Janette Sadik-Khan

 StreetFilms' Clarence Eckerson put down the heavy video equipment and brought along a still camera for this weekend's Tour de Bronx.

If you're a directionally-challenged pedestrian, as I am, and often have to rely on sun and skyline to tell you which way is up, this one's for you.

Apparently unaware of New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's assertion that "human-powered vehicles are never going to be the answer," USA Today reports that several large U.S. cities are accelerating their efforts to encourage commuting on two wheels. The article cites New York for the new separated bike lane, and for putting bike racks where cars once parked.

For years, Livable Streets advocates have pleaded with New York City's Department of Transportation to just try new things. Do street design experiments using temporary materials. Give new ideas a shot. If an experiment doesn't work, take it down, redesign it, improve it or, heck, just restore it to how it used to be. What do we have to lose? If we don't start figuring out new ways to design and manage New York City's streets, all we're left with is a future of ever-increasing gridlock, pollution and honking.

The unprecedented new physically-separated bike path running along Chelsea's Ninth Avenue has already been set up using temporary materials. The Department of Transportation is billing it as New York City's "street of the future." New York 1 reported yesterday:

With city workers pouring concrete in the background (and StreetFilms' cameras rolling), New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan announced pedestrian and cyclist improvements for Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza yesterday. The plan calls for 11,000 square feet of new, landscaped pedestrian islands, a separated bike path, new crosswalks and pedestrian signals.

The mother and grandfather of James Rice.

From NYC.gov. Bios of the members after the jump.