Despite another pedestrian getting hit by a car today at 94th and Amsterdam and a majority of those in attendance in favor of the Department of Transportation’s revised plan to add a bike lane and other safety measures to Amsterdam Avenue this spring, the Community Board 7 Transportation Committee’s vote ended in a 4-4 tie and the proposal failed to pass. The Chair will bring the proposal to a vote by the full Board in it’s next meeting on February 2nd.
The initial plan presented by the DOT in November focused on making Amsterdam safer by reducing the four lane “highway” into a more residential street with dedicated left turn lanes and reducing the through lanes from four to three. By shortening the width of the block, especially with an aging Upper West Side community, it provides more time for pedestrians to cross the street and studies show greatly increases pedestrian safety. A northbound bicycle lane, as a pair to the southbound one on Columbus, would be added. The DOT also shared that injuries had dropped 27% since the introduction of the parking-protected bike lane from 110th Street south.
Since the initial presentation, the DOT surveyed 439 community members and 227 merchants along Amsterdam Avenue. While the proposal has been controversial because it would eliminate 25% of the parking spaces along Amsterdam, the surveys showed only 2% of the community members drove to get to the Upper West Side (the rest walking or talking public transportation). In addition, the other key finding is that 52% of merchants say the trucks making deliveries to their business often double-park.
The issue of double-parking was initially a factor when the Columbus Avenue bike lane was implemented and the DOT worked with local businesses to create commercial-only parking zones to help mitigate some of the double parking issues. With the Amsterdam proposal, the DOT initially proposed to have all east side parking as commercial zones, but in talking with merchants have come up with different commercial parking zones from 7am to 7pm (or in some cases just till 1pm) with some on the west side of the street.
Other specific challenges the DOT addressed based on community outreach
- At the Beacon Theater during loading and unloading for specific shows, the loading vehicles would be allowed to use the curbside and the Beacon would put up a temporary bike lane/barrier and then remove afterwards.
- At the Plaza Jewish Community Center at 91st Street where parties usually line up for funeral processions, the DOT proposed prohibiting left turns and thus would allow the current parking spots that would have otherwise been lost for a dedicated left turn lane.
The DOT proposed to complete the corridor from 72nd Street to 110th Street as the first phase of the project. If approved, they believe the lane changes could be completed in three months this spring/summer and the dedicated pedestrian islands within a few weeks after that.
The second phase is a bit more tricky as they have not worked out how the bike lane would integrate with the crossing of Broadway at 72nd Street or how the northbound bike lane would integrate with the rest of the bike lane system below 59th (there currently is no other northbound bike lane between 8th Avenue and the Hudson River – the current 8th Avenue lane merges into Central Park West’s northbound shared road bike lane). Further to the north, the DOT has not detailed connections above 110th Street where Amsterdam turns into a two-way street.
Four committee members were strongly for the DOT proposal, citing the Community Board’s 32-0 vote late last year to make safety the top priority for 2016, as well as strong community support:
Based on petitions, over 3,600 in favor of DOT proposal vs 100 against #amsterdambikelane #uws
— UWSLive (@UWSLive) January 13, 2016
In terms of who is here tonight @CB7Manhattan mtg: a show of hands in room regarding support = majority support for #amsterdambikelane.
— Emily Frost (@efrost1) January 13, 2016
The four opposed cited fear of gridlock, especially with the acknowledged likelihood that delivery trucks would continue to double-park and cause traffic jams. The DOT countered that with the dedicated left-turn lanes delays would be no worse than today and improved at key crossing points to the West Side Highway at 79th and 96th Street.
Committee Co-Chair Andrew Albert, who voted against the proposal, suggested an alternative would be to create a dedicated northbound bike lane on Central Park West which would take the burden off Amsterdam and more cleanly connect with the bike lanes to the north and south. To do this, the DOT said that Central Park West would have to be turned into a one-way northbound street like Fifth Avenue on the east side of the park but they had not studied the full impact of such a proposal.
The other Committee Co-Chair, Dan Zweig (who also opposed the proposal) wanted to study making Columbus a two-way bike lane instead of adding one on Amsterdam. The DOT believed that the pedestrians of Columbus are accustomed to a one-way street and would have issues with having to look both directions in crossing the bike lane, potentially creating more injuries and require a great deal more signage and testing.
In both cases, the DOT noted that putting safety measures on Amsterdam (such as the dedicated left turn lanes) without shrinking the width of the avenue (with the bike lane) would make the safety impact less effective.
The location for the full Community Board meeting on February 2nd is still to be determined.
