Midtown

A tipster sends in these shots of police -- again -- and trucks -- again -- parked in the 34th Street Select Bus Service lane. Looks like the city's Botts' Dots are more soft than barrier.

Details are vague, but it looks like we can add book publisher HarperCollins to the list of New York companies providing bike parking. This office memo came in today over the tipwire:

A scene from Midtown early this morning, after Barack Obama was named president-elect.

Last week saw the latest expansion of the public realm in Midtown, with the official unveiling of the long-awaited redesign of Duffy Square at Broadway and Seventh Avenue, the northern edge of the Times Square "bowtie."

Today marks the start of Transportation for America's "Build for America" campaign, which will work to influence the transportation funding legislation that goes before the next Congress in 2009. (You'll be hearing a lot more about it here in the coming months; we have received a grant from the T4America campaign to kick-start the development of Streetsblog.net, a national network of transportation policy bloggers.) It's a major effort to fundamentally change the way this country thinks about and finances transportation infrastructure — at the same time creating jobs, reducing dependence on fossil fuels, and helping the environment. Download a PDF of the plan here.

We were out last Friday taking shots of cars parked in the new Select Bus lanes on 34th Street -- you know, the ones NYPD has pledged to help keep clear. If only we had walked a few blocks west we might have hit the mother lode.

Broadway Boulevard takes center stage in a USA Today story on New York City's recent pedestrian improvements. Those who questioned whether people would sit in plazas near passing traffic have their answer:

DOT plans to use cameras to keep cabs and government vehicles out of the 34th Street lanes.