The problem is this post-Moses trend in treating the "community" as if it's monolithic and knows more about transportation planning than the experts. We as a society can say "more transit good, road expansion bad" and ask locals to weigh in on where staircases go, not "should this even happen?"
NEW: After an anti-bike lane lawsuit sent the Department of Transportation back to the drawing board on 31st Street in Astoria, the agency is responding… with a plan for an even longer bike lane on the deadly corridor.
The 485-x tax benefit in NYC became effective during 2024. It proscribes higher requirements for buildings with 100+ units
To avoid the requirement, you can build 99 units.
Did this rule affect new housing in the city?
I'm going to say: Yes!
Mamdani hasn't committed to a specific timeline on any of it, including not committing to it being done before the end of his term. That's way too long from now!
They fixed a lot of my complaints from two years ago, including the Plaza St bike lanes, the lack of crosswalks north of the Flatbush/EP intersection, and the silly little diagonal bike lanes that would force you to cross Union St or EP
bsky.app/profile/bicy...
Side-by-side diagrams showing the current (left) and proposed (right) traffic layout of Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn The current layout has a chaotic mess of traffic lanes. The new layout organized car traffic on either side of the plaza, connecting the pedestrian space between Prospect Park and the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch. There are new protected bike lanes and shortened crosswalks around much of the plaza
There's a lot to like about the new GAP design:
* Connected ped. space
* Plaza St bike lanes fixed
* Direct Vanderbilt bike conn.
* Raised crosswalks
* Mid-plaza crosswalks
* No more St John's 5-way int.
What not to like:
* No bus lanes
* Still a couple of slip lanes
* The timeline is too long
🥳 🥳 🥳
The bins are only for buildings with 10 or more units. They won't take up 5% of parking spots in every neighborhood, they'll be concentrated in the denser parts of the city
the ny nonresident tax form questions about yonkers
ah, my favorite part of taxes: ARE YOU AWARE OF THE EXISTENCE OF YONKERS???
Based on that diagram, back of the envelope calculation is that Fulton would be 42'/820', or around 5.2% grades. That's not quite as steep as the Manhattan Bridge, so that's probably the best option
Barclay is worse than Vesey in most respects. Sure, the A/C is higher there, but you get way less room after the 2/3 to dive under the R/W. Then you'd have an absolutely wicked S curve to reach the Downtown Tubes. At least with Vesey the southbound curve isn't bad, and the 1 transfer is better
Again, there's a strange feeling of whiplash when you watch what's happening at the federal level at the hands of a political party and movement that actively wants to make people's lives worse and then turn around and see a leader at the city level who actively wants to make people's lives better.
Very good news. And a five-year timeline is pretty fast by municipal standards.
Also:
"The city has roughly three million parking spaces, and full trash containerization is expected to take about 150,000 spaces, or 5 percent."
Fulton is a possibility, but I'm not sure of the grade. Not only is the A/C deeper there, it's closer to the 2/3
This specific layout will stop being an option real fast thanks to 2 WTC entering construction
Idk, maybe I'm just bad at reading the diagram
Would it even need to dive that deep? That "proposed BMT connection" seems like an extension of the City Hall lower level, not something that ever got built
The engineering schematic
Fun find this afternoon: In 1957, the Port Authority did the engineering work to link the downtown PATH to the Lexington Avenue subway local tracks.
They should drop both "Flatbush Av" and "Nostrand Av" from Brooklyn College, since the B/Q is sufficiently further from campus
And also because the 2/5 have 2–4 other stops under Flatbush Avenue further downtown
France (at least both Paris & Marseille) really likes street names for its metro stations too
City Hall is pretty unambiguously in Manhattan, but High St–Brooklyn Bridge (in Brooklyn, on the A/C) doesn't help things
Queensbridge refers to a nearby NYCHA development, and Queens Plaza is the street name, but there's no excuse for Queensboro Plaza
Flatbush Ave bus lanes are coming! I'm a little disappointed the whole thing will take six months, but I'm glad they're starting now
gothamist.com/news/nyc-to-...
Fourth, political giveaways to the LIRR unions helped lay the ground work for the MTA's pension crisis in the 2000s, which was fueled in part by fraudulent disability claims at the... LIRR. www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr...
Work rule differences between the LIRR and tje Metro-North unions (both railroads run the same trains on the same power systems at about the same speeds serving the same metro area) cost the MTA $200 million a year -- nypost.com/2023/01/16/m...
In NYC, there are 158 surface parking lots in historic districts.
Map focuses on lower Manhattan.
Link: citytracker.ai/results/publ...
Street views below.
I think it matters for steering DCP rezonings, maybe fighting LPC designations, and for showing the BP that the board isn't unanimously opposed. It probably doesn't matter as much for housing as it did before the ballot props, but I get the impression it still matters for other issues (e.g. for DOT)
I'm on CB8 (just reapplied this year), and I was one of just four votes in favor of City of Yes
Based on your last tweet, are you in Brooklyn CD 9? That board could really use some pro-housing voices
MTA, planning SAS West: "hold my beer"