Month: December 2008

Seriously, its official now – the Electoral College has spoken.

Obama picks HPD’s Shaun Donovan for HUD Secretary.

Maps and description of the G-W R6 contextual zoning. This is the a follow-up to the 2005 waterfront rezoning, and introduces contextual zoning to much of the inland areas of north Brooklyn. The goals are similar to those of the upland portion of the 2005 zoning as well as the 2006 FUCA and the 2008 Grand Street rezoning. Hopefully this will be certified in January, 2009.

The biggest increase in commuter traffic was seen on the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges, both of which had new bike paths built on them in 2002.

Since then, commuter bike traffic over the Manhattan Bridge has jumped up from 546 to 2,232 riders per day. On the Williamsburg Bridge, that figure has jumped from 1,117 to 3,001.

Different kind of biker this time. In 25 years of riding, I’ve never heard of an “EPA sticker”, and I’m quite certain that no bike I have ever owned had such a sticker (and they all had stock or extremely quiet aftermarket pipes).

But then again, its chuckleheads like this who make stupid laws possible:

[Biker] Bill Ferraro, president of the Union Ironworkers Motorcycle Club, Local 580, testified that “it’s unsafe for us to ride when the pipes are too low [i.e., quiet].”

If you want to be safer, take a rider safety course and wear a real helmet. (Which isn’t to say that straight pipes don’t sound incredibly cool; they do, just in a really annoying-to-the-rest-of-the-world kind of way.)

The Brooklyn Paper engages in a little sensationalist headline writing over David Yassky’s letter to DOT regarding the Kent Avenue bike lanes. While Yassky’s letter does talk about the impact of the bike lanes on local residents, the emphasis of the letter is clearly on the economic impact. Which is as it should be – as I’ve said before, the Kent bike lanes are a failure in planning because of the impact they have on local businesses, not because we are losing parking spaces. So the headline should read “Pols Back Local Business in Bike Lane Fight“.

(If Yassky, Markowitz et al want to do something for the residents who are most impacted by the greenway, they should be pressuring Shaefer Landing to revoke it exclusionary access policies and let all residents use the driveway for pickups and drop offs. That is just a shameful policy.)

The Daily News gets in on the Meeker plume story. They note that companies are accused of “dumping toxic chemicals”, implying that it was an intentional act. Most other stories have used “leaking” or otherwise more passive language.

Councilmember Yassky and others have sent a letter to DOT asking for changes to the Kent Avenue bike lanes. The basic thrust is not too different from what I have said in the past – bike lanes are important and therefore its important that DOT implement them well. They haven’t done that on Kent Avenue, and it is hurting Kent Avenue business owners.

Yassky et al are proposing that DOT eliminate (paint over) the northbound bike lane until “DOT and the community have developed a collaborative plan”. That is a bad idea, in that once the bike lane is gone, it will be difficult to get it back. If DOT is going to do any repainting, it should repaint the street right – shift all the lanes to the west side of Kent, or install parking on the east side while retaining a northbound bike lane, or do something else that fixes the problem. (Parking is not the problem – economic viability of businesses is. That’s one problem – fix it.)

Also, it should be noted that even though the letter is signed by Evan Thies of CB1, it does not represent official CB1 position. The Board already voted (twice) to support the Greenway, and (once) to ask that DOT come up with a solution that makes both bike traffic and vehicular traffic work on Kent Avenue.

BSA has apparently voted to allow the Finger Building to go forward, in all its 200′ glory. Details as they become available…

(I mistakenly reported that the hearing was yesterday; it was this morning.)

It may be done by now, but today is (final?) judgement for the Finger Building at BSA. Things are not looking for the anti-Finger crowd – according to an email from supporter, HSBC has bought the development project AND the air rights buildings. The fear now is that with the building and the air rights in hand, BSA will deny the opposition motion and let the full 200′ building go up.

Just so we’re clear on this – the developer probably did not have the air rights to permit the building, but DOB granted the permit anyhow (on the basis of the fact that the developer “thought” he had the air rights). Now, four years after the fact, the air rights and the development are actually in the same hands (for the first time in the project’s history). So BSA will validate the original DOB permit, even though it was clearly faulty.

Brownstoner has more here.