Archives

NYC bike sharing rolls out May 27

citibike

Citi bike sta­tions will be filled by 6,000 bikes over the com­ing weeks in time for a May 27 launch for mem­bers, and fol­lowed by a June 2nd grand open­ing for short term users. This first phase will put 333 sta­tions into oper­a­tion across Brook­lyn and lower Man­hat­tan. Mem­bers that sign up before May 17 will still get their keys by the May 27 mem­bers’ launch.

Last week­end, cycling enthu­si­asts got a chance to hop on the uncom­pli­cated Citi Bikes at the NYC Bike Expo. Bikes were avail­able to ride in a cor­doned off park­ing lot, and proved easy to han­dle with their heav­ier weight and wide han­dle bars. Built in lights and inter­nal drum breaks pro­tected from the ele­ments are a wel­comed safety feature.

These inau­gural weeks will allow Citi Bike, oper­ated by the Alta Bike Share com­pany, to work out any kinks and fig­ure out if their user pre­dic­tions were cor­rect. Bikes may need to be trucked around over night to renew the dis­tri­b­u­tion, or per­haps Citi Bike will incen­tivize rid­ers to take bikes back to pre­ferred and less pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions or on any uphill or oth­er­wise dif­fi­cult routes like the wildly suc­cess­ful Paris bike share does with reduced fares.

More info on the Citi Bike share here.

Photo: Citi Bike share

Times UP at IDEAS CITY

IDEAS CITY Street Fes­ti­val. Time’s Up will have a booth set-up pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able energy, bike gen­er­a­tors & phone charg­ing sta­tion, cycling advo­cacy, skill shar­ing, safer streets cam­paigns, and we will dis­trib­ute Bike Month cal­en­dars for rides & events in May. Sat­ur­day, May 4th, All Day 9AM-4PM, in Sara D. Roo­sevelt Park b/w Chrystie & Forsyth Streets below Hous­ton Street, in the Lower East Side.209550597_640

 

Ten temporary tattoos, this Saturday at IDEAS CITY

flower_tattoo2tattoo_set

Join City Atlas at the New Museum/IDEAS CITY Street­Fest on Sat­ur­day, and show your love for the city with one of our ten col­or­ful (tem­po­rary) tat­toos, spe­cially designed for this event. Each tat­too rep­re­sents a fea­ture that makes this city great.

We’ll also have a pho­to­booth on hand so you can be included in our share​.thecity​at​las​.org gal­leries, proudly dis­play­ing the icon that rep­re­sents your favorite thing about the city.

The IDEAS CITY Street­Fest runs from 11 to 6 on Sat­ur­day, May 4, on the streets sur­round­ing the New Museum (Bow­ery between Riv­ing­ton and Stan­ton, with the City Atlas booth on the south end).

 

Transportation Alternatives unveils street safety platform

Elhurt slow park

In light of the may­oral can­di­date debates start­ing to heat up, Trans­porta­tion Alter­na­tives released its new plat­form for what it believes is essen­tial for the city: safe streets. The rec­om­men­da­tions from Trans­porta­tion Alter­na­tives have been over­lapped by the city’s 2012 traf­fic fatal­ity report, released in March, and dis­cussed in detail in the New York Times on April 2. The take-away shows progress over­all, but a dis­turb­ing pic­ture of con­tin­ued acci­dents for both bicy­clists and pedes­tri­ans with the right of way: among pedes­tri­ans injured while cross­ing the street, “44 per­cent used a cross­walk, with the sig­nal,” and were still hit by a vehi­cle. (And every day brings a reminder of how streets can be dan­ger­ous, with April 3 being a bad day in particular.)

The “Safety First Plan: A Five Bor­ough Blue­print for New York City Streets” out­lines three key points for improv­ing the safety of the city’s streets:

1. Safe Neigh­bor­hood Streets For All: To ensure neigh­bor­hood streets offer safe space for local fam­i­lies, seniors and chil­dren to bike, walk and play, the City must ful­fill local demand for Play Streets, 20 mph Slow Zones, bike lanes, Safe Routes to School and Safe Routes for Seniors in 50 neigh­bor­hoods a year.

2. Trans­porta­tion Choice On Com­mer­cial Streets: To guar­an­tee New York­ers have the safe and con­ve­nient access to local busi­nesses allowed by a robust vari­ety of trans­porta­tion choices, the City needs to pro­vide pro­tected bike lanes, Select Bus Ser­vice, bike share and pedes­trian refuges and plazas on four major road­ways in each of the city’s five bor­oughs each year.

3. Zero Tol­er­ance Traf­fic Enforce­ment: To make New York City streets as safe as they can be, the New York City Police Depart­ment needs to enact a zero tol­er­ance pol­icy for dan­ger­ous dri­ving by set­ting a multi-year goal of elim­i­nat­ing traf­fic deaths and crack­ing down on the dead­liest traf­fic vio­la­tions like speed­ing and fail­ure to yield.

One of the eas­i­est ways to make cities more walk­a­ble and bike­able requires no fund­ing or con­struc­tion at all. Low­er­ing speed lim­its is an effec­tive first step to cre­at­ing safer streets for pedes­tri­ans and cyclists. In con­junc­tion with other traf­fic calm­ing instru­ments, like speed bumps, col­ored road paint­ing and other sig­nage, neigh­bor­hoods with lower speed lim­its enjoy fewer acci­dents and more con­fi­dence in chil­drens’ and elders’ safety. Trans­porta­tion Alter­na­tives and the Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion are now accept­ing appli­ca­tions and sug­ges­tions for the next slow neigh­bor­hood install­ment in areas about five by five blocks large.

slowzone-map-boerum

Slower traf­fic also invites more cyclists onto the street. A Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion sur­vey showed that most New York­ers cite safety as their num­ber one rea­son for not bik­ing, and so slower traf­fic would reas­sure bicy­clists. The plan addi­tion­ally encour­ages the city to install more pro­tected bike lanes, the iso­lated and painted lanes seen on 8th and 9th Avenue, and the lower stretch of 2nd Ave., and the sep­a­rated bike paths on Grand Street and Prospect Park West. Pro­tected bike lanes are much harder and most costly to install than painted lanes on the street, but make cycling much less intim­i­dat­ing, and so reward the city with greater rid­er­ship — which is a win-win-win for the city in terms of reduc­ing car con­ges­tion, trim­ming car­bon emis­sions, and improv­ing pub­lic health.

More info from Trans­porta­tion Alter­na­tives, here.

More activism about traf­fic safety comes from the Liv­ing Street Will project, which is col­lect­ing pedestrian’s and cyclist’s video state­ments to the police, to be used in the event of their death in an acci­dent. See their site here: streetwill​snyc​.com

Photo: Depart­ment of Transportation

Closing the cycling gender gap

Capital Bike Share people

In U.S. cities, the bike lane is a male-dominated zone. Accord­ing to a DOT study, males out­num­ber females on New York City streets six to one, and nearly two to one on bike paths.

On a global scale, how­ever, rid­er­ship is often split down the mid­dle or skewed slightly towards females.

What accounts for the dis­par­ity in the U.S.? Over the last decade, female rid­er­ship has increased much faster than male rid­er­ship, with the for­mer increas­ing by 19 per­cent. How­ever, there remains a vis­i­ble divide. Sev­eral advo­cacy groups are now dis­cussing how to close this gap, and why it exists in the first place.

One con­sen­sus com­ing from these DC-centered dis­cus­sions is that the lack of gen­der equal­ity starts in bike shops and con­tin­ues on the road. Bike shops, much like car lots, are increas­ingly indus­trial. Break­ing down bikes to their indi­vid­ual gears and cogs makes the shops less acces­si­ble, if not intim­i­dat­ing, to the aver­age per­son. Many shops are also entirely male-dominated spaces. “They become chains and pieces of mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing in a place of jar­gon and gears, one that exudes the idea of men involved in seri­ous busi­ness,” writes John Hen­del for the TBD On Foot blog.

The gen­der dis­par­ity con­tin­ues out­side the shop.  Accord­ing to a study detailed in this Atlantic Cities arti­cle, women feel less safe rid­ing on the road than men do. Women are nearly twice as likely to wear hel­mets than are men, with 44 per­cent don­ning the life­sav­ing acces­sory. When sep­a­rated bike paths are intro­duced, the num­ber of women who cite safety as a rea­son not to ride drops significantly.

With that in mind, increased bike paths would be one way to bridge the gen­der divide among NYC and U.S. cyclists. Although New York has amassed a respectable sys­tem of paths, it still leaves much more to be desired when com­pared in an inter­na­tional light.

The poten­tial for a new cycling era at large lingers over the Big Apple as New York­ers patiently await the Citi Bike share (promised this May). Although Citi Bike’s net­work will at first only extend through Man­hat­tan and Williams­burg, cyclists hope it will gen­er­ate increased rid­er­ship, mak­ing roads safer, and encour­ag­ing fur­ther infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment. This, in turn, can help close the exist­ing gap.

Wash­ing­ton DC’s own, decid­edly suc­cess­ful Cap­i­tal Bike share has proven the effec­tive­ness of such sys­tems. The company’s data sug­gests that 51 per­cent of its rid­ers are female, over­all increas­ing their share of the road. Will Citi Bike have the same effect?

 Photo: god​cgo​.com

Koch’s messengers may be today’s food delivery cyclists

Riding wrong way 1

Two cyclists ride oppo­site direc­tions on a one way avenue south of Times Square.

In 1987 Mayor Ed Koch tried to ban cyclists from a swath of Mid­town Man­hat­tan. At that time it was bike mes­sen­gers who got the rap in the so-called bike wars. Today, it’s the food deliv­ery cyclists.

The city is not try­ing to ban them from rid­ing any­where. But one fre­quent com­plaint about bike lanes stems from a fear of bicy­clists rid­ing the wrong way and blind­sid­ing a pedestrian.

One rea­son the fear often focuses on food cyclists is that deliv­ery­men “are a huge pro­por­tion of cyclists on the road,” accord­ing to Lisa Slad­kus of Upper West Side Streets Renais­sance Campaign.

Envi­ron­men­tal econ­o­mist and cycling advo­cate Charles Komanoff cre­ated a study of bike trends using data from the Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion and else­where. It found that between 1985 and 2011, the num­ber of bike mes­sen­gers in the city dropped from 5000 to 1000, whereas food deliv­ery cyclists rose from 500 to 5000.

That is among 179,000 daily cyclists in New York City in 2011, the study found. The per­cent­age is small, but whereas non­com­mer­cial cyclists take three daily trips, the aver­age food deliv­ery cyclist makes thir­teen deliv­er­ies and twenty-two trips daily, the study showed.

One rea­son for the uneasy pas­sage of the Colum­bus Avenue bike lane on Feb 6, was that pro­po­nents said pro­tected bike lanes (with bar­ri­ers) reduce cyclist-pedestrian col­li­sions. A Hunter Col­lege study in 2011 found that approx­i­mately a thou­sand hos­pi­tal patients a year are involved in cycling-pedestrian collisions.

This ten­sion comes at a time when the Bloomberg admin­is­tra­tion is count­ing down its final days, and, as the New York Times points out (2.13.13), none of Bloomberg’s poten­tial replace­ments seem as bike-friendly as the mayor.

The city has taken action specif­i­cally on food deliv­ery cyclists. Though cycling laws have existed for decades, the DOT launched safety cam­paigns for food deliv­ery cyclists last year. Last sum­mer it launched a six-person “com­mer­cial cyclist out­reach and enforce­ment unit.” And this year the it will start enforc­ing laws that involve wear­ing reflec­tive vests, ID num­bers on the chest, and of course, rid­ing the right way, off the side­walks, and stop­ping at red lights.

But the New York of Mayor Bloomberg and DOT Com­mis­sioner Sadik-Kahn does not appear likely to ever ban cycling any­where. In fact, in writ­ing, part of the Mayor’s PlaNYC 2030 is to “make bicy­cling safer and more con­ve­nient” as part of its “sus­tain­able trans­porta­tion” list.

Koch’s plan to ban cycling on Fifth, Madi­son and Park never mate­ri­al­ized. Mes­sen­gers and sup­port­ers daily protested by rid­ing in Mid­town before it could go through, and the state Supreme Court killed the plan for what Komanoff, in a his­tor­i­cal essay called a “tech­ni­cal­ity”: the city hadn’t pub­lished offi­cial notice on time. The city didn’t bother try­ing again.

But times have not changed as much as it may seem. In order for the city to expand its bike infra­struc­ture, com­mu­nity boards have to accept pro­pos­als by DOT, which isn’t granted. Food deliv­ery cyclists are one reason.

In win­ning over sup­port, the mes­sen­gers may have had an advan­tage that food deliv­ery cyclists don’t. Komanoff said the mes­sen­gers had a way of win­ning over sup­port because of a “cool factor.”

“In some way that cool fac­tor kind of coex­isted in the resis­tance and para­noia that was stirred up by the media and was exac­er­bated by the fact that the mes­sen­gers would go fast and would go aggressively.”

The mes­sen­gers, many of whom were minori­ties just as the food-delivery cyclists are, were seen as sub-cultural young peo­ple with a kind of bravado, he said. “They had a whole pride in their bike and what they did. And I think that to some extent that was an impor­tant aspect of the way New York­ers reacted [to them] in the ’80s,” he said.

With­out that kind of cul­tural aes­thetic pro­tec­tion, food deliv­ery cyclists are more vul­ner­a­ble to crit­i­cism, said Komanoff. From the ’80s into the ’90s, he said, there were bike mes­sen­ger zines. “It is really hard to imag­ine there ever being a zine about food deliv­ery cycling,” he said. “And I think that that lack of a pos­i­tive cul­ture makes it eas­ier for the aver­age New Yorker to write these guys off as dif­fer­ent, as alien, as the ‘other.’” Hol­ly­wood con­firms Komanoff’s point: both Kevin Bacon and Joseph Gordon-Levitt have starred in films as bike messengers.

While there is no hard data dis­tin­guish­ing food deliv­ery cyclists in safety sta­tis­tics, a sin­gle count was done for this piece. On a one-way avenue with a pro­tected bike lane, in a two-block sec­tion of Man­hat­tan, forty-three cyclists were counted in thirty min­utes around 2 p.m. Food deliv­ery cyclists were iden­ti­fied as those car­ry­ing food deliv­ery bags or wear­ing reflec­tive vests and ID num­bers. Five of 25 food delivery-identified cyclists rode the wrong way. Three of 18 non-food-delivery-identified cyclists rode the wrong way. Some of those may have been messengers.

(Cor­rec­tion added: num­ber of mes­sen­gers reduced to 1000, not 100. Thanks to C. Komanoff for catch­ing the typo.)

Changing a city’s skin, changing a city’s mind

I am from Bogotá, Colom­bia. It was not till after three years of liv­ing in NYC that I found out that Bogotá is now con­sid­ered one of the best exam­ples of urban cli­mate lead­er­ship. What I wit­nessed around 10 years ago was the very encour­ag­ing vision of two may­ors in Bogotá. The first mayor was inter­ested in chang­ing the cit­i­zens’ behav­ior and men­tal­ity, and the sec­ond one was inter­ested in beau­ti­fy­ing the city.

The first one, a math­e­mati­cian, philoso­pher, and politi­cian by pro­fes­sion, cre­ated social cam­paigns to gen­er­ate “a global cit­i­zen­ship con­scious­ness,” tar­get­ing cit­i­zens liv­ing in the cap­i­tal, with ori­gins from all over the coun­try, and ide­al­iz­ing a greener city with fea­tures like bicy­cle paths. The other, an urban plan­ner, put some of these ideas into action: cit­i­zens noticed a more orga­nized, cleaner, and greener city with trees, bicy­cles, beau­ti­ful side­walks, parks, rivers, and lakes. These men, Antanas Mockus and Enrique Peñalosa,  had an incred­i­ble impact in mak­ing Bogotá a bet­ter place to live.

And maybe that is what is now is vis­i­ble in NYC, where indeed there seem to be more and more peo­ple con­cerned about the city. More cam­paigns encour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to recy­cle and to use paper bags instead of plas­tic ones. More peo­ple doing out­door events, exer­cis­ing, using pub­lic trans­porta­tion and bik­ing. Accord­ing to a sur­vey reported in the New York Times,  six years after the Bloomberg admin­is­tra­tion began adding 255 miles of bicy­cle lanes onto streets pre­vi­ously ded­i­cated to auto­mo­biles, New York­ers have grad­u­ally become accus­tomed to bicy­cle lanes. And even though bicy­cling still remains far from main­stream in New York City, what is true is that lanes are another option for greener trans­porta­tion. Accord­ing to Dr. Bar­rie Cas­sileth, in an inter­view fol­low­ing the NYT sur­vey, these bike lanes “will get rid of some of the pol­lu­tion from auto­mo­biles and reduce the amount of auto­mo­bile traf­fic” on NYC streets. Dr. Cas­sileth went on to note that bikes make for a cleaner, safer, more invit­ing, and health­ier city.

As Ricardo Mon­tezuma, one of the most renowned archi­tects from Colom­bia, affirms, “the great achievements…are the result of a new kind of gov­ern­ment cen­tered on issues rather than party pol­i­tics or ide­ol­ogy… Res­i­dents feel a new sense of own­er­ship, belong­ing, and pride in the city, that was vis­i­ble in the use of ‘ciclo-vía noc­turna’ (night ciclo-vía, a bicy­cling event on Bogotá’s bike paths), an evening in Decem­ber 2002 when more than 3 mil­lion peo­ple cel­e­brated in the streets.”

Here in NYC, Mayor Bloomberg has taken sig­nif­i­cant steps to lessen our envi­ron­men­tal impact. How­ever, he can’t revamp the city alone. The model that Bogotá has estab­lished can and should lead the world in the direc­tion of environmentally-friendly cities. Per­haps, as we try to cre­ate a greener city, we should be look­ing south to the efforts of the may­ors in Bogotá.

Check out the doc­u­men­tary CITIES ON SPEED – Bogotá Change for a closer exam­i­na­tion of the steps that Mockus and Peñalosa took to make Bogotá the envi­ron­men­tal leader city when they governed.

Pho­tos: Wiki­me­dia Com­mons (top) and TEDx (bottom)

Yo soy de Bogotá, Colom­bia. Sin embargo, no fue sino hasta después de tres años de vivir acá en NYC, que oí que Bogotá había sido con­sid­er­ada uno de los mejores ejem­p­los de ciu­dades urbana según el Cli­mate Lead­er­ship Broup.  Como muchas ciu­dadanos, lo que pude visu­alizar hace unos 10 años fue a un par de alcaldes vision­ar­ios optando por una mejor ciu­dad. El primero, se interesó por el cam­bio del com­por­tamiento y men­tal­i­dad de los ciu­dadanos, mien­tras que el segundo, se interesó por el embel­lec­imiento de la ciudad.

 

El primero, un matemático, filosofo y político de pro­fe­sión, creó cam­pañas sociales para generar una “con­cien­cia de ciu­dadano global” en los ciu­dadanos que vivían en la ciu­dad y que venían de todas partes del país. Les hablaba de una Bogotá más verde con ciclo-rutas. El otro, un urban­ista, con­siguió poner estas ideas en acciones. Los ciu­dadanos vimos una ciu­dad más orga­ni­zada, limpia y verde, con más arboles, bici­cle­tas, boni­tos andenes, par­ques, ríos y lagos. Estos dos hom­bres, Antanas Mockus y Enrique Peñalosa, tuvieron un gran impacto.

Y quizás es eso mismo, lo que hoy en día se puede percibir en NYC, donde al pare­cer  hay más y más ciu­dadanos pre­ocu­pa­dos por su ciu­dad. Más cam­pañas en pro del reci­claje, alen­tando a los ciu­dadanos el uso de bol­sas de papel en lugar de bol­sas de plás­tico. Más gente real­izando activi­dades afuera, ejercitán­dose, haciendo uso del trans­porte público y usando sus bici­cle­tas. De acuerdo a una encuesta del New York Times, seis años luego de que la admin­is­tración Bloomberg diera ini­cio a la planeación de unas 225 mil­las de ciclo-rutas, los Neoy­orki­nos han con­seguido acos­tum­brarse al uso de las mis­mas. Y aunque el ciu­dadano común aun no ter­mina por acos­tum­brarse a desplazarse en bici­cleta, lo cierto es que las ciclo-rutas han sido ejem­plo de una opción mas ecológ­ica de trans­porte. Según una entre­vista real­izada a Bar­rie Cas­sileth, “estas ciclo-rutas servirán para dis­minuir de alguna forma la polu­ción pro­ducida por los vehícu­los así como del trafico mismo”  en las calles de Nueva York. El mismo Cas­sileth afirmó que las bici­cle­tas harían de la ciu­dad una ciu­dad más limpia, segura, acoge­dora y saludable.

 

Como afirma Ricardo Mon­tezuma, uno de los arqui­tec­tos mas cono­ci­dos de Colom­bia, “los grandes logros … son el resul­tado de un a nueva forma de gob­ierno mas enfo­cado en prob­lemáti­cas sociales que en ser tradi­cional­mente par­tidista… Los ciu­dadanos tienen un nuevo sen­timiento de autonomía, perte­nen­cia, y orgullo hacia su ciu­dad, que se hizo vis­i­ble en el uso de la ciclo vía noc­turna de Diciem­bre de 2002 cuando mas de 3 mil­lones de per­sonas se reunieron en las calles“.

 

Acá en NYC, el alcalde Bloomberg, ha dado grandes pasos para mejo­rar el impacto ambi­en­tal. Sin embargo, esto es algo que el no puede hacer solo. El mod­elo que Bogotá estable­ció podría y debería ser seguido por otras ciu­dades apos­tán­dole así a un mundo mas ami­ga­ble con el medio ambi­ente. Tal vez, mien­tras trata­mos de crear una ciu­dad mas verde, deberíamos obser­var los esfuer­zos real­iza­dos en el sur por estos alcaldes de Bogotá.

Para mayor infor­ma­ción rela­cionada con los pro­gra­mas puestos en prác­tica por Mockus y Peñalosa, observa el doc­u­men­tal CITIES ON SPEED – Bogotá Change.

Fotos cortesía de: Wiki­me­dia Com­mons (top) and TEDx (bottom)

Bikes & cookies

In a two-hour bike ride in the East Vil­lage and Lower East Side last Sat­ur­day, I received a warm wel­come from busi­ness own­ers: free gra­nola bars, unlim­ited refills on cof­fees, home­made donuts, and cook­ies for snacks. The secret? I was rid­ing my bike in the new Bike-Friendly Busi­ness Dis­trict.

The Bike Friendly Busi­ness Dis­trict, which is a brain child of Trans­porta­tion Alter­na­tives (TA), is the first patch of the city orga­nized to pro­vide spe­cial dis­counts for bike rid­ers. With the inau­gu­ra­tion of this ini­tia­tive on Sep­tem­ber 22nd, TA announced that 150 busi­ness, com­mu­nity and cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions have agreed to offer 10 to 15 per­cent dis­counts and two-for-one pro­mo­tions for cus­tomers who arrive by bike within the dis­trict. So, don’t feel dis­ap­pointed if you missed the free stuff on the launch day; get your bike out of stor­age and start putting it in action.

For those lucky bunches that did show up at the kick­off event, many of the cyclists believe that the bike-discount dis­trict is more than a sales attrac­tion; it’s an effort to pro­mote more bike-friendly neigh­bor­hoods in New York City. David Crane, chair of the trans­porta­tion com­mit­tee at CB3 in Man­hat­tan, told me that there are a lot cyclists in his dis­trict, but bike racks are in great short­age. Indeed, it took Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (DOT) three years to finally installed the first street rack for MudSpot Cof­fee Shop at 307 East 9th Street at his district.

Tony Rotella, who is the restau­rant man­ager at leg­endary East Vil­lage diner Veselka (144 Sec­ond Ave), believes that bike racks will help busi­nesses because the instal­la­tions pro­vide con­ve­nient park­ing spaces for cyclists, and “peo­ple who bike are more likely to visit his restau­rant than those who drive and can­not find car park­ing in Man­hat­tan.” On the Lower East Side, Janelle, who is the owner of Blue­stock­ings at 172 Allen Street, can per­haps pro­vide the best tes­ti­mony: “Bike racks are filled in every morn­ing ever since the instal­la­tions on the week of Sep­tem­ber 17th.” Although the bike rack appli­ca­tion is a 9-month-long process, “It makes sense to install them because most of the cus­tomers are bicy­clists.” In fact, even cus­tomers from the adja­cent yoga stores are receiv­ing ben­e­fits from the instal­la­tions, and their cus­tomers can now eas­ily find bike park­ing spaces.

I think the dis­trict is a good idea, but I may be biased since I took the cook­ies from the local busi­ness own­ers. So, I include the map of the Bike-Friendly Busi­ness Dis­trict in this arti­cle, and I would like to invite you to visit the dis­trict and chat with the busi­ness own­ers. Remem­ber, cook­ies from the Bird­bath bak­ery are very delicious.

And if you like this Dis­trict, help choose the next one, via the poll at Trans­porta­tion Alternatives.

Click here for full map and all par­tic­i­pat­ing businesses.

Click here for the event video & click here for the event photos

Gothamist

 map image: Trans­porta­tion Alternatives

Summer Streets wraps up the 2012 season with some Double Dutch action


The NYC DOT pro­gram Sum­mer Streets wrapped up its last morn­ing of open street activ­ity on Sat­ur­day, August 18th. The pro­gram is mod­eled on other events that take place around the world, includ­ing Ciclovía in Bogotá, Colombia.

In NYC the ini­tia­tive opens up nearly seven miles of street space for New York­ers to play, climb, walk, bike, jump and dance. And this year, to ride a zipline.

 

 

Or learn salsa in the mid­dle of Park Avenue.

Or watch an amaz­ing demon­stra­tion of Dou­ble Dutch jump-roping. Dou­ble Dutch is rumored to have come to North Amer­ica via the orig­i­nal Dutch set­tlers of New York (the for­mer Neue Ams­ter­dam), but no mat­ter whether it started in 1620 or 1900, it’s New York streetlife to the bones.

Pho­tos: Mau­reen Drennan

 

Owning an electric car in NYC gets easier // Listo para comparer un vehículo eléctrico en NY? Ahora es más fácil

Elec­tric vehi­cles may become more com­mon on the city streets. One year ago, NYC’s first Elec­tric Vehi­cle (EV) charg­ing sta­tion was devel­oped in Brook­lyn.  Elec­tric cars store elec­tri­cal energy in a bat­tery or another device that requires charg­ing. Because they don’t run on gaso­line, the use of elec­tric vehi­cles reduces air pol­lu­tion, and, depend­ing on how the elec­tric­ity is gen­er­ated, can reduce green­house gas emis­sions, as well as depen­dency on fos­sil fuels. Gov­ern­ment offi­cials also hope that the devel­op­ment of EV infra­struc­ture will boost eco­nomic devel­op­ment and cre­ate jobs along with reduc­ing New York­ers’ car­bon foot­print. In June, Gov­er­nor Cuomo announced the devel­op­ment of 325 new EV charg­ing sta­tions across New York State.

Around 18,000 elec­tric vehi­cles were sold in 2011 in the United States and some man­u­fac­tur­ers project 100,000 elec­tric car sales in 2012. Though elec­tric cars are typ­i­cally lim­ited to pri­vate usage, the biggest impact of the tech­nol­ogy might be in its use in the com­mer­cial sec­tor. Trans­porta­tion of goods accounts for a huge per­cent­age of miles dri­ven in US every­day, so the wide-scale adop­tion of com­mer­cial elec­tric vehi­cles could have a huge impact. This may in part account for the U.S. Depart­ment of Energy offer of vouch­ers to reduce the cost of pur­chas­ing a com­mer­cial EV.

Even bet­ter for the Bronx, Smith Elec­tric Trucks plans to set up a man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­ity in the bor­ough, bring­ing 100 jobs to Hunts Point. Wider use of elec­tric deliv­ery vehi­cles would bring imme­di­ate ben­e­fits in cut­ting the num­ber of idling diesel engines crowd­ing New York’s streets and avenues.

If you are a pri­vate dri­ver of an elec­tric car, you’ll prob­a­bly need to plan ahead to make sure that you know where to find avail­able and EV charg­ing sta­tions in NYC. Sev­eral maps and guides are in devel­op­ment, but accord­ing to Ariel Schwartz, “the defin­i­tive charg­ing sta­tion guide in the U.S. is the PlugShare app, which both dis­plays a list of nearby pub­lic charg­ing sta­tions and allows users to share their own elec­tric out­lets and search for charge spots located inside or out­side other people’s garages. So far, PlugShare has 2,500 out­lets listed.” We’re sure that con­sumer options will con­tinue to pop up as more elec­tric cars appear on the road.

Some peo­ple asso­ciate elec­tric cars with high prices, though the vehi­cle prices have low­ered in the last years at the same time car man­u­fac­tur­ers have put more effort in devel­op­ing user-friendly and aesthetically-pleasing vehi­cles. For the rest of us, there’s the really big elec­tric cars, known as the subway.

Photo: Inhab­i­tat New York City

Los vehícu­los eléc­tri­cos son más vis­i­bles actual­mente en las calles de la ciu­dad. Hace un año, la primera estación de EV  fue desar­rol­lada en Brook­lyn, y ahora el gob­er­nador Cuomo acaba de men­cionar que alrede­dor de 325 esta­ciones para vehícu­los eléc­tri­cos serán con­stru­idas en el estado de Nueva York. Estos autos fun­cio­nan con energía alma­ce­nada en una batería o en otro com­po­nente, y su uso no solo reduce la con­t­a­m­i­nación del aire, la emisión de gases de efecto inver­nadero sino tam­bién la depen­den­cia económica de otros países. Por eso, de cuerdo al mismo Cuomo, el desar­rollo de infraestruc­tura para vehícu­los eléc­tri­cos podría darle un empu­jón a la economía, generar tra­ba­jos y reducir el car­bono pro­ducido por los Neoyorkinos

Aprox­i­mada­mente 18.000 unidades fueron ven­di­das en el 2011 en los Esta­dos Unidos y las com­pañías que los fab­ri­can están plane­ando vender aún más autos para el 2012. Aunque este tipo de vehícu­los son requeri­dos en su may­oría para el uso pri­vado, el impacto que pueden causar en el sec­tor pub­lico sería mayor.  El trans­porte de bienes rep­re­senta un gran por­centaje de mil­las con­duci­das en los Esta­dos Unidos cada día, de man­era que la adop­ción de los vehícu­los eléc­tri­cos a gran escala, gener­aría un gran impacto. Esto podría rep­re­sen­tar la reduc­ción de oferta de bonos emi­ti­dos por el Depar­ta­mento de Energía  para quienes adquieren un vehiculo eléctrico.

Si usted es un con­duc­tor de un auto eléc­trico actual­mente, es buena idea que empiece a plan­ear en donde encon­trar esta­ciones de recarga eléc­trica en la ciu­dad. Diver­sos mapas y guias están siendo desar­rol­la­dos, pero según Ariel Schwartz, :la guía defin­i­tiva de esta­ciones de vehícu­los eléc­tri­cos esta en la apli­cación PlugShare, que mues­tra un lis­tado de esta­ciones públi­cas cer­canas y per­mite a los usuar­ios com­par­tir sus pro­pios toma-corrientes de sus propias casas con los de otro usuar­ios. Hasta ahora, dicha apli­cación, tiene una lista de 2.500 toma-corrientes. “Esta­mos seguros de que los con­sum­i­dores ten­drán cada vez más un número mayor de opciones a medida que más vehícu­los son dis­eña­dos y lan­za­dos al Mercado”.

Y para quienes pens­a­ban que su pre­cio o su dudosa estética era una excusa, lo cierto es que mien­tras el pre­cio ha caído lo sufi­ciente los últi­mos años como para con­tem­plar una seria posi­bil­i­dad de com­pra,  muchas com­pañías pro­duc­toras se han esforzado por desar­rol­lar lin­eas más ami­ga­ble­mente estéticas.

Photo: Inhab­i­tat New York City


Open plans for your cycling summer

Sum­mer has arrived! Soon enough, you’ll be see­ing blue.

Citibikes are com­ing! Photo via velo​joy​.com

A brand-new fleet of nearly 10 thou­sand bicy­cles will pop­u­late New York’s streets in the com­ing months, and they will all need rid­ers. We’ve already posted the DOT’s inter­ac­tive map of 420 planned bike share sta­tions across Man­hat­tan, Brook­lyn, and Queens. Now it’s time to take another step closer to your future as a renter-rider.

The most recent project of Open­Plans, a non-profit focused on open gov­ern­ment and bet­ter trans­porta­tion, gives New York­ers a sneak peak at our improved future lifest­lyes as bicy­clists. Using this map, you can plan your daily com­mute to work, a jaunt to the High Line, or a weekly cycle to the EBT-friendly green­mar­ket near­est you.

So far, the map works like this: you pick the start and end points, and drag the flags to change your route. Cibi​.me cur­rently pro­vides a rec­om­mended pickup and drop-off site for your rented three-speeder, as well as the num­ber of bicy­cles avail­able at the start point and how many park­ing spaces you’ll find at the end of your jour­ney. You can also change your route to deter­mine quick­est, safest, or flat­test journey.

Quickest

The quick­est route: a screen­grab from cibi​.me

Accord­ing to a recent post by Open­Plans’ Frank Heb­bert, cibi​.me will let you know if bikes are avail­able before rec­om­mend­ing a route to you once the bike­share pro­gram is in full operation.

In the mean time, you can share com­ments or sug­ges­tions for cibi​.me @OpenPlans.

Here’s to the future: an open-sourced, collaboratively-planned, bicycle-positive New York.

 

The bike station map arrives

Today, the city released the loca­tions of the much antic­i­pated sta­tions for the new bike share pro­gram, as shown on an inter­ac­tive map.

As noted on Trans­porta­tion Nation, there are 420 sta­tions across parts of Man­hat­tan and Brook­lyn, with more to be added in 2013. The new bike share pro­gram has a heavy empha­sis on rid­ing for daily commuting.

Screen­grab of the map, below:

Details Emerge on Future NYC Bike Share

rendering_bike-share-bicycle-in-nyc2

via NYC Bike Share

 

 

NYC Bike Share, the largest bike shar­ing pro­gram in the U.S. is sched­uled to launch this July, just a lit­tle over two months away. It will con­sist of 10,000 bikes and 600 sta­tions located through­out the city.

Although the plan has been in the works for some time, new details have recently been revealed. This past week, 54 of the planned bike sta­tions were revealed by the NYCDOT at a Com­mu­nity Board 4 meet­ing, as well as logis­tics for how the Bike Share would real­is­ti­cally fit into cer­tain busy loca­tions: namely, Penn Sta­tion, Grand Cen­tral, and Port Authority.

To accom­mo­date the swarms of peo­ple that fre­quent these com­muter hotspots, the NYCDOT and Alta Bicy­cle Share have announced that they will increase both the num­ber and size of the sta­tions there. While the stan­dard NYC sta­tion will hold around 30 bikes, Penn Sta­tion will have 180 docks, and Port Author­ity 140.

Accord­ing to Streets­blog, “the most impor­tant sites in New York City’s bike-share sys­tem are, fit­tingly, super-sized. With the biggest tran­sit sys­tem in the coun­try, it’s only appro­pri­ate to give those rid­ers the biggest bike-share sta­tions for the last mile of their trip.”

Since the announce­ment of the NYC Bike Share last year, NYCDOT and Alta Bicy­cle Share have made efforts to engage the com­mu­nity in plan­ning the pro­gram by hold­ing demon­stra­tions, open houses, and work­shops. You can read more about these com­mu­nity engage­ment meth­ods in one of our pre­vi­ous posts here.

 

No Bike? Not a Problem With This New Bike Rental Social Network

screen-shot-2012-04-17-at-3-04-56-pm

 

There’s a new online startup in town — a bike rental hub that lets you find great bikes online. You can rent bikes from either bike shops or indi­vid­u­als, mak­ing it easy to get the best mod­els, get out and explore. Launched on April 1, Spin­lis­ter allows you to rent a bicy­cle online for either a few hours, a few days, or up to a cou­ple of months. The Spin­lis­ter com­mu­nity is cur­rently avail­able in NYC and San Francisco.

Accord­ing to the cre­ators of Spin­lis­ter, all you need to do is “snap a few pic­tures and share your sweet char­iot with awe­some peo­ple like you. We help you meet up, exchange the bike, and have a great expe­ri­ence, whether you’re the renter or the lister.”

You’ll be rid­ing the NYC streets in no time!

For more infor­ma­tion and to get involved, check out the Spin­lis­ter web­site here

New Bike Lane for Central Park

streetsblog72nd

Image via Streets­blog

 

Accord­ing to Streets­blog, Cen­tral Park will be gain­ing another bike lane, and los­ing a traf­fic lane in its place. The path will be along 72nd Street, and will run between Cen­tral Park West and Fifth Avenue. Announced last night by Cen­tral Park Con­ser­vancy Pres­i­dent Doug Blon­sky at a Com­mu­nity Board 7 meet­ing, the redesign should be in place by this June, just in time for summer.