Weinshall Watch

Yesterday, the Department of Transportation installed New York City's very first pedestrian countdown timer at the intersection of Coney Island Avenue and Kings Highway in Brooklyn. Gothamist, as usual, does a nice treatment of the story and roundup of the coverage.

More public space for Grand Army Plaza: DOT says that it would give the street space highlighted in green to the Parks Department for use during public events and car-free hours in Prospect Park.

Sketches from an internal BRT Study depicting the three general types of stations: A) Major Station: Includes extended canopy with windscreens and seating. Icon and full platform pavement treatment. B) Standard Station: Shelter with Icon and full platform pavement treatment. C) Minimum Station: For locations with narrow sidewalks: Icon and platform edge strip only. Bigger image here.

The Gansevoort Project Aims to Turn a Chaotic Intersection into a Grand Piazza

On Friday, Department of Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall stood up in front of 600 people at Borough President Stringer's Transportation Policy Conference and said that her agency was serious about reducing car use in New York City. It was a great policy speech.

DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall's speech was, for many long-time Livable Streets advocates, the single most remarkable aspect of yesterday's Manhattan Transportation Policy Conference. As Jon Orcutt at TSTC noted, Weinshall's speech "laid out an array of measures to improve New York's pedestrian and bicycling environments, soften the quality of life impacts of heavy traffic, and begin to reclaim the sheer urban acreage given over to automobiles." Added up, these measures appear to represent the beginnings of an altogether new set of transportation, land use, and public space policies for New York City and, as Orcutt writes, "a significant departure" from past priorities.

In the aftermath of September 11th, concrete and steel barriers sprouted like  mushrooms around big buildings in New York City. It almost seemed to me to be a kind of status symbol. You knew you worked in an important building if your landlord had hardened it against truck bombs.

Did people have a chance to listen to Brian Lehrer's interview with DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall and Transportation Alternatives' Noah Budnick yesterday morning? If so, what did you think?

Trouble on Two Wheels