It’s Official: Citi Bike To Open in New York City on May 27
Citi Bikes in docking station (Planetgordon.com/Flickr)
The big biking news this week is that the first phase of New York City’s Citi Bike bike share system will finally launch on May 27th to program members (and to everyone else the next week), and New Yorkers’ enthusiasm (and a little controversy) is mounting. Some New Yorkers, over 8,000 according to Transportation Commissioner Sadik-Kahn (with more than 4,000 of them in the first 24 hours), could not wait to start pedaling and have already signed up for annual memberships. Meanwhile, malcontents from across the City have spoken up in attempts to stop Citi Bike from rolling onto their blocks.
Will New York’s Bike Lanes Last? Gil Penalosa Addresses the Planning Commission
The 8th Avenue Complete Streets program keeps cyclists safe from cars and their doors. (Courtesy NYCDOT)
With only 75 weeks left in New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration, cyclists the city over will inevitably be concerned about the next mayor’s stance on bike lanes and street designs lest initiatives put in place under Bloomberg fall from grace. One need only to recall Marty Markowitz’s parodic tricycle stunts poking fun at bike lanes or former NYC DOT commissioner Iris Weinshall’s efforts to remove a protected bike lane from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park West to realize that the concern is not unfounded.
At yesterday’s regularly-scheduled City Planning review session, former Bogotá Parks Commissioner Gil Penalosa was invited to give a pep talk, placing a particular emphasis on bike lanes. He warned an audience filled with commissioners and planning staff that as the weeks wind down before the mayor leaves office, they’d better get cracking at PR and permanence: the public needs to become even more familiar with the bike network and the infrastructure needs to become permanent—and striped bike lanes won’t cut it!
Ten Thousand Blue Citibikes to Hit New York Streets
A Citibike demonstration at today's announcement. (Branden Klayko / AN)
Beginning this July, thousands of bright-blue Citibikes will begin swarming the streets of Manhattan and eventually Brooklyn and Long Island City, Queens. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYCDOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan made the formal announcement today that Citibank has signed on as the official sponsor for the city’s new bike share system.
Sadik-Khan Serves Up Some Mumford
DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan in City College's Shephard Hall after the lecture. (AN/Stoelker)
Last night was a night of tough decisions. ArchNewsNow threw its tenth anniversary party at the Center for Architecture and DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan gave the Mumford Lecture at City College—on opposite ends of town at the same time. Impossible to do both, our Publisher Diana Darling partied down with ArchNewsNow and we headed for the Mumford Lecture, sending hearty congratulations to ArchNews editor Kristen Richards. Despite missing the party, the trip Uptown was well worth it…
DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan has been invited to deliver the prestigious 2012 Lewis Mumford Lecture on Urbanism at the Spitzer School of Architecture at City College on April 5. The lecture will be held in the freshly restored Shepard Hall.
NYC Gears Up for Bike Share…but Where?
AIANY's Rick Bell and ArchNewsNow's Kristen Richards check out the new bikes. (Stoelker/AN)
To hell with what Pennsylvania groundhog Punxsutawney Phil says about there being six more weeks of winter; if you want a true harbinger of spring, head over the Center for Architecture for a last chance to check out the “Two Wheel Transit” show mounted by the DEP for their bike share program that going to be launched in the spring. The show teases out some of the details of the plan that will add rentable public bikes to the New York City’s transit options. The exhibit closes this Saturday, but if you don’t make it over in time, you can go to one of the community bike share workshops that begin on Monday. The first meeting will be held at 25 Carmine Street. The workshops will give New Yorkers a chance to comment on where to put the 600 bike stations.
Pedestrians First at Grand Army Plaza
A crowd gathers to celebrate Grand Army Plaza. (Branden Klayko)
Brooklyn’s grandest public space at the top of Prospect Park has always been a work in progress. Grand Army Plaza, an oval-shaped public space composed of monuments ringed by an inner and an outer roadway, was built as the main entrance to the park in 1866, serving as a buffer between nature and city and happened to be the confluence of some of Brooklyn’s busiest avenues. Over the years, a monumental archway was added, fountains came and went, and eventually the roads were widened until the lush plaza was effectively cut off from the surrounding Prospect Heights and Park Slope neighborhoods. Last week, however, after months of construction to tame the out-of-control roadways, a group of civic leaders and officials gathered in what was once a busy street to celebrate the newly reclaimed plaza.
2011 Jane Jacobs Medalists Champion City Life
As we all know, Jane Jacobs was a visionary urban activist and author, whose 1961 publication of The Death and Life of Great American Cities had a tremendous impact on how we think about cities and urban planning today. She challenged prevailing assumptions in urban planning at a time when slum-clearing was the norm and emphasized the intricacies and sensitivities of an urban fabric. In 2007, the year after Jacobs died, the Rockefeller Foundation launched the Jane Jacobs Medal, an annual award given to those who stand by Jacobs’ principles and whose “creative uses of the urban environment” renders New York City “more diverse, dynamic and equitable.”
Quick Clicks> AOL’s New Offices, Philly Makeover, NYC vs. LA, & Brownwashing Republicans
Aol's new offices in Palo Alto. (Mario Anima/Flickr)
AOL’s New Offices Are Snazzy: Fast Company has a slideshow of interior shots of AOL’s new offices in Palo Alto. The space was designed to be bright and collaborative. “This being a tech company, naturally, it’s got a game room, too,” writes Suzanne LaBarre. The interiors are the work of Studio O+A, which has designed offices for other Internet companies like Yelp, Facebook and PayPal.
Philly Set For a Makeover: Sometimes it seems like Philly is the East Coast city people love to hate on for its small size, poor public transit and high crime rates. That may change soon with a new comprehensive plan for the city that could include: “more open space, bike lanes and preservation efforts, as well as specific goals including an extension of the Broad Street subway to the Navy Yard, an east Market Street that can really be Philly’s ‘Main Street’, a waterfront lined with parks.”
NYC’s Lesson for LA: New York Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan blogs on how Los Angeles can learn from New York City’s Plaza program. It’s the quintessential showdown of cities: New York, a dense metropolis where most native-born teens don’t even have their driver’s licenses, and LA, a sprawling auto-centric city. There’s even a book called “New York and Los Angeles” that says so. Sadik-Khan’s piece is part of Streetsblog’s new series on how the best transportation practices in other cities can be adapted for LA.
Brownwashing Republicans: Grist has a list of 10 Republican politicians who are backtracking on pro-environment statements they’ve made in the past. The #1 offender is presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who called for climate action in a 2008 ad for Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection. Earlier this year, he said, “”I would not adopt massively expensive plans over a theory.”
QUICK CLICKS> Flyways, Pitstops, Bikes and the City
Time lapse photography reveals an enlightened path (Courtesy Lost at E Minor).
Heavenly highways. No, this isn’t a preview of the Rapture (whose marketing graphics leave much to be desired)–it’s a series of time lapse photographs of the quotidian take-offs and landings of airplanes, courtesy of Lost At E Minor.
Out of Gas. Sunday Zipcar drivers take note: when the current lease runs out, the Gaseteria-turned-BP at the corner of Lafayette and Houston Streets in Manhattan will become the site of a new “super-secret five- to seven-story commercial loft development with luxury retail” reports The Observer.
Pro “Roberta Moses.” In her article “Anatomy of a Take Down,” Karrie Jacobs of Metropolis deftly deconstructs the critical pile-on around DOT Commissioner Janet Sadik-Khan and her transformation of New York City’s streets. If Jacobs were mayor, she says, she’d throw Sadik-Khan a ticker-tape parade.
Two-wheeled Commute. Happy National Bike to Work Day! Dissuaded by inclement weather in the northeast? For inspiration, check out Street Films’ video–after the jump–of Lucette Gilbert, in her “very late 70s,” who has been getting around New York by bike since the transit strike of 1980.
Quick Clicks> Boardwalk, High-Speed, Archives 2.0, the Street
Wood is good, say residents of Coney Island of their historic boardwalk (Courtesy Intiaz/Flickr).
Boardwalk Empire. The Brooklyn Paper reports that Coney Island will not be getting a concrete boardwalk, at least not if Community Board 13 has a say in the matter. The board members recently voted down a proposal from the Parks Department that would cement over parts of the historic Riegelmann Boardwalk while covering some of the famed seaside path with recycled plastic lumber.
Express Train. The Van Alen Institute wants to know what you think of the future of high-speed rail in the United States. Check out its call for design ideas here.
Digital Architectural History. The Chicago Tribune’s Blair Kamen brings news that the good folks at the Ryerson and Burnham Archives at the Art Institute of Chicago have digitized 5,000 images from Archpaper’s late 19th century predecessor, the Inland Architect and News Record, offering up photos and drawings from a pivotal period in US architectural history.
Sharing is Caring. New York’s Municipal Art Society kicked off its second annual “Streets Month” with a program about the city’s new and innovative place-making efforts, including a presentation by DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. Check out a recap and analysis from MAS over here.
Quick Clicks> Coops, Help Japan, Sidewalk Dining, and Rooftops
Chicken Circus by Studio H via Jetson Green.
Coop Moderne. Urban agriculture is all the rage lately, and with the backyard gardens come the chickens. Jetson Green offers a few examples of high-design chicken coops made of reclaimed materials by Studio H, a design-build program for high-school students in North Carolina.
Aid. Architecture for Humanity is working on plans to provide relief to victims of the Sendai earthquake and tsunami. The post-disaster reconstruction group is asking for donations now to they can build later. If you would like to support Japan more immediately, the Japanese Red Cross Society is also a good choice.
Al Fresco Forward. As the weather begins to warm, the New York DOT has announced that it’s pop-up cafe program is moving forward. Modeled after pop-up sidewalk cafes in San Francisco and other cities, New York tried out its first model in the Financial District last year. The planter-lined sidewalk extensions project six feet into the street and are paid for by sponsoring businesses. The Post has the list of DOT-approved restaurants in Soho, the Village, and elsewhere.
Rooftop Remix. Web Urbanist put together a collection modern rooftop additions from around the world by the likes of MVRDV, Coop Himmelb(l)au, and others. As Web Urbanist points out, the juxtapositions of the additions against their host structures is quite striking. (Via Planetizen.)
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