MILESTONES FOR BIKING AND WALKING IN NEW YORK CITY
Cycling With the WALK Sign
The most dangerous spot on any street is where it meets another. At the suggestion of TransAlt activists, the Department of Transportation is testing out two brand-new technologies at select intersections: leading bicycle intervals and protected intersections. The leading bicycle interval, piloted at 50 intersections, allows cyclists to proceed when the pedestrian signal indicates WALK. Protected intersections, at 20 pilot locations, force drivers to make a calm 90 degree turn. While the results trickle in, TransAlt activists are pushing for a Vision Zero Design Standard that would add safety improvements like these to streets every time the city repaves.
Central Park Goes Car-Free
After 38 years, 100,000 petition signatures, and countless meetings, rallies, protests, bike rides, and direct action arrests, Transportation Alternatives’ longest-running campaign, the campaign for a car-free Central Park, is finally over. On the eve of Earth Day, Mayor Bill de Blasio did what 20 New York City mayors before him failed to do: ban cars from Manhattan’s verdant oasis, as its creators, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, intended. Central Park’s car-free status is the product of extraordinary effort and tireless advocacy by generations of TransAlt activists.
Side Guards Nationwide Says Schumer
A local idea may soon become U.S. law, if New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have anything to say about it. This winter, Gillibrand introduced a bipartisan bill with Senator Marco Rubio that would require underride guards on the sides of all trucks, and Schumer, a born and bred Brooklynite, signed on in support. This simple metal rail system protects pedestrians, cyclists, and small cars from being pulled under tractor-trailers. The technology was first introduced in New York City in 2015, after cyclist Hoyt Jacobs was killed by a private sanitation truck in Long Island City. In response, Mayor Bill de Blasio passed a law requiring city-owned trucks and private sanitation trucks contracted by the city to sport side guards by 2024.
Bike Lanes Reach River to River
Protected bike lanes will soon stretch across Manhattan Island. After a concerted campaign by TransAlt members and activists, and a dangerous year where five people were killed in Midtown, the New York City Department of Transportation recently agreed to build protected bike lanes on 26th and 29th streets. The crosstown lanes will make a huge difference in the core of Manhattan, where there are currently no safe east-west routes. Next up? Activists want a north-south route to match. Their campaign for protected bike lanes on 5th and 6th avenues took to the streets, where the activists used their bodies to make their own temporary lane.
