Noah Kazis

Changes to bus service on 34th Street have improved travel times and bus frequencies and have increased ridership, according to MTA data presented to the transportation committee of Manhattan Community Board 6 last night. Even speedier and more reliable crosstown rides are expected after the next stages of the street redesign are phased in over the next two years.

Pedestrians at the southern-most tip of Manhattan are getting a lot more space to walk, thanks to a DOT proposal [PDF] first reported by DNAinfo last week.

Looks like Streetsblog readers and corporate CEOs aren't the only ones excited about bike-share. After today's big announcement, which included not only the branding of bike-share but also new details about the pricing and rollout of the program, the glowing reactions started to pour into our inbox. Here's what we're hearing:

Parking minimums have struck another blow for terrible urban design, this time just three blocks from the transit mega-hub of Atlantic/Pacific, where nine subway lines and the LIRR converge. A new luxury apartment building going up at the corner of Bergen Street and Third Avenue will dedicate its entire ground floor, facing both the side street and the avenue, to one big, open garage.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

This weekend marks the sixth annual set of Jane's Walks, walking tours about urban history and planning held in honor of the patron saint of 20th century urbanism, Jane Jacobs. In New York, the Municipal Art Society has catalogued more than 70 tours, all of them free, in all five boroughs. In most cases, there's no RSVP required.

When Brooklyn's Barclays Center opens with a Jay-Z concert this September, it will be one of the most transit-accessible arenas in the United States. But as Streetsblog has noted before, the transportation planning for the stadium is excessively car-oriented. Developer Forest City Ratner had been planning to build an 1,100-space surface parking lot, marring the pedestrian environment and inducing more driving to the stadium. As opening day nears, there's good news and bad when it comes to parking.

On-Duty Secret Service Agent, Trying to Beat the Light, Kills Bed-Stuy Pedestrian Maria Tripp (News) Sidewalk Extensions, Ped Plazas Coming to Financial District’s Whitehall and State Streets (DNAinfo) First Phase of Queens Greenway, From LIC to Astoria, to Open This Fall (News) Cuomo Won’t Tell New Yorkers How He Hopes to Pay for Tappan Zee (Transpo … Continued

Governor Andrew Cuomo's Tappan Zee Bridge bears all the hallmarks of a Robert Moses project. Cuomo stripped popular transit elements from the original, publicly-conceived plan, leaving only a massive highway. Cuomo has shut down the public outreach process for the bridge entirely. He's even moving to sign the contracts to build the bridge before answering basic questions about its design and funding. (Cuomo's less-than-transparent answer about how the state will pay for the bridge today: "We're working on a number of funding options.")

Here's a cool, funny, and genuinely effective public service announcement out of Belgium. According to Gizmodo, non-profit Responsible Young Drivers essentially pranked a bunch of people taking their drivers license exam. To pass, they were told, they'd have to show they could adequately send text messages while keeping control of the car.