Alliance > Media center > People Powered Blog

Entries tagged: New York

New York advocates celebrated last week as Complete Streets legislation passed the New York State Assembly.

Introduced by Senator Charles J. Fuschillo, Chairman of the NY Senate Transportation Committee, New York State bill S5411 amends current state highways law and requires transportation planners to consider bicycle and pedestrian friendly features when building and redesigning roadways that receive federal or state funding. This means that, in addition to including space for vehicles, planners will also need to consider additional elements like bike lanes, sidewalks, pedestrian islands, count-down crosswalk signals, and expanded curbs for pedestrians waiting to board a bus.

“Drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists all share the roads; we need to do everything we can to protect their safety,” Senator Fuschillo said. “Taking complete streets design principles into consideration on future road projects will help prevent deaths and injuries on our roads and make them safer for everyone.”

The Complete Streets legislation had a history of stalling in the New York Assembly and saw its share of pushback this year. Most recently, highway superintendents complained about the cost of adding bike lanes and similar bike/ped features, saying that these elements often caused the projects to be over budget.

According to Brian Kehoe, executive director of the New York Bicycling Coalition, the bill appeared to be dead as recently as a week prior to its passage because of this pushback. However, thanks to the tireless efforts of New York advocates and coalition partners like the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and AARP, lawmakers resolved this issue by changing the bill in late negotiations to require these features in the design phase only and to make implementation optional if it caused the project to go over budget.

The bill is now headed to Governor Cuomo’s desk for signature.

Read the full legislation and learn more about the NYBC.

When money gets tight, the wheels of government often grind to a halt. A tough budget year becomes politicians’ excuse for letting important issues simmer on a back burner while they tend to the financial inferno.

But, even during a particularly difficult session in the New York state legislature this year, Transportation Alternatives managed to pull out several notable victories. According to the NYC-based advocacy organization, state lawmakers in Albany passed two bills that will make cyclists’ and pedestrians’ commutes “safer and speedier.”

“The bus lane enforcement camera provision included in the State Budget and pending legislation that will establish penalties for reckless and careless drivers who claim the lives of vulnerable street users are huge breakthroughs in their issue areas,” the advocates note in their latest newsletter. “They each represent real progress, demonstrate the prowess of Transportation Alternatives’ Albany operations and punctuate the growing strength of our organization.”

And it takes a little muscle to get things done. According to T.A., state legislators can see upwards of 18,000 proposed bills each year. Barely nine percent of those pass and only a tiny sliver are issue-oriented measures, like provisions pertaining to biking and walking. “That we managed to fight for, and pass, two bills in this notoriously nasty and crowded session is truly remarkable,” T.A. says.

Read more about their legislative campaigns.

Transportation Alternatives has released its annual estimate of how many New Yorkers ride bicycles daily. There are now 236,000 daily cyclists in the five boroughs. The figure represents a 28% increase over the previous year, continuing recent double-digit growth trends.  More than 200 miles of bike lanes have been installed in New York City over the past three years. These bike lanes are helping to fuel the dramatic growth in cycling across the city. For more information, visit Transportation Alternatives.

Thanks to Claire Gron for contributing this member news.

The Vermont Bicycle and Pedestrian Coalition and New York Bicycle Coalition won a major victory with the design of the new Champlain Bridge connecting Addison, VT and Crown Point, NY. The existing bridge was shut down when engineers discovered critical deterioration last fall. Significant for transportation (100 mile detour), historic, and scenic reasons, getting bike/ped access was a huge goal for both Alliance organizations. The modified design now includes both multipurpose (bike) lanes and raised sidewalks.

Congrats to both coalitions for their critical organizing and winning this great victory! For visualizations of the unique “network tiered arch” bridge go to www.nysdot.gov/lakechamplainbridge/photos-visualizations.

According to Transportation Alternatives (T.A.), “First and Second Avenues (in New York City) are about to get a whole lot better for bikers, walkers and transit takers.

In response to T.A.‘s East Side campaign, the Department of Transportation has committed to building better bus, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure from South Ferry to 125th Street. Included in the agency’s plans are bike lanes, bus lanes and improved pedestrian crossings that will not only make these notoriously congested avenues safer, but also better-performing.

Though the DOT has yet to identify the exact configurations it will use when construction begins this June, all of the possibilities are huge improvements over the order-less mess that now rules the roads in this part of Manhattan, and we commend them, as well as the Volunteer Committee members, community stakeholders, local politicians and countless activists who helped the plan come together.

To ensure that this wave of street reform doesn’t simply splash on to two avenues and wash away, Transportation Alternatives is organizing an East Side Streets Coalition to help spread these changes. With the support of T.A.‘s Volunteer Committees, citizens and civic organizations from East Harlem to Chinatown, the East Side Coalition plans to push for streets that reduce pedestrian and cyclist injuries and fatalities from vehicle crashes by 50% in the next decade.”

T.A. is issuing a call to action. “Visit the East Side Streets Coalition website to take an online survey about current conditions and future possibilities, find out about upcoming community workshops and join the Coalition.”

Transportation Alternatives (T.A.)has published two extensive reports on traffic safety and enforcement, quantitatively tallying the level of lawless driving and documenting the failure to create deterrence from dangerous driving on New York City streets.  Executive Order:  A Mayoral Strategy for Traffic Safety examines the broken system of enforcement of traffic crimes, describing the deadly consequences of dangerous driving, the lack of moving violation enforcement, and the loopholes in traffic crime prosecution. Using sampling data and yearly totals of NYPD summonsing activity, Executive Order presents staggering statistics that reveal how often dangerous drivers evade enforcement and delay justice.  The report was released to wide acclaim, with coverage by every major New York City news organization and both Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly commenting on its findings.  A follow-up study, From Chaos to Compliance:  How the NYPD Can Grasp New York City’s Traffic Safety Problem develops the methodology for measuring the state of New York streets, and employs these techniques to prove the pervasiveness of traffic law violations. 

T.A. has also launched an advocacy campaign, based on the comprehensive recommendations of over 30 experts in Traffic Safety and Law Enforcement, to change government policy towards street safety and create true deterrents to dangerous driving in New York City. In the coming months, T.A. will push the NYPD to adopt these methods to understand how best to approach the problems of dangerous driving. These reports and efforts were made possible in part by an Alliance for Biking & Walking Advocacy Advance Grant.

Download the reports:

Executive Order: A Mayoral Strategy for Traffic Safety

and

From Chaos to Compliance: How the NYPD Can Grasp New York City’s Traffic Safety Problem

Thousands of New Yorkers turned out to participate in the first two installments of Summer Streets, a ciclovía-style event presented by the City of New York. A temporary street closure spanning 90 consecutive blocks, Summer Streets provides a car-free, recreational route between Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge. Along this car-free route, the Department of Transportation and sponsors host art, dance and fitness classes, musical performances and bike-related activities. Many adjacent side streets host citizen-organized activities ranging from double-dutch tournaments to scooter races.
Summer Streets is the culmination of a season of unprecedented pedestrian-oriented street events, spearheaded by community coalitions and Transportation Alternatives, and made possible by City agencies. While raising the profile of public space is a primary goal of Summer Streets, the timing for this event has much to do with the City’s interest in reducing motor vehicle traffic, improving public health through urban design and meeting its own sustainability goals, and bringing us some summer-time fun too.