By Matt Chaban 1/18 4:17pm

Street Fighters Too

5 Photos

Willoughby Wonder

‘This Is Set In Stone:’ At Plaza Ribbon Cutting, Sadik-Khan Says Street Changes Will Continue After She’s Gone

For the past six years, thousands of people a day have descended on a 150-foot long stretch of black top across from Borough Hall. There, nestled among planters and folding chair, Brooklynites and visitors, workers, students and tourists would all relax, meet up, hang out, maybe enjoy a shack stack.

Willoughby Plaza was one of the very first asphalt strips formerly dedicated to cars that was closed to vehicles, taken over and transformed into a space for pedestrians, helping to inaugurate the city’s popular if occasionally controversial NYC Plaza Program. Before Times Square and the Broadway Boulevard, before the new Grand Army Plaza or Fordham Plaza, before Janette Sadik-Khan even became DOT commissioner, there was Willoughby Plaza.

And now it is permanent, a thoughtfully designed, well-integrated piece of the streetscape rather than a bastardized piece of roadbed dressed up as well as DOT and the local business groups could manage. This is the dream for all 50 (and counting) of the city’s new temporary plazas, and 16 finished spaces are already in the works. But standing in the freezing cold with Commissioner Sadik-Khan and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz trading barbs, one wonders how many more plazas might be in store for the city. Read More

By Matt Chaban 1/14 7:30am

Street Fighters Too

9 Photos

Where in the world is Long Island City?

Lost City of New York: New Sleek DOT Signs Help Pedestrians Find Their Way

Ever get lost in the city before? Of course not! You’re a real New Yorker.

But according to the city’s Department of Transportation, one out of 10 of us gets lost every week based on department surveys. “And those one the ones who would admit it to us,” Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan told The Observer. The department also found that one in three New Yorkers couldn’t say which was was north and one in four out-of-towners could not say which of the five boroughs they were in when asked.

To help with this confusion, the city will begin installing 150 wayfinding signs in four city neighborhoods starting in March. Midtown, Chinatown, Long Island City and Prospect Heights and Western Crown Heights will all be getting the new signs, which include major local landmarks and destination, all streets and estimated walking times, since the focus is on helping pedestrians get around town. Read More

By Matt Chaban 1/08 3:55pm

Street Fighters Too

Michael Beirut, streetscape chauffeur. (Twitter)

Sign Language: Michael Bierut Dissects His New Parking Signs

Michael Bierut is one of the most renowned designers in the world. As a principal at Pentagram, he has created logos, identities and campaigns for everyone from United Airlines to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Citibank to New York and The Atlantic, Saks Fifth, Princeton and Yale, even Walt Disney and The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, for which he designed an updated “doomsday clock.”

Still, one of the greatest typographical minds of our time could never make sense of the city’s parking signs.

“On the occasions I drive and try to park on the street, I tend to get as confused as anyone,” explained Mr. Bierut, who lives in Westchester and normally takes Metro-North into the city. “I have received many tickets and been towed twice. I am so paranoid now that I will park in a garage for even a 15-minute errand.”

Perhaps now he can start parking on the street again. Read More

By Matt Chaban 1/07 5:07pm

Road Rage

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Even Louis C.K. Is Confounded by the City’s Old Parking Signs

At today’s press conference unveiling the new and improved parking signs for Midtown, quite a few reporters questioned the actual need for redesigning the street signs. Both Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and City Councilman Dan Garodnick said they had received complaints about the old signs and agreed they required “a PhD in traffic” to decipher.

Among those flunking out on their TCATs? None other than the brilliant Louis C.K. Read More

By Matt Chaban 1/07 1:24pm

Road Rage

Park this way. (Matt Chaban)

Parking in 140 Characters or Less: New Signs Simplify Parking Rules

Twitter has changed the way we communicate, and now it may change the way we drive, at least around Midtown.

This morning, the Department of Transportation unveiled new parking signs that greatly simplify and clarify on-street parking regulations. As Tranportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan joked, “We used to have signs with 250 character on four different signs in three different colors. Now we can say it in about 140 characters on a much clearer sign.” Read More

By Matt Chaban 12/19/12 9:42pm

Road Rage

Not so fast. (Getty)

Flat Tire! Prospect Park West Bike Lane Suit Returns to Court

While it seemed like the bicycle backlash of a year ago had finally cooled off, and those larcenous lanes were here to say—won’t someone think of the motorists!—the cold war is back this winter. The Columbus Avenue bike lane expansion was rebuffed by the local community board, bike share has been delayed a few extra month, Steve Cuozzo thinks bikes are a cancer on the city (O.K., so what else is new?), and now opponents of the Prospect Park West bike lane have finally won a court case.

After complaints over the lane were ignored in court in the spring, Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes appealed the results to a higher court, which today ruled that the lower court had to reconsider the case on technical grounds. The Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court ruled unanimously that judge Burt Bunyon erred in dismissing the case as lacking merit, and now a hearing must be held over the lane (you can read the one-page decision here). Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/31/12 9:47am

Planes Trains & Automobiles

Beep beep. (Sam Sifton/Instagram)

If Only We Had Bike Share Right Now, and the Uselessness of Google Maps When the Subway’s Shut Down

For all the complaints about the city’s planned bike share system, is there any better way to get around right now? Social media is already flooded with reports of horrendous traffic—see the Instapic at left from The Times’s Sam Sifton, Journal transit reporter Ted Mann reports on Twitter that “City without subways: Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn is a titanic clog of traffic in the morning rush.”

“The deli will be open for breakfast shortly,” announces Mile End. “No MTA & heavy traffic delays slowing us down.” The Times has a pretty handy graphic of just how horrible it is.

The only thing thicker than the traffic is the tweeting and Facebooking about it. And the reports of multi-bus, multi-hour commutes, sans subway, are piling up.

This reporter will be riding his bike, and he can’t help but wonder if a lot more people would be, too, if they had the chance. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/01/12 10:14am

Road Rage

7 Photos

Central Parking

Central Parking: DOT Cuts Down on Car Lanes to Make More Room for Joggers, Bikers

Cycling in Central Park has gotten a lot of attention of late following a few nasty accidents and a campaign by the Daily News—repeated every few years—where intrepid reporters venture into the park, speed guns in hand, to make a stink about scofflaw bikers breaking the 25 mile per hour speed limit. (Hell, if you can get going that fast, that is pretty impressive.)

This is not to suggest that unsafe cycling is ever acceptable, but as more people take to bikes, and the city’s population continues to grow, park pathways are bound to get busier. Action by users is important, but also be operators.

As it has done with Prospect Park, following another spate of high-profile injuries, the city’s Department of Transporation and Parks Department have reached an agreement to change the arrangement of traffic lanes to make more room for bikes and runners and less for vehicles. The measure is meant to make everyone safer. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/25/12 12:21pm

Road Rage

Don't forget to tip and look out for bikes. (NYC DOT)

Don’t Door Me, Bro: DOT Expands LOOK! Campaign Into Cabs, Reminding Riders to Watch for Cyclists

Last week the city’s Department of Transportation (in partnership with the fed’s Department of Transportation) unveiled new LOOK! crosswalk decals and bus banners to remind pedestrians and drivers to pay attention to each other while making their way across the busy cityscape.

Now the department, along with the Taxi and Limousine Commission, has unveiled new stickers that will adorn the doors and windows of the city’s 13,000 cabs. They implore occupants to “LOOK! for cyclists.” These are accompanied by a new 30-second spot in everybody’s favorite ad-viewing venue, Taxi T.V. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/21/12 2:20pm

Road Rage

DOT_Traffic_Stats_2012

As Traffic Fatalities Jump for First Time in Sadik-Khan Era, DOT Blames Bad Driving

The mayor’s management report is out this week, and it reveals a rough patch for the city’s Department of Transportation [PDF]. Traffic accidents have hit levels not seen since 2007—the same year Mayor Bloomberg appointed Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, a brash force who has reshaped large swaths of the city’s street grid over the past five years.

The rationale has been to make the streets more pleasant for everyone—not just drivers but pedestrians and bikers, too—and to improve safety as a result. That we are back at pre-transformation levels may simply be a result of an anomalous year, not to mention that, safety measures or not, many New Yorkers like these changes. All the same, it seems like a setback for the data-driven Bloomberg administration and his streets czar. Read More