Brooklyn Spoke

Karen Granville who lives a few doors down from the Little Zelda cafe on Franklin Avenue, wants the bike corral in front of the shop gone.  Why?  For reasons mainly dealing with a loss of one car parking space and fears of gentrification, but also because she wasn’t told directly about at least two community board meetings that preceded its installation.

“I live in that community no one ever spoke to me,” Granville said at a Community Board 8 meeting last week.

This is a common complaint of opponents of livable streets.  It doesn’t matter that community boards post their schedules and agendas online and make them available through a number of other channels for those with limited web access.  Never mind that it would be an unreasonable burden for any state or city agency to notify all affected parties over every single project.  The community process, as a friend once told me, begins when “I” hear about it.

Here’s Louise Hainline [PDF] in 2010, writing three years after the lengthy community-driven process that preceded the installation of the Prospect Park West bike lane:

…the community has been strangely left out. I don’t know who the City Council speaks with, but there was no warning to any of the buildings on PPW about this, and as president of the coop at 9 PPW, I probably should have received something.”

And, of course, a very recent example comes from City Council Speaker Christine Quinn who admitted that DOT worked at the request of Community Board 4 to install bike lanes in Chelsea while failing one crucial test:

“It was put in on ninth avenue without notification to my office, and I was speaker at the time.”

I always take comfort in the fact that while the arguments for complete streets are many, the arguments and tactics used to stop such changes are few.  Of all the reasons one might use to remove a bike corral, “no one ever spoke to me” seems like the worst.  Democracy requires participation.

If I’m leaving out any other notable examples of people who claimed ignorance about a very public process, please leave them in the comments.

After coming upon a cyclist who had just been hit by an SUV driver in Seattle, the Slog’s Dominic Holden had this to say about those who feed at the trough of bike lane controversy:

Anti-cyclists propagandists, columnists like Joni Balter, and the Seattle Times editorial board have attempted to make cycling a political act. They say cars are being “shoved aside” for the “transfer of asphalt to bicycle lanes” and all cyclists are “militant.” They say a “war on cars” and “road diets” that are proven to improve cyclist safety are driving people out of the city. Riding a bike isn’t a political act. It’s a means of transportation. But because these people—Balter, writers in her cadre, people who call cyclists “militant,” local politicians who refuse to denounce that language, and others who we wrote about last year on this issue—are making it a political issue, and they make it more difficult for elected leaders to fund bicycle infrastructure.

Play Mad Libs with names like Steve Cuozzo and this could easily apply to New York City.  Holden continues:

Treating cycling like a political football has to stop. Deferring cycling investments needs to stop. People’s safety and their lives are on the line—and they’re not activists. They’re just people, commuters.

As Bloomberg said, this is the “wave of the future.”

At a luncheon hosted by Brian Lehrer, Christine Quinn had a lot to say about bike lanes, perhaps more than she’s ever said on any single issue in New York City politics. Via Transportation Nation:

“And one of the problems with bike lanes — and I’m generally a supporter of bike lanes –  but one of the problems with bike lanes has been not the concept of them, which I support, but the way the Department of Transportation has implemented them without consultation with communities and community boards.“

Emphasis mine.  As the inclusive process behind the Prospect Park West bike lane and the tedious and ongoing Columbus Avenue bike lane saga demonstrate, there’s a lot of evidence to refute the canard that DOT implements such projects without consultation from “communities and community boards.”  Perhaps the most powerful comes from Christine Quinn herself at the same luncheon:

“So, for example in Chelsea, the ninth avenue bike lane south of 23rd street was put in place — and the community board four loves the bike lane, LOVES the bike lane, been asking for bike lanes for years and years and year.  It was put in on ninth avenue without notification to my office, and I was speaker at the time.

Both of Quinn’s sentiments cannot be true. Either the DOT does not consult with community boards or it gets requests from community boards such as CB4 “for years and years.”  The only thing that seems to be missing, then, is some sort of personal phone call from Janette Sadik-Khan to Quinn herself.  But such a petty complaint begs the question: what other changes to neighborhoods and streets require direct notification to the speaker’s office?  Or is it just bike lanes?

There are other inconsistencies in Quinn’s remarks, including the idea that something that enjoys a 66% approval rating is “clearly controversial.”  Most notably, the speaker delivered her comments in front of an audience of Broadway and tourism officials, all of whom have seen their fortunes increase immeasurably with the Times Square pedestrian plaza and other improvements to the city’s streetscape.  (Few, if any, tourists staying in Manhattan rent a car to check out the Magnolia Bakery, South Street Seaport, SoHo, or the Metropolitan Museum.)  In fact, instead of chuckling when Lehrer asked Quinn to opine “about bike lanes, and pedestrian malls, and all things Bloomberg and Sadik-Khan,” the people in the room should have stood up and chanted, “JSK! JSK! JSK!”

Compare the speaker’s comments to Bloomberg’s opinion that urban amenities such as bike share systems are “the wave of the future,” and you can understand why so many people believe the rumors that the mayor wants to handpick his successor.

*If you’re late to the “Some of my best friends are bike lanes” party, a primer can be found here.

I often think that as advocates we should steer clear of words that get in the way of our central message. It’s one reason I criticized DOT for its “Don’t Be a Jerk” campaign; my firm belief is that you should never introduce language into a discussion you don’t want your opponent to use.

However, there are times when it’s worth it to embrace the words critics use. And while I bristle at the notion that there’s any such thing as a “cyclist,” I do think it’s worth it to take on the idea that people who ride bikes are somehow “entitled.”

When someone insults cyclists as entitled, he typically means that people who ride bicycles believe they should receive something special or extra to which they have no real right, even if that right is as basic as they come. In the world of bikes versus cars, this person believes that only drivers, as licensed, tax-paying members of society, are entitled to the majority of road space. It’s one reason car-owning cycling advocates in Park Slope confound bike lane opponents and must be ignored or insulted; it’s easier to stereotype people who believe in safe streets as unemployed hipsters who don’t represent “real” New Yorkers than it is to dwell in the complexities of urban modal choices.

So what does it really mean to be an entitled cyclist?

I came up with this list and realized that the things people who ride bicycles feel entitled to are no different than what everyone expects, be they on foot or behind the wheel of a car. This list could even be transposed to be a bill of rights for train passengers or air travelers.

• I am entitled to reach my destination alive and unharmed.
• I am entitled to travel free from verbal insults, intimidation, and threats of physical assault.
• I am entitled to safe infrastructure that is kept in a good state of repair.
• I am entitled to have my personal property not be subject to theft, especially if I take reasonable precautions against such actions.
• I am entitled to have my safety and rights under the law protected by the police.

Maybe it’s time to own the fact that cyclists are, yes, entitled. Whether you ride a bicycle to work or for recreation, to what else do you feel entitled?

Many thanks to Marc Van Woudenberg, aka Amsterdamize for putting this short video together following a ride I did with him and Mark Wagenbuur from BicycleDutch last Saturday in Amsterdam. When my camera broke earlier in the week I was disappointed that I wouldn’t have many images from my quick year-end trip, so this video more than makes up for that minor misfortune.

Be sure to watch for my favorite bits: the dad riding with his two kids and the young woman hopping on her friend’s rear rack. Both moments are about as Dutch as you can get, as far as I’m concerned.

“People’s choices are shaped largely by their environment; put an escalator next to stairs, 99% of people will not take the stairs. Build things that are good for a person on a bike — whether they are eight or eighty — and you’ll get more people on bikes. Get more people on bikes, and the other issues, like behavior and safety, virtually take care of themselves.” – Tom Vanderbilt

Remember this gem from NBBL?

Well, now that the city has added even more bike lanes since this spycam video was released to the media in February 2011, how are the city’s emergency response vehicles faring out there?

Via 1010 WINS:

New York City has achieved the lowest number of civilian fire deaths in its history, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Fire Commissioner Salvatore J. Cassano announced Wednesday.

The city had 58 fire deaths in 2012. That’s four fewer than the previous record low of 62 set in 2010.

It also has recorded its fastest average ambulance response time for life-threatening medical emergencies. It’s exactly 6 1/2 minutes – a second faster than in 2011.

Emphasis mine.  Like most of NBBL’s dire predictions, the concern about delayed emergency response has collapsed under the weight of time and evidence.  Correlation is not causation, of course, and I’m not arguing that bike lanes have contributed to an average ambulance response time that’s faster than in previous years.  But right now it does appear as if they haven’t hurt.

Of course, emergency response vehicles have had to contend with New York City’s traffic for decades. Eighty years ago, one of them even had to drive on the sidewalk.

The Traffic and Transportation committee of Manhattan’s Community Board 2 is holding a public hearing tomorrow (Thursday, 1/3) on a number of street improvements in the district.  Yes, this is outside of Brooklyn, but I work in the area and have been involved with item 2 on the agenda below:

1. *Presentation by NYC Dept. of Transportation of proposals for bicycle corrals at 62 Spring St. (on Lafayette St. s.w. corner), 418 6^th Ave. (on W. 9^th St. s.e. corner) and 30 Prince St. (on Mott St. s.e. corner).

2. *Discussion of community proposals for pedestrian safety improvements at the intersection of Carmine/Clarkson/Varick Sts./7^th Ave. S. and immediate area:  (1) Relocation further north of traffic light signal on the s.e. side of Varick St.; (2) Installation of a bulbout (neckdown) or a “No Left Turn” sign on the n.e. corner of 7^th Ave. S. & Carmine St.; (3) Daylighting (“No Parking”) the s.w. corner of Clarkson at Varick St.; (4)  Installation of a bulbout (neckdown) on the n.w. corner of 7^th Ave. S. at Clarkson St.; (5) Conversion of Carmine St. bet. Bedford St. & 7^th Ave. S. to one-way northeastbound; and (6) Comprehensive integrated geometric and operational improvements at the Carmine/Clarkson/Varick Sts./7^th Ave. S. intersection (similar to 7^th Ave./Bleecker St. intersection).

3. *Discussion of traffic signal changes, sidewalk extensions and other potential pedestrian safety improvements at Bleecker St. and 6^th Ave.

The meeting will be held on Thursday, 1/3 @ 6:30 PM at theNYU Silver Building, 32 Waverly Pl. Room 401.  If you live, work or commute through the neighborhood, please come!

I found this postcard from the early 1900s recently at the Brooklyn Flea.  (Click image to enlarge.)  As you can see, the trolley line that used to run on Union Street and along the park is there, along with a much more open Grand Army Plaza.  It’s always remarkable to see such images, as they serve as a nice reminder that our streets are not preserved in amber; they’re always a work in progress.  Even more remarkable?  This photograph appears to be taken from the current site of 9 Prospect Park West.

If you feel like making any last-minute donations to support the cause of safe, livable streets for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers, please direct your contributions to the great people at Streetsblog/Streetfilms and Transportation Alternatives.

Have a wonderful holiday and a happy new year.  Thanks for reading!

The Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project LDC (MARP), has a petition on Change.org to Make Brooklyn’s Park Avenue Safer for Pedestrians.

The traffic on Park Avenue is bad for our neighborhood – it’s dangerous, fast, and loud. But we can fix Park Avenue by transforming it from a speedway to a neighborhood street. By signing this petition, you’ll tell these agencies you want action now! View the full report at http://www.myrtleavenue.org/ParkAvenueSafetyPlan.pdf. Here’s a summary of the proposals:

Sitewide Interventions:
Retime Traffic Lights to Slow Park Avenue Traffic
Add Bus Bulbs at Key Boarding Stops
Add Street Trees
Daylight Intersections
Repave and Restripe Parking Areas
Add Additional Signage
Add Additional Lighting
Introduce Median Parking
Increase Enforcement
Improve Sanitation Conditions
Repair Leaking Downspouts
Recapture Stormwater Through Green Infrastructure

And that’s just part of the list. It’s an ambitions and necessary project. Please sign the petition.