DDC

It was supposed to happen circa 2005. Then in 2009. Now the city says the restoration of a crumbling block-long staircase that serves as a pedestrian-only street in Inwood will be finished by summer 2013.

Last night, Manhattan Community Board 2 resoundingly endorsed the city's plans to transform Astor Place and Cooper Square from asphalt expanses into pedestrian-friendly public spaces. After including some language in its resolution to appease the concerns of certain residents, the roughly 40 community board members in attendance voted unanimously for the plan to transform street space into plazas and expanded sidewalks.

Plans to transform another asphalt tangle into a great public space are moving forward at Astor Place, and Curbed has the details. With significant street space being reclaimed for pedestrians, the plan should serve as a new gathering place in the East Village and make the neighborhood safer for walking.

A two-block pedestrian plaza is coming to Myrtle Avenue in Clinton Hill, replacing an underused service road between Grand Avenue and Emerson Place. Last Friday, the local business improvement district unveiled eight potential ideas for the site (check out the BID's Flickr stream to see them all) and asked viewers for their feedback.

City officials, architects, planners, and public health advocates crammed into the Center for Architecture last night for the unveiling of New York City's Active Design Guidelines.

The long-awaited Sands Street bike path, a protected approach to the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge which took a few years longer than expected to go through New York City's construction bureaucracy, looks tantalizingly close to completion these days. It's not there yet, but you can start to picture how this critical addition to the city's bike network will appear when finished. The Department of Design and Construction tells us the whole thing should be paved by the end of the week, weather permitting, and the path should officially open to cyclists next week, after some fencing is added.

Residents of Inwood were excited by last year's news that the 215th Step-Street -- a block-long staircase linking Broadway to residential blocks in the northern reaches of the neighborhood -- would soon be receiving a long-awaited rehab. But officials announced last week that the project will again be delayed.

After a wait that lasted years longer than expected, construction crews are breaking ground on a slate of pedestrian safety improvements for Downtown Brooklyn's traffic-plagued streets.

The reconstruction of East Houston Street will include wider medians, bigger sidewalks, fewer traffic lanes, and a new bike lane. But instead of installing a physically protected path for cyclists, the city plans to paint a buffered, Class 2 lane. The project, which received funds freed up by stimulus spending, will go out to bid this summer.