Policymaking Steered to Maintain Wall of Elevated Freeway-
via delaying planning until after massive developments constricts
I-87 Major Deegan Expressway expansion,
making any expansion or undergrounding far more expensive


NYSDOT Caves In:

http://www.motthavenherald.com/2009/11/24/state-won%E2%80%99t-build-new-ramps-on-deegan/comment-page-1/#comment-624

Chalk up another one to those that run things.

They hold a single meeting that was not well advertised to the public, particularly those that use the road -- I-87 --, and the meeting is somehow packed with opponents (remember that it was not well advertised).

Despite the clear precidents nearby -- say portions of the upper East River Drive, and the Riverside South Boulevard-Tunnel project -- as well as those overseas in employing highway tunnels to reduce pollution via trapping such and treating it within filtration systems -- the people stirred to fight the NYSDOT proposeal to expand the elevated Deegan Expressway apparantly have never given any consideration to applying such for Mott Haven: instead they act as if steered to simply approve of maintaining the wall of the elevated expressway in compliance with the wishes of some factrion[s] desirious of a new pricy enclave between the elevated highway and the waterfront. They even would act as if a few hundred square feet of space at Mott Haven somehow justified chocking truck access upon an invaluable alternative to the jammed western Cross Bronx Expressway-Sheridan Expressway (the latter which they seek to eliminate) of the South Bronx's major industrial employer area- Hunts Point with its regional food distribution- somethng unconsidered by The Day After Tommorow. And everyone within the government and the well organized-orchastrated 'activist' groups, acts as if that were just so unimportant, with sloganeering a substitute for critical thinking and imagination-application.

Of course NYSDOT need not even consider the cost differences between doing a project now while there's a swath of virtually open industrial wastelands alongside, rather then a few years later with new condo towers build up to the previous building lines, hemming in expansion even for the ramps, while adding 1,000s of new redents and vehicles upon the unwidened ramps.

They apparantly don't even post the plans to the internet.

Then they notify the public through a private conversation confirming the decision, reportedly made November 20, but announced only today, 5 days later, with someone at Mark Gorton's Streetsblog.

The DOT capitulated at a meeting on Nov. 20 requested by the Bronx Borough President’s office, which brought together representatives of the state agency with staff of the city Department of City Planning department, members of Community Board 1 and local elected officials.

“We don’t want to be a bad neighbor in that area,” said Levine, the DOT’s director of public affairs. “What we heard from the community was that the widening would impede” waterfront development.

“They were very clear that at some point they will revisit the issue,” said Sam Goodman, a planner in the Borough President’s office, but not until the rezoning plan has a chance to spur development. Once the area has been built out, the state will consider its options again. In the meantime, said Goodman, other traffic-calming measures will be looked at.

Also see:

http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2009/11/activism-steered-to-maintain-wall-of.html

Activism Steered to Maintain Wall of Elevated Freeway
for quickly building a planned enclave
NY I-87 Major Deegan Expressway Expansion,
Mott Haven, Bronx (waterfront south of Yankee Stadium)

Enlargened ramps would conflict with towers at center-right
(illustration above incorrectly shows I-87 passing over 138th Street)

NYSDOT plans would widen I-87/138th Street ramps, and widen I-87 northward to the McCombs Bridge with a single auxiliary lane per direction, infringing upon portions of adjacent industrial wastelands recently re-zoned for residential towers.

Project area in red

The reaction is to oppose expansion, per se, regardless of how needed, and to so harp upon capacity that they end up distracted, ignoring highway design, despite stated concerns regarding the waterfront development as well as local pedestrian access. From this appear two main points:

- Would conflict with planned waterfront development- councilperson -

"I feel it will deny the community the ability for the first time in our history to develop our waterfront," said Community Board 1 District Manager Cedric Loftin. "We're sick over it and opposed to it."

Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. joined that opposition, saying: "It would preclude residential development with public esplanade access along the only location down by the Harlem River waterfront with sufficient land to do so.

see more-

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2009/11/09/2009-11-09_hey_dont_fence_us_in_deegan_plan_hit_over_fears_it_would_block_concourse_develop.html#ixzz0XjAj9XSa

- We do not need highways or highway expansion, even ramps; we need jobs-

"It benefits commuters headed from Westchester County to Manhattan, not residents of the south Bronx,"

Johnson said. Leila Lopez, a Monroe College student, agreed.

“What’s the point of a better commute when we don’t have jobs?” Lopez asked. “What’s the point of a highway when we don’t have cars? We don’t need a highway. We need jobs. Spend [the $250 million] to create jobs.”

http://www.yournabe.com/articles/2009/11/12/bronx_times/news/doc4afc316256641204114268.txt

Do either of these sentiments go deep enough to serve their interests more broadly, as if a good highway system mattered little to the South Bronx's major employeement area of the Hunts Point District that helps feed the region, or rather more narrowly, via a beholden dogma strictly against any highway expansion, regardless of how well justified as well as designed?

Confining the highway will deny the ramp widening, maintaining and worsening traffic jams. It will also maintain the existing separation of the existing highway.

Getting rid of the highway as the college student might be implying – perhaps inspired by campaigns as this and this – is not going to help create jobs beyond the ‘construction’ phase of the removal and replacement with a boulevard and high priced housing: something which NYC is far more in abundance with then say interstate highways. I-87 is a vital interstate highway link, from its southern end at the approaches to the Triborogh/RFK Bridge northward, with that segment to I-95 – that segment including the Yankee Stadium area – serving as a valuable traffic route alternative to jammed CBE and the less utilized Sheridan Expressway. Beyond that created by construction projects – jobs by that definition temporary for that local – have people as that college student ever frequented places as Hunts Point, South Bronx’s major food terminal and distribution center, home of numerous scrap yards and observed that commercial area’s lifeline of trucks which use primarily – its your choice – the surface streets or the grade separated highways – aka the freeways. Cities don’t work like the movie The Day After Tomorrow where no one seems to go hungry in a Manhattan flooded and frozen over for months with nothing coming in. They have to be feed, with much of the food going through places as Hunts Point, something the elites behind such lock-step organizations as Straphanger’s Campaign, Transportation Alternatives and Tri State Transportation Campaign have a callous disregard.

They like to say either or – street grids not freeways as if the two were intrinsically incompatible- when that's not the case, but rather a cover for diverting traffic away from wealthier areas and through the less affluent ones.

A key consequence of this doctrinaire attitude against urban freeways is the distraction from imagining better designs, not only for the unbuilt links, but as well those built and decried by new urbanists and others- with examples of new urbanists calling for preserving elevated urban freeway segments. Some areas, particularly within and near Washington, D.C. are notoriously subversive of ideas to harmonize highways within the urban environment.

Better then maintaining an existing wall along what is planned to be built along the highway’s adjacent currently industrial properties between it and the Harlem River, what about effectively eliminating to better allow waterfront redevelopment via depressing and covering a portion of reconstructed I-87, with the ramp modifications needed to reconcile both commuter and more local concerns. Let us go beyond thinking about simply some lengthened ramps feeding into an additional highway lane upon the existing Robert Moses era highway configuration.


A better approach- look at Manhattan’s Riverside South boulevard atop a box tunnel for the future Henry Hudson Parkway/Miller Highway relocation. As the article notes, the relocation is decades into the future, noting that the existing elevated highway segment was reconstructed around 1990. However, building portions of this future highway box tunnel now makes sense as being far easier and cheaper to construct before the area is initially constructed- synchronizing roadway and utilities constructions avoiding millions in wasteful demolition.

Since the area alongside the southbound I-87 Major Deegan Expressway lanes – IOW the area between the Deegan and the Harlem River – is now essentially wide open industrial waste, with the few industrial buildings envisioned to be removed by any planning – whether NYSDOT’s project here, or the ---- re-zoning, which envisions 10,000 new residents living in new relatively high rise buildings in this waterfront area northwards from 138th Street to 145th Street, plan it all together. Build a new box tunnel here alongside the existing Deegan for the southbound lanes, shift the traffic into the new tunnel, demolish the existing Deegan and build the northbound tunnel, with footings between each direction of tunnel to support new buildings alongside a new waterfront boulevard. This would be far easier to construct now then say in 50 years with the area built up as envisioned, while providing a far more pleasant local environment. Rather then along an elevated 6 lane I-87, imagine a covered 8 lane I-87, with ramps crossing beneath 138th Street hence removing a great deal of the vehicular traffic from pedestrian crosswalks, and with footings allowing even buildings directly atop the covered, encased freeway. With this coordination, there’s extra capacity for development, highway and local waterfront access.

In re-imaging portions of lower I-87 as cut and cover tunnels. the two most favorable candidates for consideration are:


Willis Street Plaza: new cover built atop existing depressed I-87 segment in vicinity of Willis Street and Triborogh/RFK Bridge approaches. As such it requires no change in the grade of the existing highway roadways, and hence is the least expensive segment of new underground I-87. 138th Street Plaza: new cut and cover underpass beneath and to the north of a 138th Street featuring a new plaza atop the covered highway segment with the ramps reconstructed largely underground, with a southbound ramp from I-87 to the southbound service road passing beneath 138th Street hence reducing vehicular-pedestrian conflict towards the waterfront. This replaces the existing I-87 configuration which quickly dips down to pass in a short underpass crossing beneath 138th Street from a viaduct to the north with short ramps that go to a traffic light intersection with 138th Street, with this underpass configuration extension northward, necessitating bringing down a portion of the elevated segment.

With the existing swath of industrial properties between this segment of I-87 and the Harlem River envisioned for clearing by both NYSDOT’s proposal as well as that for new waterfront development, it is practical to lay the foundation for a combined transit-highway-development and parkland planning with a new cut and cover tunnel Hypothetical options include:

Option A: Depress and cover to 144th Street- a minimum option facilitating development in the 138th-145 Street area

Option B: Depress and cover to 148th Street- an intermediate option facilitating development and waterfront access in the 138-148th Street area

Option C: Depress and cover to 155th Street- go for it, a “Yankee Village” waterfront development. This would be the most ambitious, yet still less expensive to build sooner then later particularly if new buildings are placed alongside in close proximity.

The above are the two likeliest areas as either existing depressed, or such with ample area to transition configuration.

The topography for undergrounding the entire segment between in the area near that punctuated by the Metro North RR and Grand Concourse roadways and extending towards the existing dressed segment near Willis Street would, in contrast, require far more earth removal, leading to consideration of reconstructing the elevated freeway with a friendlier streetscape, with a ramp from the Bruckner to the inbound Willis that passes beneath the service road, hence further reducing vehicular-pedestrian conflict towards the waterfront.

A covered upgraded I-87 would serve the most.

Covered it would not be seen, hear or smelt.

Covered, it would better allow development, as well as improve the quality of life for everyone else in the southern Bronx, as noise travels upward. Footings could allow new buildings to be built partially atop the new underground highway segment, offsetting the added width of the added capacity (which would also serve the added auto population of the not yet as of this writing built new developments.

Covered, its additional capacity would lack the adverse affects of the existing highway configuration in the denser urban environment, and serve to reconnect the area broadly.

With the extra capacity, taking it from 3 to 4 lanes per direction, providing for an even 2+2+4 lane match at the approaches, plus a merge lane between I-95 and the Triborogh/RFK Bridge, the new lower I-87 would better serve as a bypass for the Cross Bronx Expressway, for the industrial areas as Hunts Point, and beyond into Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island, and for accommodating the new residences, starting with those envisioned by the new waterfront planning.

Now it would be most cost effective, while we have the existing industrial swath to work with, facilitating and easing construction as a foundation for the new real estate development to come alongside and even in places atop. Let’s not create another waterfront enclave, something less an extension of the street grid and more of a cul de sac thing, with a chocked current design Major Deegan Expressway remaining as a barrier.

Alas, the imagination-less with regard to highway design lock-step groups are set out to steer the 'debate' by actually keeping a wall along the southwestern Bronx Waterfront- all for the sake of a more quickly developed enclave:

Don't Waste Money On Expanding the Major Deegan

The New York State Department of Transportation wants to widen a section of the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx, a project they estimate could cost up to $343 million by the time construction is complete. This will cut off access to the waterfront for Bronx residents and jam more traffic through the area.

Money for the Deegan could be used within the Bronx in ways that will improve quality of life. The State DOT is considering removing the nearby Sheridan Expressway and replacing it with affordable housing and mixed-use development. But the Sheridan project, which could dramatically improve the quality of life in Bronx neighborhoods pummeled by truck traffic, is only getting $2 million over the next five years.

The Deegan does need to be rehabilitated. But wider ramps and new highway lanes aren't part of that. A true rehabilitation would save the state millions of dollars that could be used for worthier causes.

A State DOT spokesperson has said “We won’t do it [the Deegan] if we hear from the community and elected officials. We’ll take the money elsewhere.” Send this letter and tell State DOT Commissioner Stan Gee and the Deegan project team that this is exactly what they should do.

Interesting how they tie it to the removal of the Sheridan Expressway - a parallel yet far shorter freeway to the east that in conjunbcyion with the highly congested western portion of the Cross Bronx Expressway, serves as a major truck route to Hunts Point.

Given how jammed the western portion of the CBE is, why have not they even studied diverting some of that traffic — paticularly the thousands of Hunts Point bound trucks along an expanded I-87 that would be largely buried in such box tunnels where the traffic emissions would be trapped and filtrated, as done overseas to reduce local air pollution (but somehow never even mentioned by within the U.S. critics of urban highways, nor by any if those citing asthma in the Bronx).

And from a comments board:

http://blog.tstc.org/2009/11/20/comments-on-nysdot-major-deegan-project-due-monday/#comments

· Michael Bongiovi

November 23rd, 2009 at 3:11 pm

Dear Sir or Madame,

Please do not expand the MDE… at this time the Bronx needs the money for other uses (such as improved public transit); and local residents need to be able to reach the renewable waterfront. Please help our Bronx community – not motorists speeding by.
Sincerely, Michael Bongiovi

[Address removed -- Michael, we'll forward this message on to State DOT. -Steven Higashide]

A click on the link for Michael Bongiovi goes to Fordham University "The Jesuit University of New York".

Jesuit Fordham has long been active in the sort of dogmatic anti freeway agitating, as so with their Georgetown University Law Center, and such long allies as the "Committee of 100 on the federal City" and the powerful Washington, D.C. law firm Covington & Burling, with prominent Jesuits as California's Jerry Brown long adhering to 'guilting' people over the widespread ownership and use of automobiles.

And from another comments board:

boris256

9:13:50 AM
Nov 9, 2009

The state's 50-year-long effort to destroy the city and have everyone move out to the suburbs continues. No surprises there. What's surprising is that Ruben Diaz, who generally likes the astronomical pollution, congestion, and asthma levels of his district- he vehemently opposed congestion pricing- all of the sudden sides with the residents. Did some real estate developer pay him off as soon as the city rezoned the land for development?

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2009/11/09/2009-11-09_hey_dont_fence_us_in_deegan_plan_hit_over_fears_it_would_block_concourse_develop.html#ixzz0XjRWDHye

In this instance as with others, such was within Washington, D.C., there is some key property with an interest by some politically powerful entity, here with the new developement, perhaps the area around the ramps in question, as opposing ramps is a more extreme position then opposing adding continious freeway capacity.

The area in question has undoubtedly attracted higher up attention recently, as evidiced by this design competition.

Winners of design competition (specific link)
with hand pointing to the I-87/138th Street interchange

Contrived Sustainability
Wendell Cox 11/19/2009

The draft reauthorization of the federal surface transportation (highway and transit) in the House of Representatives is filled with initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, often by seeking to encourage compact development (smart growth) policies. Dr. Ronald D. Utt of the Heritage Foundation discovered an interesting definition in the draft: “sustainable modes of transportation” means public transit, walking, and bicycling” (Section 333(P)7, page 219, accessed November 18, 2009).


This definition would mean that a Toyota Prius that emits one-half as many grams of greenhouse gases per passenger mile as a transit system (not an unusual occurrence) is not sustainable transportation, while the transit system is. There will be more cases like this as time goes on, as vehicle fuel economy improves and the impact of alternative fuel technology is expanded. This is irrational and the worst kind of ideology.


It is possible, of course, that this is simply sloppy legislative drafting. But given the persistence of the compact development lobby and its contribution to pending legislation in Washington in the face of respected research demonstrating its scant potential, something else may be operating. The wording may betray an agenda more concerned with forcing people to accept the favored (and anti-suburban) lifestyles that an urban elite has long sought to impose on others than it is to reduce greenhouse gases. Sustainability in greenhouse gas emissions is not about the hobby horses of one group of advocates or another, it is rather about reducing greenhouse gas emissions as efficiently as possible. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the rest of Washington needs to focus on ends, not means.


Provisions that pick particular strategies, without regard to their effectiveness, have no place in a crusade so much of the scientific community has characterized in apocalyptic terms. Moreover, such disingenuousness, in the longer run, could whittle away the already apparently declining precarious for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

A New Underground Freeway Link in Anchorage?

Current transportation study includes option of sunken freeway designed to be covered with development, for connecting Anchorage, Alaska's Seward and Glenn Highways.

http://www.adn.com/anchorage/story/993155.html

http://www.adn.com/anchorage/story/993155.html

(excerpt)

QUALIFIED SUPPORT

The Fairview Community Council -- in the neighborhood that would be ground zero for a freeway in the Gambell-Ingra corridor -- stands apart from the other community councils.

The Fairview council has supported the Gambell-Ingra connection since it came up four years ago.

It still supports the idea "conditionally," said Sharon Chamard, the Fairview council president. The condition is that the freeway would support the kind of development Fairview wants, she said.

As initially proposed, the freeway connection would be sunken. It would be covered over in places to allow neighborhood streets to cross it, and some other developments such as parks or commercial buildings to be built on top of it.

Fairview is already split in two by Gambell and Ingra, which are high-speed, one-way roads that can be scary to cross.

Unfortunately, as apparent from the following excerpt, the consideration appears to be that all too common zero sum equation (in a nation as rich as the U.S.!) pitting supporters of improved highways and rail transit against one another:

Michael Howard, a member of the Fairview board who lives about a block from Gambell and Ingra, says he thinks the project has been too "narrowly construed" from the get-go.

"It's being limited to where are we going to put the freeway," Howard said, when he thinks goals should be doubling or tripling public transit use, encouraging walking and bicycle riding, and building vibrant neighborhoods.

Howard is president of the Anchorage Citizens Coalition, a nonprofit group concerned with preserving neighborhoods. The coalition takes a similar stance.

Childers said the planners will consider expanded public transit -- everything from commuter rail from the Valley to the fast bus system they call bus rapid transit -- as part of every solution. And one scenario will focus on creating the kind of densely populated employment and residential areas that make public transit work best.

New Haven (Yale's) Idea of "Reconnection"

New boondoggle demolition special
that blocks the extension of the Route 34 Freeway's underground path
just past the Air Rights Garage,
placing corridor traffic instead all upon surface S Frontage Street,
so dividing the area, though
with skybridge for Yale people to cross over

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2009/05/rubiks_cube_ris.php

Posted by: anon | May 28, 2009 10:40 AM

Seems like this $500M+ development would have been a great opportunity for the hospital/city/state/developers to fix the situation on Route 34, which currently creates a "wall" between the Hill and the rest of New Haven.

Since the DOT didn't push any serious improvements to Route 34 or the Frontage Road areas, now we're going to see the place open, thousands of new people in the area, hundreds of new parking spaces for cars, with the streets just as deadly as they were before. Cars are still going to be zipping by the front of the hospital (with its literally hundreds of thousands of elderly, blind, deaf, disabled and child visitors every year) and running reds at 50 miles per hour -- even though other hospitals around the country are trying hard to limit vehicle speeds in their area to 15-20 miles per hour tops, and narrow crosswalks, which saves lives and encourages people to walk more. There's no real plan for mass transit either.

The state DOT and the hospital should be ashamed for holding improvements up in paperwork and refusing to push more progressive, immediate actions that would prevent serious injuries and reinvigorate the city's economy.

Some additional links on this planning:

An article from Feb 7 2002 where the Mayor (who is the same Mayor who today supports killing the highway) promotes the sensible idea of a short underground extension built with footings to support air rights development.

http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2002/02/07/mayor-wants-biotech-put-in-connector-plan/

An article dated March 17, 2003, with the info that Phizer got the land for, get this, $1

http://www.conntact.com/archive_index/archive_pages/4118_Business_New_Haven.html

Yet that same Mayor now seeks federal $$ to destroy much of the existing operating freeway:

http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/city-news/2009/04/22/plans-for-route-34-demolition-are-revealed/

http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2008/04/yale-and-pfizers-transportation-treason.html

I really don't get it. You concentrate economic activity to the downtown area and the Route 34 "Corridor", and then you restrict access to the area by choking its main artery? Let's not be silly. We do not have alternate transportation; we do not even have near the population density to support mass transit without massive subsidies (a much larger subsidy than required for the roads). You talk of pedestrians and safety, and I can think of nothing safer than keeping the vehicles away from the people in limited access cuts or covered roadways. Just think, a limited access roadway can handle approximately 1200 cars per lane per hour, a surface street can handle about 600 under ideal conditions. You need twice as many surface lanes for the same amount of traffic, and that traffic which now moves at a steady flow would have to start and stop at traffic lights, a major source of air pollution. Pedestrians that now cross the Rt. 34 roadway on bridges would now have to cross twice as many lanes in a crosswalk.

If the purpose is to reduce the traffic in the "Corridor", which is not what a developer wants to hear (one of the comments about Yale's purchase of the West Haven site was "Access to I-95"), where will the traffic go? Onto an adjacent local street, exacerbating traffic conditions on those nearby streets to the point of gridlock? Or maybe not come to New Haven at all, as Yale has shown us with their West Haven site.

This isn't an issue of cars vs. pedestrians and bicycles. Cars and trucks are and will be the transport of choice for a long time. It is safer and better for pedestrians and bicycles to keep as many cars and trucks as we can off the local streets. This idea that a "Boulevard" is more pedestrian friendly than an expressway is a crock.

The problem with Route 34 is that Henry Fernandez and JD gave it away to Pfizer when they didn't demand that their building be built on a platform, and JD has now let Yale build in the Rt. 34 right-of-way also. Now JD is cramming Gateway College into the mix, Yale is continuing to build, and the Hospital continues to grow. All this traffic in two surface lanes...What ARE you thinking?

Thank God I've lived long enough to see someone else understand the problems with those decisions. If that one block next to the Air Rights garage had been built differently, the connector traffic could at least continue under the garage and surface up ramps into that block, or even better, the next block. Look at the snarled traffic in that area during any rush hour - New Haven traffic engineering at it's finest.

Severe Tire Damage for Preventing Wrong Way Driving?

Last July, Diane Schuler caused her death and that of 7 others by driving the wrong way onto a controlled access highway- the Taconic State Parkway in Westchester County New York - entering it via an off ramp and driving for over a mile before having a head on collision.

While attention focuses upon after the fact measures of punishment, has anyone even considered installing something akin to the 'Severe Tire Damage' devices used at entryways to parking lots, on highway off-ramps to prevent such wrong way vehicles from proceeding onto the highway? With such devices are designed for slow speed (5 mph) traffic, a variation allowing higher speeds could take out the tires of wrong way vehicles preventing such accidents and resulting in Diane Schuler explaining to her husband why she needs to replace her vehicle's tires.

From Commuter Outrage:

Traffic Justice (For Some – Those Injured by Cyclists Need Not Apply)

by Lewis Derkins
August 20th, 2009, 7:49 am

Streetsblog loves to rail about “traffic justice,” and lately it seems like I see it on the site every day.

Yesterday, Streetsblog was at it again with a post describing the reaction of a woman who witnessed a traffic accident in front of a subway station. In response to the accident, Streetsblog elaborates their strategy to reduce traffic accidents:

A more effective approach, for starters, would be an across the board no tolerance policy to speeding on city streets, coupled with prosecution of reckless motorists who maim and kill.

Streetsblog echoes this approach every chance they get, usually using provocative post titles like, “Want to Reduce Pedestrian Deaths? Stop Letting Their Killers Walk.” In fact, they have a whole section titled “Traffic Justice” to chronicle seemingly every death or injury at the hands of an automobile.

But it’s hard to take Streetsblog seriously when their notion of traffic justice isn’t blind – if you happen to be a pedestrian killed or injured at the hands of a cyclist, Streetsblog has no interest in your story.

Take, for example, the tragic case of Stuart Gruskin, successful businessman, devoted husband, father of two – killed by a cyclist going the wrong way down a one-way street on April 28, 2009. (Perhaps I should start using Streetsblog traffic justice lingo and call this reckless act what it is – murder.)

You won’t find anything about Mr. Gruskin on Streetsblog. He has been completely ignored. The traffic justice wall is silent for him. There were no posts on the day he was hit, the day he finally died from his injuries, or either of the two days that the New York Daily News publicized the accident (here and here). No calls for safety and consideration on the part of cyclists. No calls for cyclists to obey the traffic laws, or for authorities to enforce them. No rallying in defense of the “vulnerable pedestrians” that we hear so much about in other contexts. Just the deafening silence of self-service.

Mr. Gruskin isn’t the only one left out, on average 1 pedestrian per year will die at the hands of a cyclist in New York City, and 500 will be injured. These facts have been verified by a very thorough New York DOT study, and by Transportation Alternatives. But this overlooks more than simply the tallying of cyclist caused deaths and injuries. These numbers (if you even know about them) don’t really tell you how dangerous renegade cyclists are.

Even using Transportation Alternatives ridiculous and wildly inflated estimate of 185,000 cyclists per day in New York, cyclists kill pedestrians at a rate of .06 for every 10,000 bicycles on the road. They injure 27.03 pedestrians per 10,000 bicycles on the roads. Using our more reasonable methodology for counting cyclists, yields a pedestrian fatality rate of .30 per 10,000 bicycles and an injury rate of 147.93 per 10,000. (I have updated my methodology to incorporate the most recent screenline counts and commuter data.)

By comparison, the roughly 2.86 million cars in the city kill pedestrians at a rate of .54 per 10,000 cars on the road, and injure them at a rate of 34.8 per 10,000 cars on the road.

The rates for cars are higher, but if you consider that there are at least 15.6 times as many cars on the roads, you should see that the trend of dangerous cycling is serious and shouldn’t be ignored. Cyclists injure pedestrians at a rate comparable to cars (and depending on which count you believe, potentially at a rate 4 times higher). And, as Streetsblog loves to point out, pedestrian deaths are almost always preventable – especially at the hands of cyclists. Of course, that would require us to acknowledge that cyclists should be told to follow the laws, and the police should enforce them – two ideas that Streetsblog refuses to accept.

There is absolutely no reason for Streetsblog to refuse to acknowledge the bad along with the good of cycling. They are a powerful blog, and they have a big voice that could be used to encourage safe cycling, which in turn would save the lives of both cyclists and pedestrians. It would also legitimize their notion of traffic justice and their constant tirade against the automobile.

Instead, Streetsblog published a memorial a couple of days ago to a cyclist hit by a car – buried in the post was a brief acknowledgement that he was killed because he ran a red light on his bike, and Streetsblog didn’t condemn that behavior at all. But they did find time that same day to once again rail against drivers who kill pedestrians.

Streetsblog’s version of traffic justice is sadly reminiscent of the Jim Crow era – separate legal standards for different groups. Wrong as they were, Jim Crow laws at least feigned a pretense of equality – Streetsblog doesn’t. A world without colorblind justice isn’t just at all. It’s selectively tyrannical.

Update 8/20/09: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that as of today, Mr. Gruskin’s murderer still hasn’t been charged with a crime. Where’s his “traffic justice,” Streetsblog?