By Carol Tannenhauser
Columbus Avenue can be a nightmare to drive on, and Amsterdam and Broadway aren’t much (if any) better. With double and triple-parked cars and trucks — many making deliveries — mixed with street-dining sheds, these avenues frequently funnel down to just one lane for through traffic.
The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) is planning to address this aspect of the city’s congestion problem through a pilot program currently being designed for implementation in the summer of 2024. Called Smart Curbs, the plan will focus on a nearly 15-block segment of the UWS, covering 72nd Street to 86th Street, Broadway to Central Park.
“[The program’s] aim is to reimagine how the city manages an increasingly coveted urban resource,” Bloomberg reported. “The dramatic rise of online shopping and the proliferation of home delivery services — a trend fueled further by the Covid-19 pandemic — is straining the city’s already crowded streets, snarling traffic and disrupting life for residents and commuters….Curb space, which New York City devotes mostly to parking, is overdue for a reallocation, and this chunk of the Upper West Side is set to be NY DOT’s beachhead.”
DOT is partnering with the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District (BID) to design the pilot program. Nicole Paynter, executive director of the BID, told Bloomberg that “one of the neighborhood’s most persistent problems…is the commercial trucks double-parking…it slows down our buses and it creates safety issues,” she said. Options under consideration to mitigate these issues, according to Bloomberg, include: “instituting parking fees via pay-by-plate meters; creating designated spaces for commercial vehicles; adding delivery microhubs; and adopting more ‘last-mile’ package deliveries on scooters or bikes rather than trucks.
“The curb pilot program is part of New York City’s wider efforts to unclog its streets, speed up bus service, and improve air quality, including a first-in-the-US congestion pricing program that could begin as soon as the second quarter of 2024,” Bloomberg reported.
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Get rid of all the restaurant sheds in the street and the sidewalks.
I like them. I think they could be done better, and perhaps they shouldn’t be free – but I like the concept and the increased activity on the sidewalks. I feel safer walking in the evening, and I just enjoy the buzz.
Obviously, some don’t care for them. I think this is one where a vote will be needed and we just need to live with what the majority decides.
Outdoor dining means more people employed, more tax revenue, and less homeless. Are you against all those?
Outdoor dining was a thing before the sheds and it didn’t create traffic but did create the fun, city buzz you mention.
Easy for you to say. How about immunocompromised people who cannot eat indoors?
Then maybe eat on the sidewalk tables that have been outside for decades….
>and adopting more ‘last-mile’ package deliveries on scooters or bikes rather than trucks.
That’s going to go well!
I was almost ran into by a person on a citibike running a red light, this afternoon, crossing Columbus at 74th with the green light. How is using bikes and scooters delivering goods going to help?? Many do not stop nor slow down for walking folks!
It does work well, but the e-bike riders need to follow the rules. Maybe license plates?
How many parking spaces will be removed?
Hopefully all of them. Use public transportation or park in a garage.
Easy to say if you earn enough money to live comfortably on the UWS and never have to travel to anywhere else in the NYC metro area other than other parts of Manhattan or gentrified Brooklyn.
Hi! Not wealthy upper west sider here who has never owned a car and routinely, frequently travels to NJ, westchester, Long Island, etc. I go hiking, to the beach, to visit friends and family — all without a car! Must be a miracle. If you’re able to afford a car (as opposed to using public transit or renting a car when necessary), you’re able to afford a place to park it. And if you can’t, you cannot afford the car.
Taking away parking, traffic lanes , building obstructions in the road, citi bikes, putting more scooters, e-bikes with no rules, insurance, red lights etc. on the road , and you wonder why there is traffic issues BUT you want everything in 5 minutes. A real self-center selfish view, this is what the once great open minded uws has turned into?
This is very cool — the one way avenues are great for this kind of experimentation.
Or they City could stop Amazon from illegally standing for hours.
But given that the plan is not spelled out clearly here, I have to assume it will be a gift to Amazon and fees for everyone else.
It takes two to double park. If there isn’t room for both an Amazon truck that is serving dozens of UWS families and one guys car, then the Amazon truck should get the space. You could also charge for every spot and let whoever is willing to pay more get the spot.
The Amazon truck should get the spot because you don’t want to actually go to a store and prefer everything delivered to you? Maybe this is why small businesses are dying?
I do plenty of local shopping but “shame people into giving up the online shopping” is not a realistic traffic management strategy. Amazon is here to stay because people would rather spend time with their families than schlep to eight different stores just to subsidize small businesses. Since the Amazon truck is serving more people than a single person’s parking spot, Amazon should get the spot.
A big reason for the congestion is the permanent taking of a traffic lane to repurpose into a bike lane which is now mostly used by mopeds and dangerous e-bikes and outdoor dining sheds which take up what used to be commercial (not residential) parking.
Note the word “re-imagine.” This means Trans Alt is behind this. And note the connection to the e-vehicles and other modes of transport (motorcycles, scooters, etc). All the more reason why we need to enforce e-vehicle safety. Please support the new legislation to get these modes of transport registered and insured. NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliance.
There is legislation pending vote in City Council. Please contact your rep to pass this.
I agree. Any self-powered vehice should require a licence, registration, insurance, same as a motorcycle. I see 15-year-olds on ebikes and messengers on gas powered with no helmets doung 30mph in bike lanes. Very dangerous. I ride a pedal bike and it’s the wild west out there right now!
Remove all useless bike lanes, problem solved. You want to ride your bike? Go to the park and leave the streets for the actual adults going to work.
I continue to think that the solution is to get more people to use the bike lanes – not eliminate them. Biking is better for health, the environment, financially, etc. This city could be a place where many more people commute by bike at least for much of the year – like Holland – but the current compromise is not safe for bicyclists OR for pedestrians and drivers. A Re-imagining would be a good idea.
Erica
Best thing – for everyone to use MTA bus and subway.
Not bicycles.
As for the Netherlands, cities like Amsterdam, Utrecht and others are tiny compared to NYC, with low-rise building not high-rises.
BTW not easy being a pedestrian there – bicyclists have the right of way
Your solution doesn’t take into account that people are cycling to get somewhere and not just take a ride.
I bike all over the city and the bike lanes are great. Bikes and e-bikes cut down on car traffic and emissions and make the city better.
Nobody on the UWS bikes as an alternative to driving. We bike as an alternative to walking or riding transit.
Interesting, maybe we can institute some sort of toll for vehicles to encourage them to take bikes or transit. A congestion tax? Or traffic pricing? Would be a really good idea, is anyone talking about this?
No one has the stamina to ride a bike from Bayside to Midtown or Throgs Neck to Midtown
LIRR from Flushing to midtown is 15 minutes, that’s the closest stop to Bayside
Brian,
In NYC bicycling does not reduce vehicles because most bicyclists were former subway riders – not former car drivers.
My wife used to ride her bike to get to work at the hospitals on the east side. When she got pregnant with our son, she didn’t feel safe doing that anymore because there are zero protected cross town bike lanes on the UWS. She takes the bus when she has time but it takes forever because there are zero cross town protected bus lanes on the UWS. So she often ends up taking Ubers. Between 72nd and 79th there are 32 crosstown lanes (2 for parking and 2 for driving on 71-78 and 4 for driving and 2 for parking on 72 and 79). They are all dedicated for use by cars. If we moved any one of them to bikes or busses my wife could get out of an Uber and into an alternate mode of transportation. The commenters who show up to assert that “bike lanes don’t reduce driving” on every article about traffic or parking are just factually incorrect and publishing their comments doesn’t contribute to the conversation.
Josh,
With respect, I take the crosstown and don’t find it so onerous to warrant Uber (nor could I afford).
There are differences of course – particularly the M66 which is stuck on single lane streets where there has been massive overdevelopment which impact traffic.
The real issue IMO – the MTA has reduced the frequency of many bus routes. The
When Transportation Alternatives donors flood the streets with Ubers and Lyfts, this isn’t about “bike lanes don’t reduce driving”, this is about turning the UWS into a neighborhood where there’s dependency on one company’s services. The crosstown buses don’t take forever because of cars, there’s issues with dwell time which Select Bus Service has addressed, MTA has steadily reduced service when they introduced 60 feet articulated buses vs. 40 foot standard buses. Actually there was more service on the crosstown buses 40 years ago when the UWS was a dump than there is today with articulated buses.
Thank you Jerome. Larger buses coming half as often don’t improve service in any way.
Sure it does. I used to take a cab to work daily, now I ride because CitiBike made it cheap and easy.
While the amount of for hire vehicles have INCREASED since 2014.
How about their being former taxi & Uber riders?
That’s not necessarily the case. In fact Lyft has openly said that they wanted Citibike riders to move away from Citibike onto THEIR cars.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/pka3kn/lyft-the-largest-bikeshare-operator-in-north-america-wants-out-of-the-business
I bike to work every day (and most places, honestly). Its more pleasant, cheaper, and faster than the subway (and it makes your subway car one person less full during rush hour!). It’s safer to have appropriate channels for everyone on the road (ie a sidewalk for people, bike lane for bikes, car lanes for cars)
Except that doesn’t happen. There are e-bikes, e-scooters, Citibikes and mopeds all over our sidewalks where people are supposed to walk. While that’s illegal on the books no one enforces it. So in fact bikes of all kinds have taken over sidewalk, streets, and bike lanes. The Mayor and DOT seem to have with a wink and a nod allowed this to happen.
It may not occur to the bike community that there are many more people, a majority in fact who don’t or won’t ride a bike because they are older, disabled or don’t prefer it as a mode of transportation. We cannot create a city only for the young and able. It must be for everyone.
I don’t think people understand precisely how much cheaper riding a bike is: you save on the order of $1,500/year if you swap a monthly metrocard for cycling. There’s the added benefit of making your own time, not being held up by delays, and keeping you in shape.
That said, it is NOT for everyone. The scooter mayhem has made it a more fraught prospect than before and so have the citibikers who careen around with their ears plugged.
We need congestion pricing, vehicle restrictions, and better transit. Car culture is death and frankly, suburban. This is the city
There are many suburban parts of this city. New York City is part of a large 4 state metro area. Democrats lost the house majority partly because of the bridge and tunnel club….
While I agree the subway smells and is hot Its better than having a coworker that bikes to work and then can’t get to a gym to shower. Most offices don’t have a gym for their employees and to be blunt, they smell. Most companies now require you to be back in the office. We should all be back F/T You can’t bike to work in a suit
Respectfully, your comment is based on supposition, not reality. I biked to work through at least 12 Brooks Brothers suits. (Tip always order the extra pair of pants)
Bicycling does not reduce car usage – bicycling does siphon from mass transit use.
Exactly. And we pay twice for subsidies to bike infrastructure because we then have to replace the lost transit revenue as well.
When people in the outer boroughs use express buses, advocates complain that there’s a high subsidy that takes away from subway service; when people use commuter railroads like LIRR and Metro-North, advocates complain that people living in the suburbs get a bigger subsidy per ride for a luxury service; when people drive, advocates complain about subsidizing car storage. But when people on the UWS bike within Manhattan from point A to B and avoid the transit system, no one cares. It’s as if people want Manhattan and gentrified NYC to themselves and want others out.
I don’t use a lot of infrastructure and facilities that NYC provides but paying for them through my taxes are part of the equation to make a city livable overall.
The UWS is about a 10 minute bike ride to midtown – why would biking to work not be for ‘actual’ adults?
Biking to work is something an able bodied resident who can afford the UWS can do, but not something someone from the farther reaches of our metro area could do.
BINGO.
This is full of able bodies not checking their privileges. Not everyone can ride a bike. Not everyone is physically able to. Not everyone can show up to work sweaty and looking disheveled.
Also elderly people, families with multiple drop-offs, people needing to carry large amounts of supplies, etc.
People need individual cars sometimes. And not everyone can afford ubers and transportation “alternatives” because they have different needs.
Train to bike dock to office, works fine.
Easy to say if you live in Manhattan. When the weather isn’t nice, the citibike docks are full too as no one wants to bike.
That’s what the train is for
Not everyone can or wants to deal with trains that involve multiple transfers or long headways or have to drive quite a bit to a train station. Actually parking problems in some suburban train stations are WORSE than street parking on the UWS. Manhattanites want those who don’t live in Manhattan south of 96th Street or in gentrified Brooklyn neighborhoods out of sight and out of mind. Not even like children in the old days who were to be seen and not heard, not even that, just have us scuttle like a rat underground when it isn’t convenient for you to have us around.
Then take the express bus from the burbs. There are tons. Or the ferry if you’re in NJ.
It’s a transit rich city. You don’t have a right to drive into the city (using roads WE pay for) and park for free on streets WE pay to clean.
Don’t like it? Vote with your feet.
It all sounds so easy until you realize that there were Manhattan residents who lobbied to get Port Authority Bus Terminal relocated OUT of Manhattan. Or how MTA is trying to cut express bus service between the outer boroughs and Manhattan today or how Manhattan residents fought against express buses between the outer boroughs and Manhattan in the 1970s and 1980s when crime was much worse than today, while simultaneously fighting tooth and nail to protect their own express buses to Wall Street which Manhattanites themselves deserted in favor of taxis (the X90 and X92 on the UES anyone).
The reality is that those who live outside Manhattan and cannot afford Manhattan are what helped make Manhattan what it is and some of them use transit and some of them drive. Gentrification and the influx of out of state transplants and European/Australian expats have made you all forget about this. Even on the UWS, you are all taking the sanitized version of the UWS today all for granted.
All sounds good except the “last mile” bikes and scooters. They are out of control now, a menace to pedestrians, causing many injuries – some serious. Until this is brought under control (there is or will be a bill in Albany to start controlling them), expanding their use will just make our streets even more unsafe. Better to have congestion than pedestrian injuries.
Here’s a crazy idea: there is a lot of empty retail space on the UWS. Amazon, UPS, FedEx and others should be strongly encouraged to rent this space. They quickly drop off their packages in these spaces – each truck has 15 minutes or so to unload. Preferably this is all done overnight so that it doesn’t disrupt traffic as much – parking spaces in front of the locations can be reserved for them from 10 pm-6 am to encourage and enable this. Then packages are distributed from these sites using bikes, carts, or whatever else.
This cuts down on daytime traffic and helps fill empty storefronts. Seems like a win-win to me?!?
Good suggestion! I actually emailed Brewer’s office to say I thought she should ENCOURAGE this, rather than discouraging it – but require that the windows be unblocked and that at least minimal customer service be provided (eg allow customer returns). (For why I think windows should be unblocked, you might find the book City: Rediscovering the Center by William H. Whyte of interest – it explains the zoning of Lexington Avenue, which has a similar requirement.)
Not surprisingly, I got no response.
Regulate Amazon and other delivery services, what a shocking idea.
How about Amazon, and Fresh Direct on Broadway, not stand for hours+hours.
UPS, the USPS, and FedEx don’t stand for hours except at Xmas time.
Exchanging truck dwell time for more e-bikes and scooters is swapping one headache for another, with more danger to pedestrians,
Please please go further up to 96 street and Columbus. how ridiculous not to include the streets by Trader Joe’s we have all day and night trucks and Amazon delivery and UPS clog the avenue.
.
Trader Joe’s has a dedicated commercial loading zone right in front. When a truck delivers, they have the truck park in the travel lane, next to an empty curb, while the driver offloads into the parking lane. Store employees then take the pallets from the parking lane into the store. Can someone tell me why they don’t park the truck at the curb and move the pallets right from the truck into the store? They take a travel lane completely needlessly.
It’s about TIME!
Ridiculous! This will never work. Dangerous E- bikes delivering what? Grocery stores and even smaller stores need large amounts being delivered. DOT Come up with another solution!
The first place they need to focus on is in front of Fairway and Citarella. Even with the curb lane designated a loading zone, trucks still double and triple park making traffic squeeze into one lane.
Just like there is night garbage pick up, NYC could just allow commercial traffic from 7pm-7am and all out ban it during the day. Set fines at 5,000 dollars per occurrence if in the city outside this time period.
Chris,
So low-paid workers (drivers, store staff etc) should work at night?
Not get to be with their families?
Have long commutes home at night?
Well, first off their commute home would be in the morning for one thing and third shift work has been done for over a hundred years, so if you’re saying it’s not okay to do what has been done since well before you were born just say that. Doctors, nurses, fire, emt, pilots, military all have night shift work. Even if they have to pay them more, just use the streets when their currently almost empty.
Are you suggesting that all stores, from massive chains to small mom-and-pop shops, stay open all night to take deliveries?
This would be prohibitively expensive for small stores and the wholesale companies that deliver their merchandise.
Between the bikes lane, which the bikers do not follow the traffic rules or obey the lights and the restaurant sheds, both are adding more congestion to the avenues.
The bikes lane should be eliminated, its a total waste of space.
I am someone who actually drives on the roads that will be part of this pilot. And you’re just wrong- the problem isn’t bikers. You might be outraged by bad biker behavior, but the congestion is from double-parked vehicles, cabs stopping for dropoffs/pickups etc…. try driving it sometime and you’ll see. Some bikers not following rules is a problem, but getting rid of that still doesn’t solve the congestion problem. Also note- bike lanes aren’t a waste of space – giving up all our streets to cars only is a waste of space. This is a city with limited space, and cars aren’t the only ones with the right to the space.
Pedestrians don’t follow the traffic rules either. As a pedestrian, like almost all New Yorkers, I jaywalk all the time. Should the city take the sidewalks away from us?
Basically, if you own a personal car on the UWS, the city is actively looking for more ways to screw you. Go south, in some cases just a few blocks, and you’ll pay a hefty price. Try to park on the street and you’ll be looking for a continually shrinking needle in a haystack. Park in a lot at a king’s random that the city tacks 14% on top of. Try to navigate the streets and now weave against all sorts of vehicle capable of exceeding the 25mph city speed limit but somehow not subject to licensing, registration or insurance requirements. Ditch your car and pay the MTA fare only to watch everyone around you hop the turnstile so you’re the sucker footing the bill for “necessary improvements” that take forever and never improve a damn thing. A million empty storefronts on the UWS, nothing going on to try to lure commerce in so motorists don’t feel the need to travel for goods.
Mike, Manhattan residents are exempt from the parking garage tax!
We are subsidizing the MTA because the city and state saw fit to raid it’s coffers during the systems peak in the 90’s. Now they want drivers to foot the bill for their fiscal recklessness because no rational person wants to be on the overcrowded, constantly late, rat infested, violent subway system that the city and state created.
There is not enough space for personal vehicles in Manhattan and the city is right to discourage them. As an example, for my building, the street in front fits maybe 2 or 3 cars for ~30+ units.
Free street parking primarily seems to serve NJ / CT commuters who don’t pay taxes here to support the infrastructure they use or pay for cops/teachers.
UWS Dad,
The old stereotype of rich lawyer driving in from Scarsdale is no longer the case.
Actually quite a few building staff drive in (some carpool) as they live far away, not near transit and often have late shifts.
Talk to some of the supers, doormen….
The assertion that NJ residents do not pay taxes in New York is false. In fact NJ residents pay most of their income taxes to New York NOT New Jersey as there is no tax reciprocity between the two states. What’s in it for New Jersey to fund more transit service only to lose income tax revenue to New York? If anything the UWS benefits from area workers choosing to live in NJ so that they can continue to have 71% of the UWS be a historic district.
Equally as important is to deal with the increase in cars looking for street parking once midtown congestion pricing goes into effect. The first thing the city should do is come up with a way to limit on-street parking to residents and short-term meters.
“more ‘last-mile’ package deliveries on scooters or bikes rather than trucks” means even more scooters and bikes on the sidewalks than there already are. Where will the pedestrians go? The street I suppose. Or maybe they will simply move away.
Sadly the DOT has been “captured” by the biker lobby run by the Trans Alt hedge funder-
I have never seen a worse DOT Commissioner in my 40 years in NY. He and the Mayor are catering to an ablest vision of NY which is elitist to the core and insists you be young, wealthy and a cyclist or a delivery worker who makes deliveries to them. Bike lanes everywhere they say! And get rid of privately owned cars for those who really need them!! No regulations. No matter all the injuries to pedestrians from lawless e-riders. I counted 7 e-bikes on the sidewalk in 15 minutes on CPW last week. But who cares! There’s money to be made by hedge funds and food delivery apps! And a city who is in thrall.
This “pilot” should be fought by the overwhelming number of taxpayers who are struggling enough to stay in this city! Get rid of the sheds and there’ll be plenty of road room. No more bike lanes at least until e-bikes are regulated!
Yes and ironic – Trans Alt/Open Plans completely supportive of explotive corporate E-commerce, Amazon, Uber.
TransAlt also supports restaurant street sheds as it decreases parking – but TransAlt is OK with the many restaurant owners who drive in….
Very happy to see that DOT is asking the question about how much free real estate should be given away to parked cars. I’m hopeful that trying out DOT’s initial plan will lead to further improvement, and that we will learn what the best mix of walking, biking, and motor vehicles looks like for our neighborhood.
You can’t tell people who work and own businesses here who live in areas that aren’t the most accessible by transit to take the train, then when they do the “right thing” and take the train, you then disparage their service as a luxury service when things go bad. It’s almost like there’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t mindset towards those who don’t have the privilege to live here.
Curious:
Will City DOT be ensuring that e-commerce employers adhere to OSHA and other labor health/safety requirements for workers who are delivering via “bike” and “scooters”?
Will City DOT be ensuring that e-commerce “bike” and “scooter” workers stop at red lights?
DOT has done nothing to regulate e-vehicles! Absolutely nothing.
Ban scooters.
So basically, City DOT is prioritizing and providing benefit to Amazon and other ecommerce businesses.
In the meantime, the City continues to do nothing to aid small/local retail and business suffering due to high rent, shoplifting, ecommerce competition.
Wow.
I think Columbus Ave & the uptown side of Broadway should be NO PARKING, NO STANDING AND NO BIKE LANES ANT ANY TIME- Keep them open to moving traffic only! then on the downtown side of Broadway and the avenues have bike lanes, parking and delivery hub starting zones!!!! All of the major crosstown streets should be designated moving traffic only!!!
Notice that this is an arrangement the DOT is doing for the Columbus Avenue BID. It’s all about business and commercialism. I don’t have anything against improving the local businesses, but with the restaurant sheds already legalized and diners spilling out into the street do you think the city’s politicians would take the time to hear from the residents of the neighborhood? These decisions are biased against neighborhood residents who deserve clean, safe and clear sidewalks and streets. The mayor and his supporters do not have the local residents in mind.
It also would be nice to have the police stop parking illegally on Columbus around 81st Street. They leave their cars in illegal spots for days – double parked blocking traffic lanes, in the left turn only lane on Columbus, in front of fire hydrants, etc. It’s remarkable
It’s not remarkable – it’s outrageous.
Anytime a city employee “reimagines” something it’s time to run and hide. Nothing good ever came from a city employee using their imagination. And also get rid of the dining sheds and if the city won’t do that then make the owners pay the appropriate real estate taxes on the public space they are using for free. Do I sound cynical?
Not City employees – the bicycle lobby is essentially determining City transportation policy
Chicken or Egg? So convenient that 1000s of migrants with motorcycles arrived and can step into these jobs? They just need the housing right? This will likely kill retail. Why have the middle man when they can just deliver items direct to your apartment. Reimagined city.
I’m supposed to take mass transit bus & subway, pay the fare (now higher) walk and shop local.
I do that.
But somehow it is OK for:
People to not pay bus-subway fare.
Bicyclists particularly Citibikers and racing folks to flout traffic laws and endanger pedestrians.
Ebikes to be brought on subways and buses.
The City to close avenues for Open Streets denying people bus service.
The City to subsidize Amazon and sabotage local stores.
Right?
It’s pathetic how much people are still ordering EVERYTHING online, from McDonald’s to Amazon (for everything but the sun) to high end luxury items. Does ANYONE ever leave their apartment? This city would be better in every way if people got off their butts even several times per week and walked and shopped. Your stores would appreciate it too.
Amen to that.
If the current laws are not enforced ( they are not) …..what makes anyone think the double and triple parking will end?
Simple enforcement is all that is needed.
Tickets don’t deter such behavior. Towing the truck away will have an impact.
I don’t think adding more electric bikes and scooters to create a “last mile” solution is the right move until we can get the massive problem we already have with these transportation modes under control. We are fighting for our lives just to cross the street and avoid getting side swiped by someone going the wrong direction or speeding through a light.
I love this plan! Makes total sense to have commercial loading zones so we can get a lane backbfor thru traffic. Well done, Columbus BID! Let the experiment BEGIN.
Treat the scooters like cars. They have to be licensed and insured, and obey the same traffic rules as cars. I’m not sure how to enforce that, but the current situation is dangerous.
Confiscating em and fining the owner/driver works – it’s already illegal to own a motor vehicle w/o registration and a license plate, or to drive a motorcycle without the appropriate class license.
Too bad traffic enforcement is the NYPD’s domain right now
Doesn’t seem like a bad idea for the avenues – just hope they don’t take away too much parking on side streets.
Bike riders cruise through red lights all the time when the coast is clear. But let’s be honest. So do pedestrians.
The dedicated bike lane on Columbus Avenue is very important for people who are using it to commute. I use that bike lane a lot, but I am also a driver and I see the need for both. It does become a big problem when delivery bikes are riding up the wrong direction on the bike lane. Traffic Dept. needs to find a way to allow trucks that have deliveries to make them without triple parking and then creating only one lane out of the mighty Columbus Avenue, or Amsterdam Ave, that’s passable. The dining sheds really add something to New York and are a big hit with a lot of New Yorkers as well as tourists. But there is also a need for parking spots short term for business deliveries, deliveries to supermarket of which there are several on Columbus Avenue, etc.
Cars should be eliminated from the city between Canal and 96th St. From 1st ave to West End. Allow cars on the perimiters and give the city back to the pedestrians. Of course there will be busses and emergency vehicle access. Smaller box trucks should only be allowed to make deliveries during certain hours. The people want their space back!
This is outrageous. Getting rid of all the rat sheds would take care of this! This is just part of a coordinated all out assault by anti-car hate groups such as TransAlt that have clearly taken over the DOT.
What is up with the non-stop assaults and vitriol directed towards the human beings that rely on cars? Do we not contribute to society? I think we do! Is this city only inclusive for those who are young, fit, child-less, have perfect commutes in midtown and have no life outside the city?
Leave the PUBLIC parking alone. Countless spots have already been taken by bike lanes and CitiBike. It’s already a hunger games situation trying to park. Stop making it worse!
The hatred and anti-inclusivity is sad.