Parking

Cyclists and pedestrians somehow managing to get along with each other in Copenhagen.

March 1996: Residents in Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, and Boerum Hill are tired of their streets absorbing overflow from the nearby Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Neighborhood groups have tried repeatedly to convince the City to protect the neighborhoods from rush hour through traffic. So far, the City has done nothing but promise further study. DOT officials have even criticized residents for not wanting to serve as doormats for Manhattan-bound motorists. Residents are now considering civil disobedience to protect their safety and quality of life....

Streetsblog doesn't manage to get out to Queens all that often these days, so it's good to know that The Park Watchdog is keeping an eye on Flushing Meadows Park. Here is what he sees: Cars. Lots of them. Parked all over the grass. 

One of the more troublesome aspects of Forest City Enterprise's "Atlantic Yards" proposal is the developer's plan to create two rather huge, suburban mall-style surface parking lots on the eastern side of the project footprint. If all goes as planned there will 3,600 new parking spaces will be in place by 2012.

DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall's speech was, for many long-time Livable Streets advocates, the single most remarkable aspect of yesterday's Manhattan Transportation Policy Conference. As Jon Orcutt at TSTC noted, Weinshall's speech "laid out an array of measures to improve New York's pedestrian and bicycling environments, soften the quality of life impacts of heavy traffic, and begin to reclaim the sheer urban acreage given over to automobiles." Added up, these measures appear to represent the beginnings of an altogether new set of transportation, land use, and public space policies for New York City and, as Orcutt writes, "a significant departure" from past priorities.

Check out my favorite new web site, MyBikeLane, by Greg Whalin.

Ed. Note: This has got to be the best item ever to come to us via a Streetsblog tipster. We love the photos! Got a post you'd like to share? You know what to do.

Transportation Alternatives has released a study of parking permit abuse among New York City employees (as observed in nine neighborhoods). Their press release notes the study's key findings: