NYC Streets Master Plan? Who’s the Master Here…

In late October the N.Y.C. city council passed a plan to add 250 miles of new bike lanes to the existing 1250 miles, the New York Times first reported. The effort was spearheaded by rising star of the city council Speaker Corey Johnson, who has pledged to “break the car culture” by prioritizing infrastructure investment going forward for public transit, pedestrians, and cyclists.

The bike lane expansion is part of Johnson’s “Streets Master Plan”, which will come due December 2021 and be updated every five years per the legislation. It comes at a time when cycling deaths are up to 27 so far this year – one of the highest annual counts in recent memory. The new protected bike lanes, which will be rolled out at a rate of 50 new miles per year starting as soon as 2022, will likely bolster cyclist and vehicle safety. The council’s plan was signed by Mayor Bill De Blasio, who has made much of his adopted street-safety initiative during his administration: Vision Zero, which sports the impossible goal of eliminating ALL traffic-related deaths in NYC by 2024. Conveniently, NYC will have a new mayor by then; Mr. Johnson likely will stand among the candidates vying for the post.

N.Y.C. is in the midst of a transformation of its streets. Not only are livemobile lanes continuing to be striped seemingly relentlessly; congestion pricing is set to take effect in 2021. The city council is taking aim at the city’s notorious Stipulated Fine Program finally to charge nominal fines for double parking violations and the like by commercial vehicles; as well, NYCDOT recently clarified that pedal-assist (no throttle tho!) cycles are legal—though not quite yet for for-hire pedicabs. Bike share programs also continue to expand, and pedal-assist bikes seem set to return to Manhattan streets again in 2020. At the same time app-based car services like Uber and Lyft are gaining ridership, increasing congestion and demonstrating that the infrastructure still favor motor vehicles—and smaller motor vehicles including e-scooters and moped rental services have come on line in the last few months to take advantage of current conditions.

The Streets Master Plan may make major strides towards challenging “car culture” through its expansion of bus and bike lanes; however, a massive gap remains between market demands and the safety and emissions aspirations promoted by politicians. Some European cities have taken the bold step of creating “low emission zones”, where only electric vehicles or the like may operate, or “limited use vehicle” zones, where only certain sized vehicles may operate; unfortunately, such measures are not permitted under U.S. federal laws including the Clean Air Act (!) and the Surface Transportation Act. What we soon will see, however, are places such as car parking garages converted to microdistribution hubs, which facilitate transloading to citymile delivery modes such as container trikes developed by Revolution in collaboration with Velove, Cycles Maximus, TQ Motors, Pinion, and Paztir and operated by DHL and others replace the need for many delivery vans and trucks that are the norm today. Additionally, the city could transform its approach to transportation by legalizing electric-assist pedicabs. Speaker Corey Johnson could take another bold step in his stated direction of breaking “car culture” by eschewing his current “sport utility vehicle” shuttle between Chelsea and City Council for a pedicab shuttle. He’ll have earned our vote at that point – and may be a few others…

As for the underlying issue of fossil use and abuse? Well, 99% of the streets in town at the moment comprise asphalt and other petroleum derivatives. We’ll leave that one for another day…