Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Thanks to commenter Stephen for prodding us to post on the new report from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, "Active Transportation for America" (download the PDF here).

What makes the report notable are the numbers it contains. It's jam-packed with quantifiable benefits that would result from increased investment in infrastructure that encourages and supports pedestrians and cyclists.

For instance, the report's authors write:

• Increasing the bicycle and pedestrian share of trips of one mile or less from its current 31 percent, to 40 percent under a Modest Scenario, or to 70 percent under a Substantial Scenario, would result in 28 billion or 49 billion reduction in miles driven, respectively.
• Modest increases in bicycling and walking for short trips could provide enough exercise for 50 million inactive Americans to meet recommended activity levels, erasing a sizeable chunk of America’s activity deficit.
  
• For the price of a single mile of a four-lane urban highway, approximately $50 million, hundreds of miles of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure can be built, an investment that could complete an entire network of active transportation facilities for a mid-sized city.
• The financial value of improved mobility, fuel savings, greenhouse gas reductions, and health care savings amounts to more than $10 billion annually under our Modest Scenario. For the Substantial Scenario, benefits would add up to more than $65 billion every year. These benefits dwarf historic spending for bicycling and walking, which was $453 million per year for 2005–2007 under SAFETEA-LU, and a mere $4.5 billion cumulative federal investment in these modes since 1992, when bicycling and walking first received documentable federal funding.
  
  

A recent poll conducted by AARP finds that Americans over the age of 50 are cutting down on car trips due to rising gas prices, but are finding public infrastructure, or lack thereof, to be an obstacle.

Almost one of every three people (29%) polled say they are now walking as a way to avoid high gas prices. But as those people set out to walk, almost 40% of the 50+ population say they do not have adequate sidewalks in their neighborhoods. Additionally, 44% say they do not have nearby public transportation that is accessible. Almost half (47%) of poll responders say they cannot cross the main roads safely – 4 in 10 pedestrian fatalities are over the age of 50.

Still, 40 percent of poll respondents say they have walked, biked, or taken public transit more frequently since gasoline prices began trending upward. More than half, 54 percent, say they would use alternate modes of transportation if conditions were improved.

As older New Yorkers can attest, impediments to car-free mobility are not exclusive to suburbs and exurbs. Washington, DC, for example, ranks ninth -- better than Arizona but worse than Florida -- in pedestrian fatalities among those over age 65, according to AARP. (New York state is third worst, behind Hawaii and Alaska.)

With some 35 million members, AARP is a formidable lobby. As a member of the National Complete Streets Coalition and backer of legislation that would steer federal funds toward making roadways accessible to all users, it promises to be a player in next year's big transportation appropriations bill.

Photo: Tuan Phan/Flickr

9th St. and 4th Ave.: "A dangerous crossing that divides surrounding neighborhoods and inhibits street life."

Transportation Alternatives is seeking proposals to reinvent the intersection of 9th Street and 4th Avenue in Park Slope. "Designing the 21st Century Street," a competition open to the general public, will reward the three most promising submissions with up to $6,000 in prize money.

TA lays out some of the obstacles at hand on the competition web site:

Ninth Street is excessively wide and allows motorists to travel at speeds greater than the posted City speed limit of 30 miles per hour. Furthermore, Ninth Street was recently treated with a new bicycle lane that leads people to and from Prospect Park. Though the reasons for placing a bike lane on this street are clear ... the bike lanes have attracted some controversy because of the rampant double-parking that occurs in the neighborhood.

Fourth Avenue has a raised median to separate travel direction for the length of the avenue. At this intersection, the median has been shaved away to create dedicated turning lanes. This is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements and is not a safe refuge for pedestrians, particularly the children and elderly, who can not make it across the street in the allotted time.

To be contenders, TA says, "Competitors must re-imagine this intersection as a healthy, safe and sustainable street that serves pedestrians and bicyclists first, while functioning as a transit hub and truck route."

Jury members include city planning and transportation staff, along with "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz and Danish planner Jan Gehl. Entrants must register by July 18 and submit proposals by August 18.

Care to get the ball rolling, Streetsbloggers? 

Photo: Transportation Alternatives

Barack Obama riding with his family last week.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama addressed bicycle advocates and industry leaders at a Chicago fundraiser on Thursday, lending more weight to the pro-bike comments he delivered in Portland, Oregon last month. Industry mag Bicycle Retailer has the scoop:

Barack Obama, in a private 20-minute meeting with members of the Bikes Belong board of directors, told them if he were elected president he would increase funding for cycling and pedestrian projects. And the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee also said he would support Safe Routes to Schools programs.

Stan Day, SRAM’s president, said that Obama "gets it." He pointed out that Obama understands that bicycles can be part of a solution to issues as diverse as health care, obesity, energy and environmental policy. "He does his homework and he can connect the dots," he said.

Obama's Oregon campaign co-chair, Representative Earl Blumenauer, said it was remarkable for a candidate to meet with bike advocates so early in the general election season.

Photo: Associated Press

In a piece from the March issue of Outside Magazine that seems especially relevant today, Tim Sohn writes about public space reform in New York City. His article is accompanied by an illustration of what the future of our city could look like: complete streets with dedicated bus and bike lanes, traffic calming gardens, and sidewalks wide enough to accommodate window shoppers without slowing pedestrian traffic -- none of which would depend on Albany for approval.

Recently, a New Yorker (let's call him Tim) was forced off a sidewalk by a double-wide stroller, a large dog, and an elderly pedestrian all traveling abreast. So he shimmied between parked cars, nearly collided with a bike messenger going the wrong way up a one-way street, and walked through the exhaust-choked margin of the avenue while fantasizing about a future in which New York City's clogged streets are reconfigured in favor of pedestrians and cyclists. A pipe dream? Nope, and you can thank advocacy/watchdog group Transportation Alternatives. New York is a walker's city, but its streets, which represent 85 percent of its public space, are monopolized by the fume-spewing, driving minority.

Mayor Bloomberg delivered his seventh State of the City Address yesterday morning at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The speech had several nuggets of news and info related to livable streets issues.

Touting the good news from 2007, the Mayor noted that New York City's streets are getting safer:

In 2007, we made the safest big city in the nation safer than it has been in generations. The fewest traffic deaths in nearly a century. Historic lows in jail violence. Historic lows in fire fatalities. And the fewest homicides recorded in modern history. This is New York City today.

And, in a roundabout admission that more can be done to improve safety, Bloomberg mentioned a new initiative aimed at making the city more livable for senior citizens (like his own 99-year-old mom), taking a page from Transportation Alternatives' Safe Routes for Seniors program:

Today I'm announcing a major effort called 'The All Ages Project.' In collaboration with the City Council and the New York Academy of Medicine, this project will completely re-envision what it means to grow old in New York... For instance: How can we ensure that more seniors are cared for in their own homes, rather than in institutions? And how do we make our city easier to get around in? Next month, we will begin to address that second challenge with traffic engineering improvements at 25 high-accident areas which are especially problematic for seniors.

He wrapped up with a lengthy push for PlaNYC initiatives, including a brief pitch for congestion pricing:

With the State's blessing, we'll also use technology to create a system of congestion pricing -- something no other American city has done. It will help us achieve four critical, inter-connected goals: reducing traffic congestion; raising money for mass transit; improving our air quality; and fighting climate change.

The much-hyped and much-criticized Tata Nano, a car that will hit the Indian market retailing for a mere 100,000 rupees -- the equivalent of $2,500 -- got a perplexing nod of approval from the Economist newsmagazine last week:

Commuting in India's cities can be both cosy and deadly. Children squeeze snugly between father at the handlebars of a motorcycle, and mother riding side-saddle at the back. This precarious balancing act, says Mr Tata was the "visual target" he had in mind when he first conceived of the need "to create another form of transport." About 1,800 people die on Delhi's roads each year, perhaps one-third of them on two-wheelers. Only 5% die in cars. Tata's project may pose risks for investors, but it promises unaccustomed safety for customers.

While we don't have all the data needed to crunch the assumptions in that road-death statistic (what percentage are traveling in cars to begin with, for instance?), it's hard to imagine that an influx of Tata Nanos is going to magically bring order to the streets of India. A New York Times article discussing chaotic driving habits in the country's capital quotes a police official in New Delhi on his views:

"My concern is not with cars. My concern is with drivers," said Suvashish Choudhary, the deputy commissioner of police. "Every new car will bring new drivers who are not trained for good city driving."

In China, the other huge new market targeted by auto manufacturers, recently released statistics suggest his concern is well-placed. Road deaths there are on the rise, even as they decline in other parts of the world.

Meanwhile, protesters on the site of the factory that will manufacture the new car torched the Nano in effigy (above) in protest over the company's seizure of farmland to make way for the plant: "Until farmers get back their land forcibly acquired for the Tata Motors small car plant at Singur," said one organizer, according to the Economic Times of India, "we will not allow the company to manufacture cars there."

Photo: Strdel/AFP/Getty Images

Filed by April Greene

Guillermo ("Gil") Peñalosa has a message for you. Actually, he has about 100, but they all packed very nicely into his two hour presentation last Thursday night at Harlem's Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building.

The former Parks Commissioner of Bogotá, Colombia, joined by members of the Harlem Community Development Corporation, Project for Public Spaces, Transportation Alternatives, and the NYC Food and Fitness Partnership, plowed through mountains of statistics both scary (in the U.S., 13 pedestrians and two bicyclists are killed by automobiles every day) and encouraging (only six years after implementation, Bogotá's bus rapid transit system now transports 1.3 million commuters daily), peppering the numbers with memorable quips and tips: "I tell my friends, 'Don't wear spandex when you bike!' We need to wear regular clothes so people know bikers are not crazy weirdos!"

Peñalosa's presentation was a comprehensive sweep of the livable streets concept. With the U.S. population slated to experience a 33 percent jump in the next 50 years, he said the need to build ped-friendly new cities and retrofit existing ones has never been greater, and in New York, the timing has never been better, with the mayor and DOT on board for green initiatives with unprecedented zeal. Peñalosa stressed that a city is a means to a way of life: if we build our cities around cars, we will generate more cars, but if we build them around people, we will generate more people. Advocates have a number of arguments to boost the cause, he said, depending on whom they're talking to: livable streets bring in tourism and real estate revenue from sales tax; they decrease instances of obesity, respiratory ailments, and depression; they save lives by separating cars from pedestrians; they help curb carbon emissions and noise pollution; and they build community by requiring that people, outside the shield of their cars, "look each other in the eye."

The diverse crowd of about 30 was motivated to attend by a range of concerns. A woman from the Harlem CDC said she has traveled extensively and wishes there were more ped-friendly streets in NYC like Las Ramblas in Barcelona. Three young women from the Department of Health wanted to hear Mr. Peñalosa's ideas on the link between more car-free public space and less chronic disease. A DOT urban planner said she thinks more people are open now to ideas like congestion pricing than they were 10 years ago, but that it will still take "someone with political guts," like Mr. Peñalosa, to lead the way in implementing such "long overdue" reforms. But some were just in it for the fun. One man offered, "I'd just like to see 1.5 million people outside and physically active on a Sunday."

Photo by April Greene

Community activists in Jackson Heights have been complaining about congestion at the corner at 73rd St. and 37th Ave. (right) for years. A major traffic study of the area is underway, but according to a DOT spokesman, the department didn't want to wait to implement "short-term initiatives" that could ease the problem. Problem is, some of the activists--including Will Sweeney of the Western Jackson Heights Alliance--aren't necessarily thrilled with the department's solution.

A few weeks ago, the bus stop for the Q47 and Q19b at 37th Ave. disappeared, replaced by three metered parking spots. According to the DOT spokesman, the change was made to speed bus traffic and thereby "reduce congestion and eliminate honking." The spokesman said that three more metered spots didn't represent a significant increase in metered parking and shouldn't be perceived as "giving back" parking to space formerly dedicated to mass transit. In making the move, the department worked with the MTA, which determined that nearby stops--at 35th Ave. and 37th Rd.--were close enough together that the 37th Ave. stop was superfluous.

Sweeney begs to differ, noting that the two remaining stops (represented by the top and bottom yellow dots on the map above; the middle dot is the eliminated stop) are now approximately 1,350 feet apart (the MTA says it tries to provide stops every 750 feet on average). Sweeney also has a problem with the way the change was made, saying the community was not consulted, and if they had been, metered parking spaces would not have been on the list of requests.

"The Western Jackson Heights Alliance has repeatedly asked for muni-meters and loading zones to be installed in the area," said Sweeney in an e-mail to Streetsblog. "If the Dept of Transportation is looking for quick and easy fixes, these two changes are it. Adding more parking spaces will not improve the situation--it will make it worse. Double parking, by trucks and cars that are loading and unloading, is the primary cause of congestion, and by extension, horn honking. Unfortunately, metered parking spaces are easily abused by motorists feeding the meter throughout the day. In 2003, Transportation Alternatives did a study of the area and noted that 39 percent of the metered parking spaces were abused by merchants feeding the meter through-out the day."

After hearing the DOT's rationale for the move, Sweeney still questions how it fits into the mayor's plan for a greener New York. "Jackson Heights must be the only place in New York City right now that is losing mass transit options and adding parking for private automobiles," he writes. "Does Mayor Bloomberg really care about congestion, air pollution and pedestrian safety outside of Manhattan? His actions are not in sync with his words."

Photo: Will Sweeney

The interim redesign of Ninth Avenue and 14th Street is done. Tables, chairs, planters and some of those giant granite blocks from DOT's Bridges Division have been set out as multipurpose bollard-bench-tables atop a gravelly, earth-tone pavement surface. 

What was very recently one of the longest and most hectic pedestrian crossings in Manhattan, and no treat for drivers, cyclists or nearby businesses, is suddenly a place where you can sit down and enjoy a Fat Witch brownie from the Chelsea Market after a busy morning of couture shopping at Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen. And soon you'll be able to get there via New York City's on-street, parking-protected "cycle track." As Danish urban designer Jan Gehl says, "How nice is it to wake up every morning and know that your city is a little bit better than it was the day before."

If DOT's new plazas on Willoughby and Pearl Streets in Brooklyn are any indication, the demand for this type of public space is huge and it's going to be a hit with lunchtime and evening crowds regardless of the proximity to busy traffic. Word has it the granite blocks and tables on the south side of 14th Street were already seeing heavy use on Tuesday evening at around 11:00 pm. Meat Market Plaza seems to be particularly popular with the smokers, banished, as they are, from the city's indoor spaces. Get ready to clean some cigarette butts out of the planters.

We'd love to get more photos of people using the new plaza spaces. If you're in the area, snap 'em and send 'em to tips@streetsblog.org.

Related:

• A New Vision for the Meatpacking District
• Meatpacking District Will Get a Makeover
• Construction of Piazza de Meatpacking is Underway
• More Meatpacking Plaza Construction Photos