Citi Bikes at City Hall – Celebrating Bike to Work Day

This past Monday, we joined the Progressive Caucus of the New York City Council for their 3rd annual Bike to Work Day, both a celebration of cycling in New York City as well as a reminder that we still have plenty of work to do together to expand and improve safe biking infrastructure in all five boroughs.

Council Members Helen Rosenthal and Ben Kallos joined our Manhattan ride, and CMs Brad Lander and Carlos Menchaca met us at Brooklyn Borough Hall for the ride over the Brooklyn Bridge.  Steve Levin hopped a Citi Bike in Greenpoint and rendezvoused with us at City Hall, and Antonio Reynoso, the unfortunate victim of a recent bike theft, came by subway (yes, even members of the City Council are not immune to the scourge of stolen bicycles).

All six of the Council Members who participated in Bike to Work Day were endorsed by StreetsPAC in 2013, and among them, they have several bills pending in the Council that would improve cycling safety and access.  We were proud to join them Monday, and look forward to continuing to work together to make New York City's streets safer for everyone, regardless of transportation mode.

Bike to Work May 16 with the City Council's Progressive Caucus & StreetsPAC

Here's a quick reminder that this coming Monday, May 16, we'll be joining the Progressive Caucus of the New York City Council for their 3rd annual Bike to Work Day!

Join us on the north side of Borough Hall in Brooklyn at 8:30 a.m., or in Union Square Park in Manhattan at 9:00 a.m., for group rides to City Hall, where we'll be teaming up with the Progressive Caucus and other advocacy groups for a rally on the steps at 10:00 a.m.

Don't miss your one chance of the year to lift your bike on the steps of City Hall!

Bike to Work May 16 with the City Council's Progressive Caucus & StreetsPAC

On May 16, we'll be joining the Progressive Caucus of the New York City Council for their 3rd annual Bike to Work Day!

We'll be helping to lead some feeder rides from different points around the city (stay tuned to StreetsPAC.org, @StreetsPAC and Facebook for more details), and teaming up with the Progressive Caucus and other advocacy groups for a rally at City Hall at 10:00 a.m.

If you've ever wanted to do a bike lift on the steps of City Hall, this is your chance! Join us!

Pledge to Go Car-Free for Earth Day

Tomorrow, Friday, April 22, New York City is going car-free for Earth Day!

The effort, championed by New York City Council Transportation Committee Chair Ydanis Rodriguez, encourages New York City's drivers to leave their cars at home tomorrow and choose alternate means of transportation to commute, run errands, or otherwise get about, be it by mass transit, on foot, or by bicycle.

We gave the following testimony to the New York City Council's Committee on Transportation at their April 4, 2016 hearing covering several pieces of legislation. 

Int. No. 912 – Requiring curb extensions at certain dangerous intersections (Support)

We offer our strong support for Intro 912, which would establish a curb-extensions program and require curb extensions at dangerous intersections.  The bottom line is that daylighting can save lives, by increasing visibility at corners for all street users, and curb extensions can be accomplished at low cost using temporary materials on an interim basis before being fully built out.

We do, however, believe the number of annual curb-extension projects called for in this legislation – a minimum of five per borough – is woefully inadequate, and would urge that the bill be amended to substantially raise the bar.  Ideally, curb extensions should be standard design at every intersection.

Regardless, though, we strongly support initiating a program for daylighting intersections, which we believe is critical to helping the city achieve Vision Zero.  Saving lives is well worth the cost of a few corner parking spaces.

At a hearing of the New York City Council's Committee on Transportation on Wednesday, March 30, StreetsPAC urged the Council to pass a bill introduced by Council Members Corey Johnson and Daniel Garodnick that would give the Department of Transportation the power to regulate activity in the city's pedestrian plazas.

Read our full testimony after the jump.

Yesterday evening, the New York City Department of Transportation presented Manhattan Community Board 3's Transportation Committee with plans for a major redesign of Chrystie Street, a key route for the thousands of people who use the Manhattan Bridge bike path every day.

In February of 2015, StreetsPAC board member Dave 'Paco' Abraham pitched Manhattan CB3 on a concept for replacing Chrystie Street's paired (and frequently obstructed and badly pockmarked) Class II bike lanes with a parking-protected, two-way Class I bike path, running along the east side of Chrystie, adjacent to the linear Sara Roosevelt Park. The board's Transportation Committee endorsed the concept unanimously, and two weeks later, the full board, by a vote of 35-0, asked NYC DOT to study the idea, which had the backing of elected officials including State Senator Daniel Squadron, City Council Member Margaret Chinned Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer.

Then last fall, an anonymous group calling itself the "Transformation Dept." (NYC_DOTr on Twitter) created a pop-up protected path on Chrystie's northbound bike lane, using plastic safety cones and sunflowers. The temporary materials were enough to keep the lane clear of the vehicles that frequently obstruct it, and led to calls for the real NYC DOT to accelerate its efforts.

The waiting, at least as far as a plan goes, is now over.

At a hearing today of the New York City Council's Committee on Transportation, StreetsPAC urged the Council and Mayor de Blasio to drop a provision in a proposed bill on reducing the number of horse-drawn carriages in the city that would ban pedicabs in Central Park below the 85th Street Transverse.

Rather than banning human-powered pedicabs, we strongly urged the Council and Administration to make Central Park fully, and permanently, car-free.  Motor vehicles were barred from the majority of Central Park's roadways in 2015, but are still permitted during certain hours between Central Park South and 72nd Streets.

Read our full testimony after the jump.

We delivered the following testimony today at the New York City Council's Committee on Transportation Oversight hearing on upgrading city parking systems for greater efficiency, safety, and reliability:

Implementing the right parking policies in New York City could be tremendously helpful in improving mobility, reducing congestion, making housing more affordable, lowering emissions, reducing dependency on automobiles, and moving us closer to achieving Vision Zero, among other benefits.

However, our views on parking aren’t keeping up with innovations in other areas of transportation policy, and we hope that today’s hearing is just the first of many devoted to tackling this thorny issue.  The City Council should be providing leadership on citywide parking policy when DOT isn’t acting aggressively enough.

Free and below-market-rate parking provides a huge subsidy to private vehicle owners at the expense of everyone else.  It encourages driving, and should be phased out, especially in the more densely populated areas of the city.

We delivered the following testimony today at the New York City Council's Committee on Transportation Oversight hearing evaluating the city's progress with Vision Zero:

When Mayor de Blasio, just two weeks into his term in January 2014, announced the formation of the interagency working group on Vision Zero, it marked the setting of an ambitious-yet-crucial mission for New York – to reduce traffic deaths to zero within 10 years.

To be sure, we’ve made some notable progress toward that goal.  Lowering the citywide speed limit to 25 miles per hour, activating the city’s full complement of speed cameras, passing a law that makes it a crime to violate the Right of Way of people on foot and on bikes, rendering the vast majority of the Central and Prospect Park drives car-free, and beginning the transformation of Queens’s notorious “Boulevard of Death” to a modern complete street are all important milestones.  Pedestrian deaths fell to a record low in 2014, and we just might reduce that number again this year.

While this is progress, we still must acknowledge that we have a long, long way to go on the road to Vision Zero.