Urban Planning
Streetsblog Basics
DOT’s Park Slope One-Way Presentation
Above is a bootlegged copy of DOT Deputy Commissioner Michael Primeggia's Park Slope one-way traffic presentation. Though the plan is supposedly all about improving pedestrian safety, you can see for yourself that it is almost entirely concerned with the movement and flow of motor vehicles and the calculation of "vehicular level of service."
March 16, 2007
DOT’s Park Slope Proposal: Is this Atlantic Yards Planning?
Last week, DOT quietly revealed that it was planning to narrow Fourth Avenue and transform Park Slope, Brooklyn's Sixth and Seventh Avenues in to one-way streets. Agency officials say that the the changes are being proposed for no reason other than "to make it safer for pedestrians crossing the street."
March 13, 2007
PlaNYC 2030 Project “Tearing Things Up” at City Hall
A tipster tells us of a particularly vigorous screaming match in City Hall last week between Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff and a career civil servant who must remain nameless.
March 13, 2007
Parking: If You Build it They Will Come… in Their Cars.
This is the second in a three-part series on New York City parking policy.Part 1: The New York City Parking Boom
March 12, 2007
Report from Atlanta: Don’t Walk This Way
I can't get behind Prevention Magazine's ranking of New York as 39th among the nation's most walkable cities. But after spending three days in Atlanta for a conference recently, I have no problem understanding why it rates 86th.
March 9, 2007
The New York City Parking Boom
The first in a three-part series on New York City parking policy.
March 8, 2007
Brooklyn to Bloomberg: Include Local Stakeholders in Planning
Below is a letter from the Park Slope Civic Council to Mayor Bloomberg and local elected representatives regarding the City's plan to transform Sixth and Seventh Avenue's into one-way streets. It's lengthy but it's worth a read (and full disclosure: I'm a trustee of the Civic Council):
March 8, 2007
DOT’s Park Slope Plan Requires Community Board Support
Crain's reporter Erik Engquist gets some more information about the Department of Transportation's plans to convert two Park Slope Avenues into one-way streets. DOT's press office is now saying:
March 7, 2007
Why Is DOT Reorganizing Park Slope Traffic? Because.
Last Wednesday we learned about the Department of Transportation's plan for a major reorganization of traffic flow through Park Slope, Brooklyn. In Streetsblog's comments section, Andy Wiley-Schwartz of Project for Public Spaces asked: What problems are DOT's traffic engineers trying to solve with this particular set of solutions? Or, to put it another way: What triggered this initiative? Why now? I put the question to DOT and here is what the press office came back with:
March 5, 2007