Plazas

Transportation Committee Chair James Vacca convened a hearing this afternoon on NYC DOT's plaza program, a sequel of sorts to the bike policy hearing where opponents of the Prospect Park West bike lane got a big media moment and several council members laid out their windshield perspective on bike lanes for all to see. Today, by and large, the committee members had good things to say about re-purposing street space for plazas, but it was more than a little farcical to see the chair grill DOT assistant commissioner Andy Wiley-Schwartz about the plaza program as though it might just be a nefarious plot to, in Vacca's words, "drive car owners crazy."

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].

Construction on a slate of pedestrian and bike improvements for Grand Army Plaza is scheduled to move forward this summer, NYC DOT announced this Saturday. The redesign includes a major expansion of the pedestrian islands at the north side of GAP and the addition of a two-way, protected bicycle connection linking Union Street to Eastern Parkway on the southern side. It does not include the two-way, protected bike lane on Plaza Street shown in DOT's 2010 presentation on this same project, which Community Boards 6 and 8 both approved last year.

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.

Construction is underway at the intersection of 23rd Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, where DOT is building new pedestrian refuge islands and a sidewalk extension to provide some extra space around a busy subway station. The intersection, currently in the 99th percentile for severity-weighted traffic injuries in the city, will also have its signals adjusted to give pedestrians more conflict-free time to cross the street. The new plaza extends across two of Seventh Avenue's six lanes on the southern side of the intersection.

Last night's Municipal Arts Society panel, "Shared Streets: Making It Work," mainly covered familiar ground for those who have been following the city's efforts to repurpose its streets over the last four years. Participants touted the improved bus speeds along Select Bus Service routes, the safety gains where protected bike lanes have been installed, and the economic boost of pedestrian plazas in Times and Herald Square. Two things jumped out at as noteworthy, though.

Last Thursday evening, Manhattan Community Board 2 voted down five of six approved pop-up cafés in their neighborhood, choosing parking spaces over public seating.

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.

DOT presented the latest design concepts for a permanent Plaza De Las Americas to Washington Heights residents last night, showing a plan to pedestrianize the full block of 175th Street between Broadway and Wadsworth Avenue, in order to make a new space for residents and the popular market currently operating at that location. The design -- 95 feet deep and 165 feet wide, extending all the way into what are currently the parking lanes on Broadway and Wadsworth --  won plaudits from those in attendance.