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ANGER AT MIKE THE ROAD HOG PEDESTRIAN ISLANDS DRIVE MOTORISTS NUTS
By CHUCK BENNETT and MELISSA JANE KRONFELD
Posted: 3:28 am
September 2, 2008
With his congestion-pricing plan reduced to roadkill, Mayor Bloomberg is making city drivers miserable with a series of pedestrian-friendly projects.
One of the biggest headaches for them has been the Broadway pedestrian islands - plazas that stretch onto the road - a popular summer feature that Midtown denizens expect will be deserted come the cold weather, even as they still tie up traffic.
"In the winter, it won't even be used," griped office worker Jeffrey Gottlieb, 47. "Broadway already is down to 1½ lanes after you take the FedEx trucks making deliveries."
Other road rage-inducing projects include a bus corridor down 34th Street, a bike lane on Ninth Avenue from West 16th to West 23rd streets, and a bike lane on Greenwich and Washington streets.
The most dramatic changes have been on Broadway, which, with the islands, has gone from four lanes to two from Times Square to Herald Square.
"I think it is completely useless . . . It doesn't do anything for Midtown," said New Jersey commuter Jason Silitsky, 24.
Drivers Feeling Shunned by D.C.
City Less Welcoming to Suburban Cars
By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 6, 2008; Page A01
The District is escalating what some suburban commuters are calling its war against workers who drive into the city.
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The city has changed parts of Constitution Avenue NE from a reversible commuter artery back to a quiet side street and is considering removing the reversible lane on 16th Street NW, a key commuting route from Montgomery County.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's administration also is studying closing the section of the Interstate 395 tunnel that connects with New York Avenue NW, expanding the use of speed cameras and increasing parking fees and enforcement. Fees for encroaching on a crosswalk would increase from $50 to $500 under a pedestrian safety proposal.
The District is moving toward becoming "the most anti-car city in the country," said John Townsend, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic. "They see commuters as the enemy."
City officials say that the moves are part of a policy of putting the needs of its residents and businesses before those of suburban commuters and that they are trying to create a walkable, bikeable, transit-oriented metropolis.
Like New York, London, Stockholm and Portland, Ore., District officials said, the city is reclaiming its streets for the people who live there. With billions of dollars invested in the Metro system, there are plenty of ways for commuters to get into the city without bringing exhaust-spewing vehicles with them, officials said.
Professor Jan Gehl
Tuesday 11 September 2007
Jan Gehl
For over 40 years internationally renowned Danish architect Jan Gehl's career has focused on improving the quality of urban life, especially for pedestrians.
Jan discusses how his research on public spaces and public life has been applied successfully in cities across Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Australia. He will also share his observations on the ways we can make Sydney a truly great pedestrian city.
Soho
Was This Street Made for Walking?
By JAKE MOONEY
ON a weekend stroll down Prince Street in SoHo, past the vendors with foldout tables heaped with jewelry and movie scripts, the crowds flocking in and out of the Apple store, and the milling clusters of overtired out-of-towners, it might seem hard to imagine that the neighborhood could suffer from more foot-traffic congestion than it already does.
But that peril, along with the daunting prospect of still more tourists, is the main reason many local residents oppose a plan suggested this month by the city's Department of Transportation to declare summer Sundays on Prince Street car-free from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The plan drew heated opposition from about 200 people at a meeting on March 11 of the Traffic and Transportation Committee of Community Board 2.
On Thursday night, the full board voted to reject the idea, asking the department to explore car-free zones in a different form or perhaps on a different street.
Man Jailed For Creating Crosswalk, Vows More
Graduate Student Says Intersection Unsafe
POSTED: 11:06 pm EST January 30, 2008
MUNCIE, Ind. -- Whitney Stump didn't like watching drivers ignore the stop signs at the intersection outside his home, so he asked the city to paint crosswalks there.
When the city said no, he made one himself. And the city wasn't appreciative.
Stump, a 27-year-old Ball State University graduate student and father, says he was arrested in July on a charge of criminal mischief for creating the crosswalk at the intersection of Dicks and North streets. A police officer then warned him after he went back to touch up the paint in August, and the county prosecutor decided to charge him again.
Cars out as London mayor clears way for Paris-style plage and cycle boulevards
Visitors to London may not find the streets paved with gold but they could certainly find that a lot more streets have been paved, under proposals for the tourist heart of the capital.
Cars will be banned from some of London's busiest streets as part of a bold plan to create continental-style boulevards devoted to pedestrians and cyclists.
Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, plans to replicate Paris Plage, the beach created on a highway alongside the Seine each August, on the four-lane Victoria Embankment beside the Thames.
He is also considering a ban on through traffic on a series of roads connecting London's parks and main shopping areas, including Portland Place, which runs between Regent's Park and Oxford Street.
Speaking at Mayor's Question Time at the London Assembly yesterday, Mr Livingstone said that he wanted to create attractive, tree-lined walkways in the style of Las Ramblas in Barcelona. Traffic would be diverted on to alternative routes, but shops and restaurants would still be able to receive deliveries outside peak hours.
The first scheme will be the £18 million part-pedestrianisation of Parliament Square, which will involve removing traffic from the south side closest to Westminster Abbey from 2009. Mr Livingstone believes that the success of the Trafalgar Square scheme, where the road beside the National Gallery has been pedestrianised, will help to overcome objections by motoring groups and retailers.
The RAC Foundation said that Mr Livingstone's plan would force traffic on to less suitable routes and add to congestion, which is already almost back to the level before congestion charging began in 2003.
Weinshall Points to the Future
In a speech that seemed a significant departure for New York City’s transportation department under the Bloomberg administration, city transportation commissioner Iris Weinshall laid out an array of measures to improve New York’s pedestrian and bicycling environments, soften the quality of life impacts of heavy traffic and begin to reclaim the sheer urban acreage given over to automobiles. Commissioner Weinshall made her remarks at the opening of a large-scale transportation conference convened today at Columbia University by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.
Both in terms of language used, which seemed to indicate that city government had moved closer to a goal of reducing car use, and the packaging together of a broad set of policy reform steps, the commissioner’s speech may signal that the problem of planning for a future city of 9 million
people is starting to concretely impact city policy.
The commissioner said NYC DOT would:
-Soon announce 5 bus rapid transit corridors, with accelerated construction (starting in fall 2007) on two of them. She also said NYC’s BRT system could become the world’s “most extensive.”
-Implement its recently announced initiative to build 240 new miles of bicycle ways (MTR #540).
You Are Here, 2004
Scott Snibbe
Six networked firewire video cameras, flat-panel display, PC computer, custom software
You Are Here tracks and displays the paths of visitors traveling through a large public space. The system displays the aggregate paths of the last two hundred visitors along with blobs representing the people currently being tracked. When viewers approach the work, they can display the live video image with the paths of currently tracked visitors superimposed:
By DAVID POMERANTZ
Special to the Sun
July 24, 2007
For years, community leaders in the Upper East and West sides have been complaining about deliverymen who ride bicycles on sidewalks, run red lights, and generally menace pedestrians.
"The cyclists hit people left and right and just keep on going," the president of the 20th Police Precinct community council on the Upper West Side, Sam Katz, said. Ms. Katz and other leaders are counting on a new law that takes effect Thursday to help address the problem. The law, passed in March, requires restaurant managers to provide their deliverymen with safety equipment such as helmets, bells, and headlights. It also obliges restaurant managers to hang up posters — written in both English and the language spoken by the deliverymen — outlining the rules of the road for cyclists.
Deliverymen on bicycles irk residents on the Upper West Side so much that they are the no. 1 complaint heard by the 20th Precinct there, Lieutenant Biagio Carbone said.
What is Walk Score?
Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc.
How It Works
Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Check out how Walk Score doesn't work.
What does my score mean?
Your Walk Score is a number between 0 and 100. The walkability of an address depends on how far you are comfortable walking-after all, everything is within walking distance if you have the time. Here are general guidelines for interpreting your score:
* 90 - 100 = Walkers' Paradise: Most errands can be accomplished on foot and many people get by without owning a car.
* 70 - 90 = Very Walkable: It's possible to get by without owning a car.
* 50 - 70 = Some Walkable Locations: Some stores and amenities are within walking distance, but many everyday trips still require a car.
* 25 - 50 = Not Walkable: Only a few destinations are within easy walking range. For most errands, driving is a must.
* 0 - 25 = Driving Only: Virtually no neighborhood destinations within walking range. You can walk from your house to your car!
How it Works
Walk ScoreTM uses a patent-pending algorithm to calculate the walkability of an address based on:
* The distance to walkable locations near an address.
* Calculating a score for each of these locations.
* Combining these scores into one easy to read Walk Score.
Read more about what makes a neighborhood walkable. We'd love to hear your feedback. Send us a suggestion!
Op-Ed Contributor
The City That Never Walks
By ROBERT SULLIVAN
FOR the past two decades, New York has been an inspiration to other American cities looking to revive themselves. Yes, New York had a lot of crime, but somehow it also still had neighborhoods, and a core that had never been completely abandoned to the car. Lately, though, as far as pedestrian issues go, New York is acting more like the rest of America, and the rest of America is acting more like the once-inspiring New York.
As a New Yorker who has spent two years researching roads and transportation across the United States, I am saddened to see our city falling behind places like downtown Albuquerque, where one-way streets have become more pedestrian-friendly two-way streets, and car lanes are replaced by bike lanes, with bike racks everywhere.
Then there is Grand Rapids, Mich., which has a walkable downtown with purposely limited parking and is home to a new bus plaza that is part of a mass transit renaissance in Michigan. The state is investing in high-speed trains, and it is even talking about a mass transit system for the nation's auto-capital, Detroit, where a new pedestrian plaza anchors downtown. In Indianapolis, an urban walking and biking trail will soon link inner-city neighborhoods - something New York certainly hasn't tried.
We have lost our golden pedestrian touch in New York mostly because we still think about traffic as though it were 1950, and we needed Robert Moses to plow a few giant freeways through town to get the cars moving again. But the fact is that more roads equal more traffic.