Citi Bike will make it a lot quicker to get from Stuy Town to Penn Station. Image: CiBi.me

Pretty much anywhere you go within the bike-share service area, you’ll be within a few blocks of a bike-share station. There’s probably a station around the corner from your office. Odds are, it’ll be a boon for any of those tricky diagonal trips that aren’t well-served by the subway.

To find out exactly how long it’ll take to get around New York on bike-share, there’s now a new online tool: CiBi.me (disclosure: the site was designed by OpenPlans, Streetsblog’s parent organization). Plug in your origin and destination and the site will identify the nearest bike-share stations and map you a route between them. A triangular slider lets riders prioritize faster, flatter, or safer routes.

I played around with the site this afternoon and I’m increasingly convinced that bike-share is going to transform the way New Yorkers get around. You can’t beat the train for a trip straight up Eighth Avenue, but for many trips, bike-share is going to be the go-to way to get from A to B. A trip from the middle of Stuy Town to Penn Station, shown above, would take only 16 minutes, according to the site.

Play around with the site and let us know: For the trips you take regularly, will bike-share come out on top?

This morning, a Minnesota Public Radio host asked me if the exurbs, whose growth rate flattened when the recession hit, are going to come back. Lots of people from far-distant suburbs like Blaine and Farmington called in, saying they like the way of life out there – they like having acres of trees buffering them from their nearest neighbor — and people won’t want to stop living in communities like that.

Source: The Demand Institute

The data suggests otherwise, though. Earlier this week, the Demand Institute (a think tank created by the Conference Board — “a global, independent business membership and research association” — and Nielsen — yeah, the TV ratings people) released a report on the housing recovery. They say the worst of the housing crash is over and glimmers of recovery are on the horizon. But hope isn’t spread out uniformly across these United States. Those exurbs like Blaine and Farmington, Minnesota? They’re not coming back so fast.

Urban areas didn’t lose as much value during the recession. Home prices didn’t crash so hard. Not so many people found themselves under water, owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. And urban areas are bouncing back faster. The Demand Institute calls these places “Resilient Walkables.” Only 15 percent of the U.S. population lives there.

The report bases its prognosis for recovery on seven factors: population size, walkability, severity of the crash, current affordability, unemployment, foreclosure inventory, and foreclosure policy. The Institute found what Angie noted earlier: Walk Score is positively correlated with strong housing prices. The Institute’s analysis of almost 1,700 U.S. cities showed that walkable cities had more positive price growth.

And it found that these “Resilient Walkables” were resilient indeed, with house prices projected to rise three percent next year and five percent a year for the four years after that.

Compare that to the places the Institute calls “Slow and Steady” – where more than a third of Americans live and where double-digit housing declines destabilized the market. Economic indicators are gloomy for these areas, but the authors find the planning solid, so the future is relatively bright. These are places like Charlotte, NC, Dallas and semi-urban D.C. suburbs like Gaithersburg, MD, and the study forecasts three percent growth starting in two years.

Then there are the “Damaged But Hopeful” areas – a category that encompasses big but depressed cities like Chicago and smaller ones like Stamford, CT. Thirty percent of Americans live in these places, too many of them fighting foreclosure. It will take them a little longer to get to three percent growth but from 2017 onward, the Demand Institute predicts that they’ll beat the national average.

And then there are the exurbs and small suburbs. Twenty percent of Americans live there, but perhaps not for long. The report classifies them as “Weighed Down” – by precipitous price drops and high foreclosure rates. “The fact that housing is relatively cheap compared to the national average will not greatly assist recovery,” the report states. “Indeed, long-term prospects are most uncertain. We do not expect price rises to reach the national average even by 2017.”

The relative cheapness of land was the big draw out to new suburbs over the past few decades. The report seems to be foretelling the end of “drive till you qualify.”

The authors also predict the rental market will grow faster than the homebuyer market, and they say house size will shrink, as necessitated by the mass gravitation to a denser development pattern. Houses are already smaller now than their peak of 2,500 square feet in 2007, and the study forecasts they will shrink by another 10 percent by 2015 to about 2,150 square feet – still plenty of space.

So, while some people are content with the wide-roads-and-big-yards way of exurban life, many more are getting out – as soon as they can sell their house, which for many, won’t be anytime soon. Those who can are fleeing the toxicity of foreclosure, the soul-sucking commutes at $4+ a gallon, the dead street life.

And young families, who in the last decade fueled outward growth with their zeal for big houses with small price tags, are pulling back now. When they move out of their parents’ basements they’ll be looking to rent instead of buy. Home ownership rates among people in their early twenties has gone down 17.5 percent, while the home ownership rate for all age groups is down less than three percent.

It’s all part of a pendulum swing back from the mass drive out to the suburbs in the postwar period. According to this research, the growth is now in cities and close-in suburbs that offer a mix of uses within easy and pleasant walking distance. Transit plays a role too, as one major amenity being sought in urban areas is access to public transportation, “a significant advantage as traffic pressure in major metropolitan areas worsens owing to limited investment in road infrastructure,” the report says.

Some of the callers this morning made their outer-ring lifestyles sound lovely and bucolic. One of them said he and his wife both worked from home, so one of the major downsides of the exurbs – the commute – was a moot point for them. That may be, but they are increasingly isolated in their decision to live in that kind of place. As Chris Leinberger has noted, the places that were supposed to be a refuge from urban crime are finding that big-city problems have followed them. Nothing destabilizes a neighborhood like a vacant house – even if that house is a McMansion.

The Weekly Carnage is a Friday round-up of motor vehicle violence across the five boroughs and beyond. For more on the origins and purpose of this column, please read About the Weekly Carnage.

A man was struck crossing Ditmas Avenue in Flatbush on his way to meet his wife. He was treated at Kings County Hospital. Photo: DNA

Fatal Crashes (9 killed this week, 81 this year, 6 drivers charged*)

• Willets Point: Cyclist Mireya Gomez, 50, Struck By Driver on Roosevelt Avenue; No Charges (Streetsblog)
• Kips Bay: 76-Year-Old Man in Wheelchair Hit Crossing East 23rd St.; “No Criminality” (DNA)
• Richmond Hill: Rohan Singh, 47, Run Down By Hit-and-Run Driver (Times Ledger)
• Sunnyside: Gabriel Hernandez, 24, Waiting to Cross Street, Hit By Drunk Cabbie; Driver Faces Homicide Charges (Post, DNA)
• Bay Ridge: Adam Nicholson, 40, Crashes SUV Into MTA Bus, Utility Pole; 3-Year-Old in Backseat Unharmed (DNA)
• Hunts Point: Raylin Heredia-Delacruz, 23, Killed After Crashing Motorcycle Into Bus (News)
• Jackson Heights: Motorcyclist and Passenger Killed in Collision With MTA Bus (DNA)
• Bushwick: Motorcyclist Barron Sanders, 47, Crashes Into Vehicle Four Blocks From Home (DNA)
• UES: Elderly Man on Crutches Struck By Truck Driver While Crossing 1st Ave. (Post, City Room)**
• Hell’s Kitchen: 23-Year-Old Pedestrian Struck By Private Garbage Truck; “No Criminality” (Gothamist)**
• Sheepshead Bay: Jamal Iqbal, 23, Killed in Head-On Crash With Driver Going 90 MPH; Driver Charged With Homicide (Post, News)**
• East Flatbush: 32-Year-Old Passenger Killed in Drunk Driving Crash (Post Blotter)**

Rohan Singh was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver in Richmond Hill on the morning of May 13. Photo: Times Ledger

Injuries, Arrests and Property Damage

• UWS: Driver Hits 20-Year-Old Pedestrian, Leaving Him in Traumatic Arrest (DNA)
• Tremont: Pedestrian Hit at East Tremont Ave. and Third Ave. (Streetsblog)
• Flatbush: Pedestrian Struck Crossing Ditmas Blvd. (DNA)
• Sunset Park: 3-Year-Old Boy Hit By SUV Driver at 4th Ave. Intersection (DNA)
• East NY: Teenage Boy Unconscious After Being Struck By Driver (DNA)
• Borough Park: Hit-and-Run Driver Leaves 5-Year-Old Boy With Head Trauma in Parking Garage (Post)
• Rosedale: Three Injured in Muti-Vehicle Crash (Times Ledger)
• Williamsburg: Tractor-Trailer Driver Injures Pedestrian at Flushing Ave. (DNA)
• Bayside: SUV Driver Slams Into Utility Pole; At Least One Hospitalized (Times Ledger)
• St. Albans: Driver Hits Off-Duty Cop, Flees Scene (Post Blotter)

In the Region, Out of Town

• Lawrence, NJ: Driver Receives Traffic Summons in Fatal Crash With Cyclist (Times of Trenton)
• Franklin Township, NJ: Man Killed, Boy Seriously Injured By Van Driver; No Charges (Star Ledger)
• Norwalk, CT: 16-Year-Old Driver Using Cell Phone Arrested for Crash That Killed Jogger (AP)
• Brewerton, NY: Pedestrian Struck, Critically Injured After Attempting to Cross Highway (AP)
• Bethlehem Township, NJ: NYC Man Killed After Crashing Into Parked Tractor-Trailer (Hunterdon Co.)

Following Up

• Dashane Santana’s Grandmother Fights to Rename Dangerous Delancey For Slain Teen (DNA)
• Streetsblog Files TLC Complaint Over Reported West Village Fatality (Streetsblog)
• Man Who Killed Sister Mary Celine Graham in NYPD Chase Pleads to Murder (Streetsblog)
• Family of SI Drunk Driving Victim Clara Almazo Sues Mets, Bar Owner (Advance)
• Parents Want Safety Improvements Near School Following Death of UPS Worker Run Down on Sidewalk (DNA)

*Based on latest available reports
**As these crashes occurred prior to last Friday, they are not reflected in the weekly figure.

Looking to hire a smart, qualified person for a position in transportation planning, engineering, IT, or advocacy? Post a listing on the Streetsblog Jobs Board and reach our national audience of dedicated readers.

Looking for a job? Here are this week’s listings:

Coordinator, South Bronx River Watershed Alliance, New York City
For nearly a decade, the SBRWA has campaigned to replace the 1.25 mile-long Sheridan Expressway with 28 acres of affordable housing, open space, and new economic development opportunities. The SBRWA is seeking a Coordinator to carry out its community education and organizing work, support the participation of its member organizations in the campaigns, and manage its day-to-day communications and operation.

Marketing Assistant, VELODOME, Clifton, New Jersey
VELODOME is a company that designs and produces bicycle parking shelters and promotes cycling as an alternate mode of transportation to schools, government agencies and private sector companies. This internship, which can lead to a full-time position, will include market research, social media marketing and working with suppliers.

Image: Arizona Department of Transportation

Does walkable development really lead to worse traffic congestion? Opponents of urbanism often say so, citing impending traffic disaster to rally people against, say, a new mixed-use project proposed in their backyards. But new research provides some excellent evidence to counter those claims.

A recent study by the Arizona Department of Transportation [PDF] found that neighborhoods where houses are closer together actually have freer-flowing traffic.

Researchers compared some of greater Phoenix’s denser neighborhoods – South Scottsdale, Tempe, and East Phoenix — with a few of its more sprawling ones – Glendale, Gilbert, and North Scottsdale. Some interesting patterns emerged.

In the more compact neighborhoods, the average household owned 1.55 cars, compared to 1.92 in more suburban areas. Residents of higher-density neighborhoods also traveled shorter distances both to get to work and to run errands, the study found.

The average work trip was a little longer than seven miles for higher-density neighborhoods; in the more suburban neighborhoods, it was almost 11 miles. Residents of the three compact neighborhoods traveled just less than three miles to shop, while residents of sprawling locations traveled an average of more than four miles. All of this led the more urban dwellers to travel an average of nearly five fewer miles per day than their suburban counterparts.

The density divide also played an important role in transit use. Rates varied from as high as eight percent transit ridership in high-density neighborhoods to as low as one percent in the more sprawling areas.

All of this translated into a reduced strain on roadways in the places that had more people — running counter to one of the strongest objections to mixed-use development. Comparing one suburban corridor to two of the streets in the more dense neighborhoods, the study found that on the more urban streets, traffic congestion was “much lower,” or about half as high (measured by the ratio of the capacity of the roadway to the actual volume of cars on it).

How did more compact neighborhoods manage to have less congestion? It’s not just because residents there drive less overall. Two design characteristics also ease traffic, according to AZ DOT. Fine-grained street networks distributed traffic evenly across the higher-density neighborhoods, while every driver in the suburban neighborhoods was funneled onto the same big arterials. At the same time, improved pedestrian conditions in commercial centers made it easier for some drivers to park once and walk from destination to destination, taking cars off the road precisely in the areas that attract the most people.

The results of the Arizona study may not apply everywhere, due to the state’s extremely spread out pattern of development. The higher-density neighborhoods still only had between six and seven households per acre, compared with between three and four in the lower-density places. As the report notes, “By Eastern U.S. standards, all of these densities are effectively suburban in character.”

But the report controls for a host of factors, strengthening the conclusion that the different travel behaviors were really the result of design, rather than income, say, or the student population.

The Arizona Department of Transportation deserves credit — first of all, because this is a fantastic, thorough, well-timed study, but also for pointing out the important policy implications. The agency’s recommendations include a public awareness campaign about the benefits of mixed-use, compact development; better planning and public engagement tools; and providing incentives for smart planning.

The authors noted, for example, that outdated policies sabotage planning efforts that are beneficial for livability, public health, and the environment in the name of maintaining traffic flow. The supreme irony — in light of the study results — is that these policies ultimately fail the congestion test too:

Local planners and planning commissions are still using traditional traffic engineering approaches to assess the impact of development projects. By looking only at traffic congestion levels on adjacent links, ignoring through travel, and failing to account for the efficiencies of mixed-use development on lower vehicle trip rates and VMT, progressive projects are likely to be rejected or unreasonably downsized.

The DOT also concludes that congestion isn’t always a bad thing, that density is the key to successful transit, and that short blocks are critical for building vibrant, mixed-use places.

One option being considered for Webster Avenue Select Bus Service would have the buses run in the center of the street, potentially speeding service even more than existing SBS routes. Image: NYC DOT/MTA

Webster Avenue could be the place where Select Bus Service reaches the next level. At a community meeting Wednesday evening, the Department of Transportation and the MTA presented three visions of improved bus service for the corridor [PDF]. Two of the templates can already be found on the streets of New York — bus lanes running curbside and bus lanes offset from the curb by one lane — and bus riders are seeing travel times improve 15 to 20 percent thanks to those improvements. But the potential for a real breakthrough lies in the third template — buses running in the center lanes with elevated platforms — which would be a major step toward true bus rapid transit.

The world’s best bus rapid transit systems all run in the center of the street, where speeds and reliability are significantly better (see Streetsblog’s report on Mexico City’s Metrobús system for an example). Away from the curb, there are significantly fewer obstacles from parking, loading, and turn conflicts.

Since bus riders wouldn’t be able to wait on the sidewalk to board the bus, DOT would build new protected platforms in the street. If the platforms are built totally level with the bus floor, as on the subway, this would make boarding the bus much faster, especially for the elderly or disabled. As on all SBS routes, passengers would pay their fares before boarding, allowing buses to spend time moving rather than waiting for each passenger to dip their MetroCard in turn.

Median-running bus lanes and platform-level boarding are two of the most important features of world-class BRT identified in the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy’s BRT Standard scorecard. Existing Select Bus Service routes haven’t met the threshold for bus rapid transit according to ITDP’s system; the Webster Avenue route, it seems, could break the mold.

The Webster Avenue project is still in a very early stage and all three options are little more than concepts at this point. However, the potential for serious transit improvements is especially high here, because there’s already strong political support for Select Bus Service. Both State Senator Gustavo Rivera and Assembly Member Vanessa Gibson have endorsed Webster Avenue SBS, though they have not spoken about particular designs. More than 50 people participated in Wednesday’s open house, said a DOT spokesperson, and were broadly supportive of the transit improvements.

Whether DOT opts for the full center-running option or not, any transit improvements are sure to be appreciated. The existing bus service, the Bx41, is the most unreliable in the Bronx, according to the Straphangers Campaign. Travel times on the five-mile corridor can vary by as much as 20 minutes, the DOT said [PDF]. There are currently about 19,000 riders on an average weekday and 24,000 daily riders on the weekend.

Select Bus Service on Fordham Road, the city’s first enhanced bus corridor, reduced travel times by twenty percent using a curbside bus lane design. Ridership increased by seven percent.

Federally-funded improvements at East New York's Broadway Junction would improve bus service and add pedestrian space at the important transit hub. Image: NYC DOT

The Department of Transportation unveiled a new design for one of Brooklyn’s most important transit hubs at a community board meeting Monday evening. By turning a single block of Van Sinderen Avenue into a one-way street, DOT plans to improve bus service and build new pedestrian space at East New York’s Broadway Junction, which serves five subway lines and five bus routes [PDF].

As it is, there’s not enough space near the main bus stop in the area. Livery cabs, which don’t have any designated curbside space, crowd out the buses that are supposed to stop there, forcing them to load and unload in traffic lanes. The sidewalk is packed with pedestrians and vendors; there’s no room available for badly-needed bus shelters and seating. Busy Van Sinderen is also difficult for pedestrians to cross.

Under DOT’s proposal, the block of Van Sinderen between Truxton and Fulton Streets would be converted into a one-way street with only one southbound lane reserved for private through traffic. Two lanes would be dedicated to buses, allowing plenty of room for them to pull around other buses loading and unloading at a different stop.

Both the sidewalk and the existing median would be expanded into the roadway, creating room for new bus shelters and dramatically shortening the distance to cross Van Sinderen.

Finally, DOT plans to designate space along the north side of the median for both drop-offs and pick-ups, to accommodate livery drop-offs and the NYPD vehicles currently parked along the block.

The design should unclog the intersection and make it far easier to transfer from the subway to the bus. One bus route, the B20, would have to detour on the northbound run due to the conversion of Van Sinderen to a one-way.

Construction on the project is expected to begin next year and conclude in 2014.

The project dates back to 2008, when Congressman Ed Towns hosted a community meeting aimed at improving the station. Towns got an $800,000 earmark to support the planning of the project and last year, the Federal Transit Administration put up $3.4 million from its competitive Bus Livability Grant program.

The Department of City Planning is currently at work on a project to encourage transit-oriented development around the East New York LIRR station, two blocks away.

Looking at median housing prices and Walk Scores in more than 250 cities, Emily Washington found a clear correlation. Photo: Market Urbanism

As part of her graduate studies, Emily Washington at Network blog Market Urbanism set out to determine if people were willing to pay a premium for housing in a walkable urban setting. She developed two different models to see if there’s a link between housing prices and Walk Scores in 259 cities. Wouldn’t you know it, she found a pretty clear connection. Washington shared the results of her research in a post yesterday and is asking for feedback on her methodology:

I tested the impact of Walk Score on median house prices controlling for household income, unemployment, and cost of living. The sample includes 259 cities for which I had Walk Score data and Census data by Metropolitan Statistical Area for the other controls. The results suggest that for a one-point increase in Walk Score, we can expect a .5% increase in a cities’ median house price, and this result is statistically significant.

In another way of measuring the same question (an IV regression using the year the city was founded as the instrument), I found that a one-point increase in Walk Score can be expected to increase home prices by 3%. This result is also statistically significant, but I have less faith in this model.

For the most part, the other studies that I’ve seen of Walk Score’s relationship to house prices look at one city or a few cities and control for variables like a neighborhood’s crime rate and housing quality. While there are obvious advantages to these more detailed, local studies, I think the national view gets around the sample selection problems that make other results ungeneralizable.

Elsewhere on the Network today: An exhibit brings the trains rejected by Wisconsin governor Scott Walker to Milwaukee, demonstrating what might have been if it weren’t for political antics, reports Urban Milwaukee. BikeWalkLee writes that a Fort Myers area women who fell asleep at the wheel and killed a local cyclist won’t face criminal charges. And Bike Portland highlights some of the successes from the local political action committee dedicated to walking and biking issues.

Well, you really couldn’t ask for a better day to commute by bike. Here’s a shot from the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge at 8:30 this morning. Word is that the Hudson River Greenway was a torrent of bike traffic. If you’ve got pictures from today’s commute, share them with us: add the “Streetsblog” tag on Flickr or email tips@streetsblog.org.

Many thanks to the Transportation Alternatives volunteers who got up before the crack of dawn to supply people with coffee and Clif Bars. You guys are great.

• Plaza Street Bike Haters Don’t Get That the New Bike Lane Won’t Narrow the Road (Bklyn Paper)
• Related: Free Curbside Parking Is a Hazard to Your Mental Health (Brooklyn Paper)
• Duane Street NIMBYs Love Their Ped Plaza So Much They Can’t Find Room for Bike-Share (Tribeca Trib)
• Long Island Man Arrested For Drunk Driving Had 23 License Suspensions, Six Convictions (NBC)
• CitiBike Designer Explains Features of “Virtually Indestructible Machine” (BusinessWeek)
• West Harlem Downzoning Would Allow Tall Buildings on Only a Single Block (News)
• Quinn Touts Electric Bike Crackdown as Path to Safer Cycling (Villager)
• Driver Hits Pedestrian on Upper West Side, Leaving Victim in Traumatic Arrest (DNAinfo)
• Kips Bay Man in Wheelchair Taken to Hospital Unconscious After Being Struck By Driver (DNAinfo)
• Three Schools Sign on to Support 20 MPH Speed Limit on Upper West Side (DNAinfo)
• Deadly Ferrari Driver Was Professional “Super Speeder” (Gothamist)
• Photo: Cape-Clad Superhero Jimmy Van Bramer Helped Bring Bike-Share to Queens (Q Chron)

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

In an overwhelming 31-2 vote (with three abstentions), Brooklyn Community Board 7 passed a motion last night in favor of re-engineering Fourth Avenue in Sunset Park for greater safety. The NYC DOT project [PDF] will add a substantial amount of pedestrian space at intersections from 65th Street to 15th Street, widening medians and narrowing crossing distances on the 88-foot wide street.

Image: NYC DOT

This stretch of Fourth Avenue, currently three moving lanes in each direction plus turn bays, is one of the deadliest streets in Brooklyn, with seven pedestrians killed in traffic between 2006 and 2011. Some of the current medians are less than two feet wide. Under the plan, the narrowest medians would at least triple in width, and wider ones would expand too. The pedestrian space will be reclaimed by converting 17-foot wide combined parking and travel lanes on each side of the street into 13-foot wide parking lanes, though three travel lanes will be maintained northbound during the morning rush, from 38th Street to 17th Street. The changes would be implemented with low-cost materials — epoxy, gravel, planters, flexible posts — and DOT can complete them by this fall.

At a hearing hosted by CB 7′s Fourth Avenue Working Group on Monday, neighborhood advocates said the changes were a long time coming.

Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of the environmental justice non-profit UPROSE, said she could remember discussing traffic calming and greener infrastructure for Fourth Avenue with CB 7 district manager Jeremy Laufer 15 years ago. “This is not new,” she said, urging the board to vote for the plan. “We’ve been talking about these things for a long time in Sunset Park. If we miss the opportunity, we might not get these improvements.”

Lined with schools, subway stations, churches, and stores, Fourth Avenue is full of destinations for this bustling neighborhood of predominantly car-free households. DOT has been working intensively with neighborhood groups and local schools to develop the Fourth Avenue plan. A workshop in February brought together English-, Spanish-, Cantonese-, and Mandarin-speakers to gather ideas about what needs to change on the avenue.

“Almost everyone who goes to school on Fourth Avenue walks there,” said project manager Jesse Mintz-Roth. ”The narrowness of the medians came out over and over in the workshops.”

Last week, three children were struck by a turning driver at Fourth Avenue and 44th Street, one of whom was injured. The crash was fresh in the minds of several participants at Monday’s hearing, including Yesenia Malave-Lee, PTA president at P.S. 503, who said the threat of traffic violence looms over every parent walking their kids to school on Fourth Avenue. “I’m all for the changes being made here,” she said.

Last week, I published a list of seven questions I had as the Transportation Conference Committee started meeting. I was examining the politics, not the policy. Turns out some readers wanted to hear more about the policy.

I asked the Cap’n what his questions would be. The reply:

Meanwhile, reader Ryan Richter sent in his revised list of questions too. They’re a little more specific, so I’ll start with Ryan’s. With any luck, the answers to Cap’n Transit’s questions will be woven into the answers below.

Thanks to both of you for keeping me focused on what really matters in this whole political hullabaloo.

Ryan’s first question:

1. How will public transportation fare after being practically decapitated in the last round?

Public transit came out a winner when members of the House GOP mounted their full-frontal assault against it. “The uprising was so immediate and so bipartisan [the Republicans] backed off,” said Deron Lovaas of NRDC. Democrats and some urban and suburban Republicans blew up at the idea that transit would no longer be eligible for its 20 percent of Highway Trust Fund dollars, which it’s gotten since the Fund’s Mass Transit Account was created under Ronald Reagan in 1983. Surviving an attempt against it makes transit that much stronger now – its opponents know that defunding transit is a losing issue for them.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blogging for a quick pep talk. Thanks to our generous and supportive readers, Streetsblog and Streetfilms are almost halfway to our goal of raising $30,000 by June 1. We’ve got two weeks left to raise $17,000 — help us reach that target so we can keep making the case for designing cities around people, not cars.

Your donations directly fund the original reporting, commentary, and videos we produce – powerful content that influences the decision makers who shape our streets and neighborhoods.

For a bit of added incentive this week, we’re giving away a new handmade messenger bag from Vaya, makers of bags and other bike accessories using recycled materials, to one lucky reader who donates by May 24 at midnight. Here’s a look:

Readers who direct their donation specifically to Streetsblog NYC or Streetfilms by May 24 will also be eligible to win a tour for two of the Mast Brothers chocolate factory in Williamsburg, which comes with some intense chocolate bars too:

And don’t forget the big drawing at the end of the pledge drive for a new Schwinn city bike courtesy of Ride Brooklyn — everyone who donates $50 or more to Streetsblog NYC or Streetfilms will be entered to win.

If you value the work we do at Streetsblog and Streetfilms to advance livable streets and green transportation, please give. Thanks as always for reading.

Image: Marist

NY1 today announced the results of a traffic safety poll, conducted by Marist, which asked New Yorkers whom they blame for most city traffic crashes.

The results, as reported by the affable Roger Clark and Pat Kiernan: 68 percent of those polled city-wide believe motorists are responsible for the majority of crashes, 19 percent think cyclists cause the most collisions, and 13 percent say pedestrians are most often to blame.

In Manhattan, though drivers still lead at 59 percent, 31 percent of respondents cite cyclists as the number one danger on city streets, with pedestrians a distant third at 10 percent.

The fact that a huge majority of New Yorkers get that motorists pose the most danger could indicate support for improved enforcement by police and district attorneys. It helps that the public perception is supported by hard data.

In 2010, the city issued a report indicating that driver actions are the primary cause of 78.5 percent of crashes that killed or seriously injured pedestrians. As we reported, motorist inattention was a leading factor in 36 percent of such crashes, 27 percent involved failure to yield, and driver speed was cited in 20 percent of those incidents. A vast majority of serious crashes, 79 percent, were caused by the drivers of private vehicles.

Overall, according to DMV data [PDF], there were more than 78,000 car crashes, with over 77,000 people injured, in New York City in 2010. Meanwhile, the best available data on crashes involving only cyclists and pedestrians, collected from hospital records, shows that only 524 pedestrians were injured in bike collisions in the same year.

While the story is presented in a light-hearted way, Kiernan and Clark acknowledge that street safety is serious business. Which makes it somewhat curious that they reported this poll without comparing its results to readily-available data.

NY1 will be taking a closer look at the poll and street safety issues on “The Call” tonight. Streetsblog editor Ben Fried will be one of the guests on the program, which airs live at 9.

A DOT crew installed a bike corral in front of Park Slope's Gorilla Coffee this morning. Photo: Christa Orth

On her way into the office this morning, Streetsblog development manager Christa Orth spotted some fluorescent safety vests as she pedaled up Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue. A DOT crew was out in front of local coffee shop Gorilla Coffee, which had agreed to maintain a new bike corral in front of their store. One parking space is being replaced with room for about eight bikes — or as Gorilla might call them, seven new customers.

New York’s first bike corral was installed last summer. Now it looks like the treatment is really starting to spread.

Here’s a look at the finished bike corral, courtesy of Gorilla:

The city plans to redevelop this 125th Street site, currently an underutilized 450-space garage with some small retail on the ground floor, while replacing each and every parking space. Image: Google Street View

The New York City Economic Development Corporation’s commitment to replacing any parking spaces the agency builds on top of is a one-way ratchet toward ever-increasing amounts of automobile infrastructure. For projects at Flushing Commons and the Lower East Side’s SPURA site, slated to be built over surface parking lots, EDC has pushed for the new developments to include hundreds of parking spaces in addition to replacing the old parking.

In an RFP released Tuesday, EDC went a step further and asked for developers to try and replace every space included in a four-level garage located in the heart of Harlem at 125th Street. The request for so much parking seems to be based not on any transportation needs in the largely transit-dependent neighborhood, but rather on political negotiations with the local City Council member, Inez Dickens.

The low-slung garage, located between Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and Lenox Avenue, currently houses 450 parking spaces, with a few small retail shops fronting Harlem’s main commercial street. The site is owned by the city and the state, and by all accounts it’s underutilized. Under current zoning, it could become a 363,000-square foot commercial building, assuming it takes advantage of bonuses for providing space for the arts.

City Council Member Inez Dickens. Photo: City Council

In a section of the RFP noting the city’s development goals, EDC asks that proposals seek to “maintain as many parking spaces as possible with the objective that as many of the spaces as possible be located below grade.” Garage today, garage forever.

The impetus for that parking provision appears not to stem from EDC itself nor from any demonstrated demand for parking, but rather from Council Member Inez Dickens and negotiations over the controversial rezoning of 125th Street in 2008.

In a 2008 letter to Dickens, then-Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber mentioned the garage as one of the “Points of Agreement” from the rezoning negotiations, included in the RFP. In the letter, the administration committed to maintaining the current number of parking spaces and placing them underground. The preparation of an RFP for the site, Lieber promised, would be done in consultation with Dickens.

In fact, the language in EDC’s new RFP leaves more wiggle room to build less parking than the 2008 letter suggests, requesting that developers preserve only as many spaces as possible, rather than all of them.

Given that flexibility, it is not clear that the future developer will actually rebuild all 450 spaces. The current garage has only one underground level, in addition to two above-grade and one on the roof. Putting all four floors of parking below ground would be extremely expensive.

Nor is demand for parking on the site particularly high. The garage “doesn’t fill up regularly,” said Kristen Sokich, the regional vice president of garage operator ProPark America, though he noted it had recently been full more often due to a large but temporary corporate account. Only 22.5 percent of area households own a car.

Dickens’s office has not responded to Streetsblog inquiries about the garage redevelopment.

A pedestrian was struck at East Tremont Avenue and Third Avenue in the Bronx earlier today.

At 8:48 a.m., @NYScanner reported that two people were hit by a truck and that FDNY was on the scene, with EMS requested and the NYPD Highway Division notified. According to FDNY, one person was struck and was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital with an arm injury. FDNY said the driver of the truck remained at the scene.

An NYPD spokesperson said there was “no injury,” but one person was transported to St. Barnabas for observation.

The intersection of East Tremont and Third has a relatively high incidence of pedestrian and cyclist injuries. Between 1995 and 2009, 33 people were hurt crossing the intersection on foot, and 10 cyclists were injured there during the same time span, according to Transportation Alternatives’ CrashStat.

If you have any information on this morning’s crash, send us an e-mail or leave a comment.

Major media outlets can be harsh to bicyclists — often inexplicably or irrationally harsh. Even progressive sites like Salon are not immune, as we’ve written about before.

Photo: Salon

Today Adonia Lugo at Urban Adonia points to another unexpected source of venom: the feminist blogosphere, a.k.a. ladyblogs. These bastions of tolerance and acceptance have a strange blind spot for cyclists, Lugo writes:

When the topic of bikes comes up, there’s always a mini-war in the comments between people who despise “bike hipsters” (read: entitled, privileged jerks who think they own the road) and people who actually ride bikes. Commenters trot out their most extreme stories of negative interactions they’ve had with people on bikes, sometimes concluding with things like “F#%* BIKING HIPSTERS I HOPE A BUS HITS YOU.”

These are the same websites that promote things like fat acceptance and anti-bullying campaigns. Why are bicyclists portrayed as inhuman creatures unworthy of sympathy, dismissing an incredibly diverse world of practice (bicycling) because of the stupid behavior of a few jerks? And, this is the thing that really confuses me, why do people find jerk bicyclists so harmful to society when they constantly interact with motorists who run red lights and stop signs, use infrastructure like traffic circles in dangerous ways, talk and text in the car, drive without looking from side to side when entering intersections, and engage in other dangerous behaviors that kill people every day?

I asked a few of my friends, one a bicyclist and one less inclined to the bicycling arts, what they thought about this phenomenon. Both responded that it’s because you can see a bicyclist’s face, whereas it’s easier to think of a motorist as a car. The interactions with bicyclists stick out in people’s minds, and maybe they feel more personally insulted by the face-to-face flouting of laws. I think it’s also because we’ve trained ourselves to think of driving as passing through an obstacle course rather than moving through a social space. Cars that do dumb stuff are a nuisance, but they do not interrupt the illusion until there’s an actual crash. Bodies that do dumb stuff are a threat to the idea that driving is a no harm, no foul activity. You might actually hurt someone!

Elsewhere on the Network today: Mobilizing the Region shares a story about New Jersey high school students who are fighting for 0.2 miles of sidewalk at a dangerous turn by their school. Greater Greater Washington sees parallels between the misperceptions of New York City’s bike-share plans and the days preceding the launch of Capital Bikeshare. And the Transport Politic says Dallas’s Trinity highway plan, which will parallel a new light-rail line, represents “transportation planning at its worst.”

• NYPD Traffic and Parking Enforcement on Track for Eight-Year Low (Post)
• Willets Point Mega-Development Shifts From Mixed-Use Plan to Suburban Mess (NYT, WSJ)
• Some Day We’ll Look Back on the Silliness Before Bike-Share Launched and Have a Laugh (GGW)
• Ten MTA Employees to Face Charges for Signal Inspection Fraud (News)
• Sloppy Reporting From NY1 on the Fourth Ave/Sunset Park Pedestrian Safety Plan
• Manhattan CB 3 Committee Approves Seward Park Redevelopment in Contentious Vote (LoDown)
• With Interest Rates Hitting Rock Bottom, Refinancing MTA Debt Could Work Out Well — Or Not (MTR)
• In Bizarro NYC, City Council Makes Sure Drivers Pay for the Parking They Use (Post)
• DOT to Seek CB 4 Approval for Megabus Curbside Pick-Up By Port Authority (DNA)
• On the Plus Side, Maybe This Will Remind More People to Take the Train to the Game (B’stoner)

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

After two readers sent us pictures of bike cops in March, we promised to give a Streetfilms T-shirt to the person who sent us a third pic. It took two months, but today we received the photo that puts the bicycling police officer story over the hump — now it’s a trend! Congratulations to Hilda, who takes the prize in dramatic fashion with this shot of four officers on bike patrol. We might have to throw in an extra T-shirt for the calf tattoo.

There seems to be a concentration of cycling officers in Midtown. All of our reader-submitted photos (the first of which also came from Hilda) were taken between 34th Street and 44th Street, west of Sixth Avenue. I saw a bike cop on Hester Street on my way to work last week, though, so they range downtown too. We’ll see if NYPD’s public information office will divulge whether the department has actually beefed up its bike patrols or if these guys have been out on the streets, unheralded, all along. While we’re at it, we’ll ask if they track how many officers participate in Bike to Work Day this Friday.