Plazas
Streetsblog Basics
A Car-Free Plaza Is the Key to DOT’s Safety Plan for Myrtle-Wyckoff
The dangerous intersection of Myrtle Avenue and Wyckoff Avenue at the Bushwick-Ridgewood border is in line for a major DOT redesign this year. The proposal calls for pedestrianizing the block of Wyckoff between Myrtle and Gates to reduce potential motor vehicle turns at the intersection by 70 percent.
March 31, 2016
Better Rules for Plazas — It’s Not All About Times Square
The City Council heard testimony today on Intro. 1109-A, which would give DOT authority over designating and regulating pedestrian plazas across the city. DOT has carved out nearly 70 plazas since 2008, but its jurisdiction over those plazas remains ambiguous.
March 30, 2016
Fast Changes to City Streets: A 9-Step Guide for Creative Bureaucrats
Michael Andersen blogs for The Green Lane Project, a PeopleForBikes program that helps U.S. cities build better bike lanes to create low-stress streets.
March 28, 2016
Take a Look at What’s on the Table for Long Island City Streets
Every street in Long Island City is in line for a top-to-bottom reconstruction, and as part of the project DOT and the Department of Design and Construction are proposing several improvements for walking and biking. Here's the presentation the agencies gave to Queens Community Board 2 earlier this month, showing the preliminary redesigns. The project covers several streets and intersections, and some of the options on the table go a lot farther than others to make walking and biking safer.
February 19, 2016
The Problem With Designing a Public Space in a Sea of Traffic
Designing a successful public space surrounded by wide streets and a sea of traffic may sound like an exercise in futility, but that is what Forest City Ratner and DOT are trying to pull off at Brooklyn's Times Plaza.
January 28, 2016
Four More Street Redesigns That Are Taking Forever to Build
On Monday, we posted a list of seven street redesign projects that remain unfinished years after they went through the city's public planning process, with the Department of Design and Construction far behind schedule.
January 6, 2016
Merchants: DDC Taking Forever to Finish Plaza at Bronx Hub [Updated]
In 2008, DOT repurposed street space at the Hub in Mott Haven to greatly expand and improve Roberto Clemente Plaza. The first version of the project was made with low-cost materials -- paint, planters, and gravel. Afterward, the city committed to building out the project in concrete. But the agency in charge of delivering capital projects, the Department of Design and Construction, has been working on it for years and still has no definite timetable for completion.
December 22, 2015
Trottenberg Announces Plaza Equity Program at Plaza de Las Americas Reveal
Just eight months after the groundbreaking ceremony, officials held a ribbon-cutting this morning at Plaza de Las Americas, an impressive new public space in Washington Heights. Also today, Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg announced a City Hall initiative to assist plazas in neighborhoods without the resources of a major business improvement district.
November 23, 2015
Empire Boulevard Reconstruction Will Create Two Plazas
Dangerous intersections at each end of Empire Boulevard, which stretches east-west across the southern edge of Crown Heights, are set for some major new pedestrian space.
September 18, 2015