Gale Brewer

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer has reappointed a slate of community board members with a long history of opposing safer streets and better transit.

City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer can remove a barrier to safer streets in Upper Manhattan by relieving Jim Berlin of his spot on Community Board 12, which covers Washington Heights and Inwood.

A week after Manhattan Community Board 3 unanimously approved a resolution asking for a protected bike lane and pedestrian islands on Chrystie Street, elected officials representing the area -- from the city, state, and federal levels -- sent a letter to DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione asking her to follow through [PDF].

Will Gale Brewer reappoint noted street safety obstructionist Dan Zweig to Community Board 7? Families of traffic violence victims came to her State of the Borough address yesterday seeking an answer.

Years of frustration with the leadership of Manhattan Community Board 7 boiled over at a traffic safety forum on the Upper West Side last night. Twice during the event, neighborhood residents who lost family members to traffic violence called on elected officials not to reappoint Dan Zweig, who has co-chaired CB 7's transportation committee for at least 15 years and blocked or delayed key street safety proposals.

It's 2014. For at least 50 years, it's been apparent that wider streets don't make congestion go away. For about a decade, the work of UCLA professor Donald Shoup has popularized the notion that parking prices are key to the efficient operation of commercial streets, and London has shown the English-speaking world how to cut down on traffic by charging for road space. And for the last seven years, new protected bike lane designs have proven effective at preventing deaths and injuries on New York City streets.

Five years ago next month, the city opened the door for bike commuters -- or more accurately, their bikes -- with the Bicycle Access Law. That law provided, for the first time, a legal framework for New Yorkers to petition commercial landlords for bike storage space at work.

After the deaths of Cooper Stock, Alexander Shear, and Samantha Lee at or near the intersection of 96th Street and Broadway shook Upper West Siders in January, DOT promised fixes to an intersection that locals complained had become even more dangerous to cross after a reconstruction project just a few years before. This morning, the city debuted those changes, including an expanded pedestrian island and new crosswalk.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer says she does not intend to remove community board members who stand in the way of transit improvements and projects that would make streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists. She expects new appointments to sway older members and make the case for street redesigns.