Community Boards

One of the year's most exciting street safety projects is on track to get better. Thanks to a recent set of recommendations from Community Board 4, the extension of the protected bike lanes on Eighth and Ninth Avenues will include additional sidewalk expansions and on-street bike parking. Though DOT didn't adopt all of the board's ideas -- most notably, the agency is leaving a gap in the physical protection for cyclists in front of the Port Authority Bus Terminal -- on the West Side, the community board's requests are helping to build a better bike lane.

East Harlem's Community Board 11 last night approved, again, plans to build protected bike lanes and pedestrian refuge islands on First and Second Avenues. The vote comes after a lengthy public debate in which the community fought for the lanes and the board approved them, only to take back its support after local businesses protested.

After a long and circuitous path, the fate of protected bike lanes on East Harlem's First and Second Avenues may be decided in a community board vote Tuesday night.

It was another evening of hands-on bike-share station planning at Manhattan Community Board 2 last night, as New Yorkers hunched over maps of SoHo and Greenwich Village, marking the best places to site bike-share kiosks.

When bike-share launches this summer, 10,000 new public bicycles will be available at 600 stations in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The stations will typically be located about 1,000 feet apart from each other, ensuring a quick walk to a public bike from anywhere below 79th Street and in northwest Brooklyn. The exact location of the stations -- this corner or that one, on the street or on the sidewalk -- is largely up to each neighborhood to decide. The hyper-local planning begins next week at a workshop for the Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen neighborhoods [PDF] and continues throughout the service area over the next two months.

We have a late breaking addition to the Streetsblog calendar. Tonight the transportation committee of Brooklyn Community Board 14 will be discussing DOT's plan to add more pedestrian space and realign the intersection of Parkside Avenue and Ocean Avenue at the southeast entrance to Prospect Park [PDF]. The redesign will be made possible by relocating a park loop entrance for cars from this intersection to Lincoln Road. An average of 20 people are injured in traffic at this location every year, and the project is expected to cut that number in half.

After a misinformation campaign by two local business owners, East Harlem's Community Board 11 rescinded its vote in support of plans for protected bike lanes along First and Second Avenue Tuesday night. The board will soon vote again on the project, which has the backing of local Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito.

Does it get less democratic than this? The City Council Transportation Committee Chair, James Vacca, just told the New York Post that Transportation Alternatives shouldn't help people join their local community boards.

The transportation committee of Manhattan Community Board 2 voted unanimously on Tuesday to endorse a community-generated plan to upgrade the Hudson Street bike lane to a parking-protected lane.