Streetsblog

Earlier this month Manhattan Community Board 7, on the Upper West Side, passed a resolution calling on DOT to install a protected bike lane in Columbus Circle, filling a critical void in the bike network. Tonight the CB 5 transportation committee, whose district borders Columbus Circle to the southeast, will consider its own resolution.

In just a few months, Transportation Alternatives volunteers have collected more than 5,000 signatures from residents outside Manhattan calling for bike-share in their neighborhoods. On Wednesday, they'll rally with council members on the steps of City Hall for a system that can meet New York City's huge demand for bike-share.

The city has much more to do to improve the walking and biking environment above Brooklyn's central transit hub, and it's important to show up on Wednesday to let CB 2 and DOT know it.

After a motorist killed 78-year-old cyclist Michael Schenkman, DOT proposed six miles of protected bike lanes on Northern Boulevard and connecting streets. The plan will be the subject of a Queens CB 11 hearing Monday night.

Later today, NYU’s Furman Center, the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy, and Transportation Alternatives host “The High Cost of Off-Street Parking,” a panel discussion on off-street parking policy. In most of New York City, new development is required to include a minimum number of parking spaces, each of which costs tens of thousands of dollars to build. These parking requirements increase traffic, drive up the cost of construction, and make housing less affordable.

This evening DOT will present a plan to make more room for people walking on Seventh Avenue by widening the sidewalk on the west side of the street from Times Square to Penn Station. Also on the agenda -- a summer trial for making five blocks of Broadway car-free south of Times Square.

DOT will soon reveal its plan to redesign Times Plaza, the triangle formed by Flatbush, Atlantic, and Fourth avenues in Brooklyn. Located near the largest transit hub in Brooklyn, the area around Times Plaza, outside Barclays Center, is one of the most dangerous places in the borough to walk.

Three big street redesign projects are on the calendar. Queens Community Board 6 will take up the Rego Park phase of DOT's Queens Boulevard redesign; Manhattan CB 9 will get a look at a revised plan for bike lanes and road diet on Amsterdam Avenue north of 110th Street; and DOT goes to Sunset Park for the second workshop about the redesign of Fourth Avenue.

In the U.S., the term “superblock” conjures up the excess of urban renewal and the breakdown of walkable street grids. But in Barcelona, a different type of superblock is making streets more hospitable and humane.