressways, railroad tracks and busy arterial avenues, is difficult to access for many of the surrounding South Bronx residents. A proposal from DOT [PDF] would improve park access while providing some order to the area's streets.

Residents of the Bronx's Norwood section have long dealt with missing sidewalks and crosswalks on the street encircling Williamsbridge Oval Park, the neighborhood's central green space. After getting stonewalled by DOT's Bronx Borough Office, neighborhood leaders are now hoping a Slow Zone application will get DOT to take action.

We have updates on the year's first reported pedestrian and cyclist fatalities, which occurred in Manhattan and the Bronx on January 4 and 5.

While a network of parks continues to sprout along the banks of the Bronx River, a dangerous gap between two parks could fester for years, preventing the creation of a continuous, safe walking and biking route for local residents. Advocates have launched a petition asking the city and state to overcome bureaucratic hurdles to complete the missing link, so people don't have to risk their lives biking and walking across a freeway on-ramp between two parks.

In separate crashes in Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx, city motorists killed five pedestrians between Christmas and New Year's Day. Four of the crashes, which took the lives of a child and three young mothers, were hit-and-runs.