Community Boards

Earlier this week, Brooklyn Community Board 10 voted to stick with their stance against adding a painted bike lane to Bay Ridge Parkway. Since the project [PDF] would simply impose a little order on an extra-wide street without removing any traffic lanes or parking spots, it's tempting to write off the whole board as hostile to any bike infrastructure. That would be a mistake. There were signs of progress on Tuesday, as a few CB members signaled their determination to dispel myths about bike projects and win over their colleagues.

Not so long ago, it was common to hear NYCDOT staff say their job was "to keep the traffic moving." Engineers working from "the motorist's viewpoint" ran the show, much like they did in the 1950s. Those days are thankfully over. Today's DOT prioritizes safety and sustainability and has compiled a lengthy track record of innovation in a few short years. But as the transportation committee of Manhattan Community Board 6 learned last night, the old emphasis on keeping the traffic moving still restrains how far the department will go to improve conditions for other modes.

DOT's plans to redesign two Prospect Heights intersections to improve safety earned the endorsement of Brooklyn Community Board 8's transportation committee last Tuesday. The plan also includes an "optional" painted bike lane along Washington Avenue between Eastern Parkway and Atlantic Avenue [PDF].

Brooklyn's only proposed pop-up café won the approval of Community Board 2 last night in an 18-10-1 vote, allowing the city to replace on-street parking with public seating. This pop-up is sponsored by the Ecopolis Café on Smith Street, which will pay the cost of building the temporary public space.

In a unanimous voice vote last night, Brooklyn Community Board 6 passed a resolution supporting NYC DOT's proposed modifications to the Prospect Park West bike lane. The changes include building raised pedestrian islands, adding bike "rumble strips" at crosswalks, and narrowing the buffer between the bike lane and parked cars at the northernmost end of the street. The resolution includes several other requests, asking DOT to search for ways to add on-street parking spots on PPW and side streets, and to monitor safety stats on the redesigned street for the next three years.

When DOT installed its first "pop-up café" over a few parking spaces on Lower Manhattan's Pearl Street last summer, the 14-table public seating area helped increase business by 14 percent at its two sponsoring restaurants. With New York City still recovering from recession and much of the city starved for public space, DOT has moved to expand the program. Restaurants were given the option of requesting a café and DOT selected twelve locations from that pool of applicants. The selected locations are concentrated in the Village and SoHo, making tonight's Community Board 2 vote a critical moment for the program.

The transportation and public safety committees of Brooklyn Community Board 6 unanimously approved a motion last night supporting DOT's proposals to, among other things, add raised concrete pedestrian islands and bike "rumble strips" to the redesigned Prospect Park West.

I'll have a longer post later today, but for now, here is the numerical recap from last night's public hearing on the Prospect Park West redesign. The overall headcount was somewhere around 400 people. Transportation Alternatives handed out pro-bike lane stickers to 330 people before they exhausted their supply. Among the 100+ people who signed up to testify, support outweighed opposition by nearly an eight-to-one margin.

Okay, if you're a little hesitant about speaking in front of a packed community board hearing tonight, don't worry. You can still register your opinion about the Prospect Park West redesign -- if you show up.