Employees at Birdbath Bakery signal their support for a bike lane on Amsterdam Avenue. Photo via Transportation Alternatives organizer Thomas DeVito.
By Meredith Kurz
Street safety advocates have been organizing tirelessly — even in the middle of last week’s blizzard — to gather support for a redesign of Amsterdam Avenue. The community board’s transportation committee voted 4-4 last month on the city’s proposal for the redesign, surprising many people in the room given that the vast majority of speakers at the meeting had supported the plan.
Safety advocates say Transportation Committee chairs Andrew Albert and Dan Zweig, both of whom voted against the proposal, have been recalcitrant in the face of clear community support for safer streets and bike lanes. Neither Albert nor Zweig responded to requests for comment.
Board Chair Elizabeth Caputo, however, said the full 50-member community board will get to vote on the proposal and can overturn the transportation committee’s decision (a tie vote effectively would kill the proposal).
The meeting will take place Tuesday, February 2 at 6:30pm at Goddard Riverside Community Center, 593 Columbus Avenue (at 88th Street). You can also submit comments to office@cb7.org.
Under the plan, the city would turn Amsterdam into a three-lane road (it’s now four lanes) and it would get a protected bike lane and left-hand turn lanes. There would also be pedestrian islands to shorten the crossing distance. These types of changes have led to decreases in pedestrian injuries on other avenues, including Columbus.
Street safety advocate Willow Stelzer says she’s gotten 3,600 people to sign a petition in favor of the redesign, and advocates have gotten support from more than 200 businesses. The effect on businesses was one of the biggest concerns among the handful of people who spoke against the plan at the January meeting.
“For the most part local businesses support the redesign of Amsterdam Avenue including the bike lane,” said Willow Stelzer. “As an Upper West Sider, I much prefer to spend my time on streets that are bicycling and pedestrian friendly, and I’m not alone in that. They just feel nicer, calmer, and more like a neighborhood. “
Here’s a small example of the businesses that support the Amsterdam project: Greenstones Children’s Clothing, Writopia, Beer Shop, Gleam Hair Salon, Levain Bakery, Blossom Restaurant, Joe’s Bar, Birdbath Bakery, Henry’s Restaurant, Crepes on Columbus, Gastronomie, Hosteling International, Irving Farm, and Sasha’s Coffee. Some organizations include St. Luke’s Mount Sinai, 75th Street Block Association, Hazon (a sustainable community organization), Goddard Riverside Community Center, Calhoun School, a local synagogue and a local church.
Read the most recent iteration of the plan below:
Why does everyone like the Upper West Side? For me it’s because it feels like a neighborhood. It’s walkable, there are a bunch of great small businesses, and there are parks all around us. The fact that the architecture is a bit more human scale than other parts of Manhattan helps.
Rebuilding Amsterdam fits in with all of those principals. Keeping the neighborhood strong does not always mean saying NO to progress. We’re going to add a safer, tree-lined, pedestrian friendly avenue. I don’t even care about the bike lane part because I don’t own a bike. For me it just reinforces everything I like about living here.
Flip it around, if we had a tree lined separated avenue and someone was talking about coming in and bull dozing it to build a 4 lane highway, what would the community reaction be?
The city wants to invest in making everything we like about this area better, let’s say YES.
A 4-lane highway isn’t appropriate for an urban street. It should be narrowed.
I want to thank the many local advocates who collected the 3,600 petition signatures in support of the redesign. I certainly didn’t do it on my own!
There is tremendous support for this among residents and businesses alike. They know this will improve our neighborhood and make the avenue safer for everyone. I hope the community board reflects this support by approving this commonsense proposal.
I did three Saturdays of outreach. It was great to get to know more people at a slew of my favorite local businesses, plus discover some new ones – the places where you think, I must have walked past this shop a hundred times.
While I would tentatively explain why we were coming in, it was amazing and gratifying how many business owners jumped right to the point. “Is this about the bike lane? This street is out of control. We need that thing!”
I live on a restaurant-packed block of Amsterdam where parked delivery bikes outnumber the parked cars. Even before Citibike comes in as a point-to-point transportation option, the Upper West Side as a neighborhood supports eight great local bike shops. Really hope to see a safe bike lane on Amsterdam as quickly as possible.
DOT has evaluated and help create many “safe streets” over the years. They have consistently confirmed it lives up to its name. its always much safer for all.
lets eliminate Amsterdam Av. from being the most dangerous in our neighborhood. Our community needs and deserves a safer Amsterdam Av. for all users.
I’ve been housebound for some weeks ergo I have not had the opportunity to sign a petition, but I am in favor of redesigning Amsterdam Avenue as proposed; a bike lane and a pedestrian safety zone.I can’t get there, but I urge all of you who are able to do so, go to the meeting.
Sorry to hear you’re home-bound. Hope you get better soon.
If you want to register your support, you can send an e-mail to office@CB7.org with “FOR Amsterdam Avenue Redesign” in the subject line.
I am all for safer Amsterdam Avenue, but I would be careful about the potential for extending the gridlock we have on Amsterdam Avenue below 72nd street due to the ill redesign of the Amsterdam/Broadway intersection. There are always cars and trucks stuck over the crosswalks and you are dodging them crossing the street. As someone driving or walking up Amsterdam daily, I can tell you the four lanes are a fallacy. Between parked cars, double parked cars, trucks delivering to local businesses, school buses, MTA buses etc. you generally have two lanes clear at most. If you take one away you will have a total gridlock during morning rush the first time there is a concert at Beacon. The massive trucks often take up two lanes right where the lane is supposed to start. Then you always have a truck in front of Duane Reade between 78th/79th blocking the right turning lane, causing big back ups in the middle lane. Same situation at 86th, and 96th is often a mess with trucks blocking BOTH left and right turn. So unless major changes are made there will be huge gridlock around every major crosstown street.
Yes to this bike lane.
And could CB7 please update their web site to reflect the February calendar of events? I called and yet…January remains.
I’ve come to think that this proposal is misnamed. Yes, it’s a bike lane proposal. But the real reason to support it is because it will protect pedestrians. One fewer lane of vehicular traffic to cross and other engineering changes will make the street much safer for people crossing.
Obviously, it will also keep bicyclists safer, and it will keep pedestrians safer from bicyclists too. As a pedestrian, It feels safer for me to know where the bicyclists are likely to be when there’s a bike lane. And it’s definitely safer for me to have fewer traffic lanes to cross.
But safety is what this is about. I hope the board approves the proposal tonight.
As demonstrated by all the businesses and residents who have signed on to support this proposal, Board members should without a doubt adopt the Safe Streets Initiative that DOT has brought to the Board.
Reducing the crossing distance across Amsterdam makes it easier for pedestrians, creating a protected bike lane makes riding safer for cyclists, and loading zones for trucks makes delivery easier for businesses.
Vote YES!
I think there’s a level of latitude you give to WSR “correspondents,” but this article in particular is simply too biased. I get that it feels special to be pitched by Transportation Alternatives, but this article and its readers are not well served by the lack of any balance at all.
Also, it’s weird that “Transportation Alternatives” isn’t mentioned in the article – it’s all “safety advocates,” which is smart messaging by TA, but obfuscates the fact that it’s Mark Gorton’s cycling activist group that’s behind this story. Very surprising that WSR would have taken the bait like that.
I dunno. I guess I expected better, considering how complicated and contentious this issue has become.
Well, TransAlt is listed in the caption and its logo is on the sign.
There’s a misperception from Joseph Bolanos that people who supported this plan don’t actually live here or don’t belong. Trust me, we do. Nobody goes to CB meeting after meeting, praying this gets implemented before anyone dies, or shows up in a record-setting blizzard on a Saturday to spend hours to a goal, unless they’re committed to it.
And complicated and contentious – well, if you watch your TBS reruns, so was the question of whether Kevin Bacon could go to prom. Doesn’t mean there’s equal merit, it can mean there’s resistance to change. The UWS has three wide avenues lined with commercial establishments, in a neighborhood where 75% of the households are car free. It’s great that Amsterdam is going to be enhanced with a bike lane.
Talk to any cab driver Columbus ave is one lane with all the double parking during the week, same will happen to Amsterdam ave.
Why are most of the businesses that are pro- bike lanes mentioned, NOT on Amsterdam Ave.??
Why can’t we have bike-law enforcement in place before we consider more bike lanes? the anger and disrespect of bikers is insulting and disgusting… jumping onto sidewalks, weaving between cars and NEVER obeying traffic lights or paying mind to pedestrians!
You should not use the word NEVER. That is insulting to all of us who do.
Do you always stop at red lights and remain stopped until the light turns green? Do you do this even if you’re riding through Central Park and there are no cars? You must know that’s unusual (I do agree it happens more often than never).
Do you always wait on the curb until the pedestrian signal indicates that you can cross the roadway? Do you always cross the street only in the crosswalk? Pedestrians shouldn’t flout the laws either.
Yes I do. I have smAll children and it’s important to me that they learn to do this even when it seems like there is no reason. I agree pedestrians should follow the rules.
I think much of the opposition to the bike lane is because people see cyclists today disregarding every law. Most of them don’t stop at red lights (not even Idaho stops), some go the wrong way or on sidewalks. I think the cycling community would be well served by working to get worst offenders to follow the rules. If they’re truly for safer streets they should be for enforcement of these laws that would make the streets safer for everyone.
Same goes for pedestrians disregarding every law that applies to them.
The “what about pedestrians” comment is irrelevant to Anon because it has nothing to do with safety. Pedestrians are the ones who are in danger when they encounter bikes. Go watch the lanes on Columbus or read WSR articles about pedestrians getting injured and killed by bikers and cars. In any case, arbitrary widespread “enforcement” never solves anything except during zombie apocalypses and fascist coups.
My “what about pedestrians” comment has as much to do with safety as his comment. To say that pedestrians are the only ones who risk injury when interacting with another means of conveyance is simply ludicrous. Bikers are very much at risk when encountering lawbreaking pedestrians.
I doubt you have much experience riding a bike on city streets where collisions with pedestrians and vehicles are fairly common through no fault of the cyclists. I’ve sustained numerous injuries as a result of situations where pedestrians (including taxi passengers opening doors) exercised either illegal or poor judgement while in the roadway.
Since you suggest watching the Columbus Ave bike lanes for illegal activity to prove your point, haven’t you noticed what pedestrians do in those lanes?
How is that relevant to the discussion of bike lanes?
Go back and read the post to which I made that reply.
Because it’s hypocrisy (the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform) to say that bikers must obey the laws, when pedestrians routinely flout them.
I believe we are in favor of enforcement. Ticket everyone…car, bicyclists and pedestrians who break the rules and make the streets unsafe.
I don’t think we all are. If we were there wouldn’t be so many disregarding the laws. Even in comments in WSR people will attempt to use physics to explain why they don’t want to stop and lose momentum. Or explain that if you live 1/2 way between Amsterdam and Columbus on an east to west street it is just too far to circle the block to get home when you can easily just go 1/2 block in the wrong direction.
Bike lanes are great when trucks don’t double park. When 4 lanes to to 3 that’s a reduction of 25%. when 3 lanes go to 2 that’s a reduction of 33%. Cars get backed up, slow down and often are stopped for a considerable amount of time. Air pollution increases. Columbus Ave. is often a mess with major traffic backup because of this. Think carefully before you do this to another major thoroughfare on the west side.
Wouldn’t it make sense to start this at 73rd St? At 72nd we don’t have a northbound Broadway. The Broadway traffic is on Amsterdam for a block before turning on 73rd to find Broadway again. There is a left turn lane on Amsterdam for that traffic and the confluence of the Amsterdam and Broadway traffic makes that one block very jammed. Wouldn’t it be simpler to start the bike lane above 73rd?
There is no left turn lane on Amsterdam at 73rd St.
It’s a bus lane. Cars can only use it to turn left on 73rd.
Wrong – it’s a bus standing zone and not a bus lane that can be used for turns. Left turns should be made from the 2nd lane as they normally would on a street that has vehicles parked in the curb lane.
When I cross 73rd to get to the subway the cars seem to be turning from the left lane. I’ll concerned the point though. So the bus lane and the next one will both be used for left turns. Why start the bike lane in between those two for a block? They should leave that for the next phase when they figure out what to do between 70th and 72nd.
This is not about progress. This is all about what the bikers want, regardless of the safety of the elderly crossing the street, or businesses needing the space for their delivery trucks to unload, or the added pollution it will cause by slowing down traffic to a standstill.
I’ve been doored by taxi passengers carelessly opening their doors three times in the past couple weeks. That won’t happen in a bike lane.
I couldn’t care less about businesses needing space for their delivery trucks which will double park no matter how many lanes there are.
Not discussed is the increasing truck traffic and vehicle traffic generated by development and growth of e-commerce and instant gratification delivery.
On the increasingly affluent UWS, folks seem to want their Fresh Direct or Amazon delivery, artisanal beer at bars, etc. That stuff comes via truck….