Urban Planning

The PlaNYC team has released the technical report providing the detailed background data for the transportation recommendations made in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's April 22 Long-Term Planning & Sustainability speech. It's a big download -- 25 megabytes and 166 pages -- but if you are a New York City transportation policy wonk, it's totally worth it. 

With a new commissioner coming in to run New York City's Department of Transportation, now is a good time to begin a conversation about what the agency could be doing differently to make itself more effective. DOT has a tough job. It has conflicting, and sometimes contradictory, mandates from the mayor, city council and communities it serves. The agency is often asked to bridge deep differences in neighborhoods between those most concerned with parking and driving and those focused on better walking, cycling, quality of life and long-term sustainability. It's not unheard of for the same council members who demand better bus service to protest changes in parking rules that would reduce double parking and speed bus service. But there are things that DOT can do relatively easily and at low cost to improve its relations with the public and raise the level of the transportation discussion. Here are five of them:

Number of times each of the following words or phrases appears in the PlaNYC chapter on transportation:

Bookending his much-vaunted Earth Day speech with congratulatory video clips from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mayor Mike Bloomberg called for New Yorkers to take the initiative in the international fight against global warming, positioning himself as a leader on the issue.

The debate over congestion pricing has been heating up in advance of Mayor Bloomberg's big Earth Day speech tomorrow. What better time to get some talking points on the matter from Bob Kiley, who served as the Commissioner of Transport for London from 2001 to 2006? (Kiley was also chairman and CEO of New York's MTA from 1983 to 1990.)

The Brooklyn Paper reports that there's talk brewing about seizing an opportunity to bury the section of the BQE that runs underneath the Promenade, rather than simply repair it (right, the Atlantic Ave. overpass where the roadway rises near the site of the proposed Brooklyn Bridge Park and the One Brooklyn condo development):

Ahead of Sunday's big PlaNYC 2030 reveal, Bruce Schaller of Schaller Consulting has released an exhaustive analysis of New York City traffic, transit and public space. "CITYinFLUX: Understanding and Untangling Traffic and Transportation in NYC" is a compendium of over 40 reports and databases, highlighting a wealth of interesting facts, charts and analyses. The complete report (43 page PDF) is available here.

One vision: Grand Army Plaza's fountain and arch connected to Prospect Park.

Gotham Gazette talked recently with Cecil Corbin-Mark, of West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT), about environmental justice in Upper Manhattan.