sashae

Any idea of when the section of the HRP up north near the waste processing center (~130th st) is actually going to finally be fixed?

mrRed

Well I think rather than trying to address a specific concern, I think it would be a benefit to the cycling community to have a cheat sheet that points you in the right direction for contacting the proper people for a wide array of road hazards. Maybe 311 is the best route to take for reporting general, non-construction related road hazards to the city, unless there's a way to easily divide up the responsabilities. I think it would be a big benefit to start working with bike shops to have them pass out some cards to people purchasing new bicycles or any bicycles to report unsafe road coniditions.

shishi

Rally is at 8:30, not 9, City hall tomorrow morning.

shishi

it is a call to 311 and the DOT or the appropriate agency. 311 itself is not enough and I don't want to get into it here on how those calls/complaints are directed.

born on a bus

My coworker saw a biker that was hit by a car on 96th near broadway. She said it looked pretty bad. I don't like to bear bad news. But I figured it is worth posting this stuff. If anyone knows the condition of this biker I think she'd like to know if they are ok (so would I).

evanyc

how many people have camera phones these days or carry around digital cameras? i'm guessing tons of us. i'm going to start photographing hazards i see and calling them in. it'd be awesome if there could be a website where pics of street hazards could be displayed. even if it's just a flickr group. a phonecall is nice, but i think if everyone saw exactly what we're complaining about it would make a big impact as well and help build public support. i'll look into setting up a flickr group. i'm sure it's easy.

i saw this today on the corner of meserole and bushwick in brooklyn. called in it and took some pics. it's a large path cut out across bushwick ave about 2.5 feet wide and an inch or so deep. with the plates on top of it, leaving gaps in between, it makes it an abrupt 3-4 inch drop with no leveling. the in the foreground is also loose and bounces when cars drive over it, and at least one corner (top left in the pic) has no blacktop leveling it out. also the plates are not slip proof.

edit: man, my camera phone takes pretty good pics!

10x

i really want to be on this ride but likely wont be able to leave work in red hook unil 6: pm or shortly after, so i probably won't be able to meet up at the start of the ride.
is there any sort of text-mob going on with this?
anybody willing to PM me w/ their celly# so i can find out where the ride is and catch up?
thx.

akky

From the TA site

Time's Up! MEMORIAL RIDE: Thursday, June 29, 6:30 pm

Hudson River Greenway at 46th Street (in front of the Intrepid)
6:40 at 38th Street and the Greenway
7:30 at LaGuardia Place and Houston Street

LilSprocket

What IS that?! omg! That cannot possibly be safe to ride over, especially with traffic around.
I have never seen anything like that before

hlm227

There was a pedestrian hit at about 8:30 tonight on 9th and 15th. I was riding up 9th ave and heard a group of people on the sidewalk laughing and yelling at their friend to hurry up crossing the street. Then there was a big thud and I turned around to see that the woman had been hit by a taxi and was laying in the middle of the street. She seemed to be ok, she was trying to get up and there were a bunch of people there to help her.

evanyc

that's what is ALL OVER nyc. ridiculous, no?

crayonsemble

+1

crayonsemble

i called hot 97 today and left a messege with the program director and talked
to his assitant. he told me this was the first complaint they have gotten.
come on people call them up the more that call the better!!!
these djs make a ton of money this is nyc and they made fun
of a death of biker. the more people that call the better, call the paper too like
the daily news or new york post they love a scandal.
ignoring is not the best thing to do, this woman should be fired, period.

visitordesign

rough draft. tried to keep it short. edited out a lot of stuff, but it's still long. will work on it more tomorrow. it's a bit of a mess right now.




As another summer dawns upon New York City, so too does a string of needless and inexcusable cyclist fatalities and injuries. The most maddening thing about each of the deaths that have occurred thus far is that circumstances that may have contributed to those deaths should not and would not have existed had the system that allowed them to persist not been a system of neglect and dysfunction.

One of the few truly intriguing things in Rudolph Giuliani’s mayoral legacy is the publication, “New York City Bicycle Master Plan.” Its pages present both questions and answers that the incumbent Mayoral administration and Department of Transportation should be re-examining. The publication’s mandate includes: improving cycling safety, improving access on bridges, institutionalizing cycling in public agencies/private organizations and ultimately reducing cyclist stress. All of this would occur while exploiting a potential boom in cycling to improve air quality (aiding in meeting federal mandates included in the 1990 Clean Air Act), alleviating noise pollution, contributing to traffic calming and “making the city more welcoming.”

To these ends, the Master Plan presents a partially implemented, but seemingly largely ignored and (as of yet) poorly connected plan targeting the commutation needs of intermediate and beginning cyclists who value low traffic volumes and low rider-stress levels. The plan describes a proposed citywide network of greenways and bike-lanes and discusses existing problems with bridge termini, vehicle speed enforcement, curb lane widths, curb lane traffic volumes and curb lane misuse (double parking, idling and unaddressed, but most recently occurring--dangerous, impromptu NYPD vehicle checkpoints abruptly encroaching on bike lanes).

It is suggested in the publication, that a set of proposed solutions to the problems facing city cyclists be implemented while a series of existing regulations beneficial to cyclists be enforced. Since enforcement of existing regulations should prove the simplest tract for a sluggish bureaucracy to pursue, what follows is a synopsis of bullet-points to consider after having poured over the Bicycle Master Plan and cross referenced it with the AASHTO manual, the NYCDOT Highway Rules, the federal Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices and the NYCDOT Standard Specifications book. The hope is that a brief reminder of enforcement responsibilities and standards adherence might make this city safer for all of us.

Any cyclist in the city whose daily ride takes her over roadway excavation can tell you that OCMC is slipping in their mandated duty of permit oversight. This is a critical problem that must be addressed immediately. Construction permits issued by OCMC require that obstructions introduced into a roadway be protected from traffic; that construction storage areas be delineated as per MUTCD requirements; that no more than a lane of traffic be obstructed at a time; that roadway plates be ramped smoothly with asphalt at their edges and that they be coated with skid-resistant coatings equal to or greater than the coefficient of friction of the surrounding roadway. There are dozens of sites citywide that have remained out of spec for months now. 56th and Broadway, 51st and Broadway, 79th and 5th, the MPT design at 47th and Broadway, Bushwick and Meserole, 2nd St. and 1st Ave, 165th and Riverside, Madison Ave from 30th to 55th, and Hudson below 14th are just a few locations worthy of inspection. Also worthy of OCMC consideration is the fact that federal law requires that construction work which forces the closing of a bicycle facility (assumed to include bike lanes and bike paths) provides for a reasonable alternate route that ensures the safety of all modes of transportation while minimizing detour distance and avoiding forcing cyclists to dismount.

A massive problem with the existing OCMC/NYCDOT permit approval process is that their review of maintenance and protection of traffic plans seems largely auto-centric. Section 1.06.44 of the NYCDOT Standard Specs requires an MPT for roadway work in the City. It also holds contractors responsible for the adequacy of such construction elements as roadway plates and section 1.06.44(G) gives a contractor 24 hours from the time of notification of non-compliance to remedy a situation or face fines. When approved MPT’s are not multi-modally friendly and contractors are not held accountable for negligence, disaster becomes imminent. There exists a great deal of construction around the city that provides barely enough of a travel way for cars let alone cyclists—often aided by some sort of buffer for refuge. The resulting merging and lack of advanced signage (as required by the MUTCD, but rarely adequately implemented on city streets) inherent to such construction is dangerous enough, but when coupled with poorly maintained excavation sites and construction staging areas, the probability for auto/cyclist catastrophe is needlessly multiplied exponentially.

The MUTCD is redundantly emphatic that, “The needs and control of all road users (motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians within the highway, including persons with disabilities in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), Title II, Paragraph 35.130) through a TTC zone shall be an essential part of highway construction, utility work, maintenance operations, and the management of traffic incidents.” Section 6G.05 of the MUTCD goes on to insist that cyclists and pedestrians not be exposed to unprotected excavations or other such conditions. This should be assumed to include such hazards as scoring and asphalt removal in bike lanes—as has been the case on Broadway south of 59th St. for several blocks all winter and spring.

Similarly, the MUTCD is insistent that sufficient advanced lane tapering and signage be utilized when work encroaches into shoulders and curb-lanes. A perfect example of poor tapering in the city can be found at 47th and Broadway. This lazy adherence to MPT is worsened by the frequent presence of NYPD vehicle checks that usher trucks and vans into what should be a bike lane bordered by barrels which align traffic to the construction at Father Duffy Square. The pseudo-MPT implemented at this location also seems to ignore the MUTCD requirement in 6G.11 that, “If the TTC zone affects the movement of bicyclists, adequate access to the roadway or shared-use paths shall be provided.”

Moving now from streets to bridges, cyclists are needlessly faced with a new set of concerns. Three of the most pressing issues involve the Queensboro, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges and there’s little excuse for any of the issues to have persisted as long as they have. It was determined in the 1990’s that the Queens and Manhattan termini of the Queensboro Bridge were both “difficult and dangerous.” An ISTEA grant was awarded to the DCP to examine remedies to this situation. What ever came of this investigation? Implementation of a solution is long overdue. Compounding the extremely dangerous bike path termini is a general lack of upkeep on the path. This is a problem shared with the Manhattan Bridge. Both are often littered with unacceptable amounts of broken glass and human feces. While litter is less of a problem on the Williamsburg Bridge, that bridge has its own problem. The Manhattan terminus of the bridge is poorly designed and arguably out of spec with AASHTO requirements. AASHTO states that a bike path terminating at an existing intersection should be safely integrated into the existing roadways and that curb cuts at intersections should be the same width as the bike path. The newly constructed terminus is inexcusably foreign to both of these requirements. There are small ped ramps that are perpendicular to both traffic and the bike path. There is no curb cut at all, let alone of the same width of the path at the terminus. There has also been a maze of construction barrels surrounding the terminus since the conclusion of its construction. All of this invariably contributes to a high-stress situation for any intermediate or beginning cyclist and should be immediately examined.

In a city prized for its mindshare, creativity and perpetual energy, there should be no excuse for bureaucrats whose lack of attention to their mandated jobs is endangering the lives of citizens attempting to live theirs while bettering the quality of life of those around them. Habitual, institutionalized negligence is killing and injuring cyclists in this city. Perhaps it’s time to consider institutionalizing a habitual adherence to standards intended to save lives.

evanyc

i just skimmed through it real quickly, and i'll reread tomorrow, but i'd omit "few truly" and just say "One of the intriguing things in Rudolph Giuliani's mayoral legacy..." Sure, the backhandedness is warranted, but perhaps this isn't the place?

BadAssBiker

Chris, well done.

Have you ever worked with Naomi from Times Up? If not, you really need to.

Matthew A Brown

Damn, nice...

BlindRobert

bump

BlindRobert

bump again

visitordesign

thanks. no. who's naomi?

the engineers are reading thru my letter to check it for accuracy. then i'll make any necessary edits, tighten it up, send it off and re-post it here with a list of addresses that anyone interested can mail it to.

turd

the memorial ride was mentioned on WNYC this morning with a short response by a Time's Up member (didn't catch name). they expect around 100 ppl to show.

turd

i'm also skimming.. looks great so far. might help to add a short list of immediate 'action items' at the end. i think transalt does this..

evanyc

pretty good turn out this morning at the rally/press event. 50 people maybe? not too bad for 8:45am

sashae

So I'm assuming that the huge construction storage sheds and trailer offices parked in the bike lane on 6th between 24th and 25th aren't kosher then?

Riding in this city... ugh.

brokenrobot

In fairness, I almost never see ditches like that covered up at ALL. There's one on 3rd and 9th in BK, for example, that's been left open for a week or so...