Bikes on the brain as cycle-share is about ready to roll

Bikes on the brain as cycle-share is about ready to roll | The Villager Newspaper

Good article but quite long so click the link above to read it

Demolition and Recovery in the Post-Sandy Rockaways

Demolition and Recovery in the Post-Sandy Rockaways - Camera Obscura - Curbed NY

(Excerpt)
As winter fades into spring, signs of the recovery process have sprung up all along the peninsula. Workers are busy tearing down homes, pulling up rubble, and carting away the encroaching sands. Demolition crews are working through long lists of condemned homes. Construction crews are gutting bungalows and making repairs. And all along the destroyed boardwalk, contractors are working around the clock to prepare for an opening day later in May. The recovery process may take years to complete, but in the meantime, "whatever you have, you have to make it work," said Mahadeo.

Citi Bike And DOT Have "Fear And Contempt Of Citizenry," SoHo Group Alleges

Citi Bike And DOT Have "Fear And Contempt Of Citizenry," SoHo Group Alleges: Gothamist

(Excerpt)
Formerly a refuge for homeless and derelicts, the park recently underwent a beautiful restoration via a $2 million grant that the residents fought hard for and won. As part of the beautification of the park, one area at the tip of the park was specifically dedicated to public art shows. Several works have been exhibited.
However, fearful of a planned demonstration and civil disobedience by local artists and activists, last Friday at midnight a DOT crew furtively installed one of the largest CitiBike stations in New York City in the parkland specifically reserved for public art exhibition

One World Trade Center Spire's Final Sections To Be Lifted To Roof (PHOTOS)

One World Trade Center Spire's Final Sections To Be Lifted To Roof (PHOTOS)
Click on link for views from the top.

NEW YORK — A crane has hoisted a U.S. flag covered spire to the top of New York's One World Trade Center, under construction at the site of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Construction workers applauded as the upright spire began heading skyward at midday Thursday on its way to the roof.

The spire's temporary home will be a platform at the top of the trade center. When it's fully installed, at a later date, it will soar to a symbolic 1,776 feet.

The 408-foot spire will be used as a world-class broadcast antenna.

The new tower is at the northwest corner of the trade center site. The area is well on its way to reconstruction with the 72-story Four World Trade Center and other buildings.

Mermaid Parade in danger, launching Kickstarter IT IS WORTH SAVING!

Mermaid Parade in danger, launching Kickstarter

Dear Friends of the Mermaid Parade:

I have two important announcements for you today:

1) Registration for this year's Mermaid Parade is now open. Click here to register.

2) We do not know whether there will be a Mermaid Parade this year.

Don't panic just yet-we have a plan. But first I want you to understand where we are and what we're up against.

Our first parade back in 1983 had more participants than onlookers. It is because of you-whether you've been marching for years or are joining us for your maiden voyage-that the Mermaid Parade has grown into the largest arts parade in the country.

A Free Parade is Expensive

This year we face unprecedented challenges. As the crowds have grown over the past years, the city has begun imposing new regulations and restrictions that have sharply increased the cost of the event. On top of that, Hurricane Sandy, that malevolent sorceress, wreaked havoc on the Coney Island community. We as an organization, like many others, are still recovering from the damage. What this all means is that the Mermaid Parade now has a budget shortfall of $100,000. This is an impossible gap for a tiny non-profit arts organization like ours.

The Plan

On May 7th , we'll be launching a "Save the Mermaid Parade" Kickstarter campaign to raise $100,000 for the Parade. We'll be actively updating our website and sending out news and information as the campaign to "Save the Mermaid Parade" progresses.

Next week you will receive a link to our Kickstarter campaign. Once you have it, please spread the word. If we don't meet our funding goal, there'll be no parade.

Registration this year is more important than ever before, but we also need to ask for even more from you to preserve our beloved cultural institution. Be advocates. This is your parade - get on your bullhorns!

Sincerely,

Dick Zigun

Founder & Artistic Director

Coney Island USA

Mermaid Parade in danger, launching Kickstarter

Mermaid Parade in danger, launching Kickstarter


Dear Friends of the Mermaid Parade:
I have two important announcements for you today:
1) Registration for this year's Mermaid Parade is now open. Click here to register.
2) We do not know whether there will be a Mermaid Parade this year.
Don't panic just yet-we have a plan. But first I want you to understand where we are and what we're up against.
Our first parade back in 1983 had more participants than onlookers. It is because of you-whether you've been marching for years or are joining us for your maiden voyage-that the Mermaid Parade has grown into the largest arts parade in the country.
A Free Parade is Expensive
This year we face unprecedented challenges. As the crowds have grown over the past years, the city has begun imposing new regulations and restrictions that have sharply increased the cost of the event. On top of that, Hurricane Sandy, that malevolent sorceress, wreaked havoc on the Coney Island community. We as an organization, like many others, are still recovering from the damage. What this all means is that the Mermaid Parade now has a budget shortfall of $100,000. This is an impossible gap for a tiny non-profit arts organization like ours.
The Plan
On May 7th , we'll be launching a "Save the Mermaid Parade" Kickstarter campaign to raise $100,000 for the Parade. We'll be actively updating our website and sending out news and information as the campaign to "Save the Mermaid Parade" progresses.
Next week you will receive a link to our Kickstarter campaign. Once you have it, please spread the word. If we don't meet our funding goal, there'll be no parade.
Registration this year is more important than ever before, but we also need to ask for even more from you to preserve our beloved cultural institution. Be advocates. This is your parade - get on your bullhorns!
Sincerely,
Dick Zigun
Founder & Artistic Director
Coney Island USA

Bathroom break: Four sleek new Coney Island comfort stations on hold

Bathroom break: Four sleek new Coney Island comfort stations on hold   - NY Daily News
Update on this story from Sheepshead Bites
Coney Island beachgoers will have to hold it a little longer for four new sleek prefabricated bathrooms.
The nearly $2 million modernistic comfort stations set high off the ground were slated to be delivered from Berwick, Pennsylvania Thursday.
But those plans have suddenly been put on hold, a city Parks official said, declining to elaborate further.
“I do not have a new tentative date,” Parks Dept. spokesman Arthur Pincus said.
Brooklyn was slated to be the first borough to receive the futuristic comfort stations, which were going to replace bathrooms destroyed by Superstorm Sandy.
Citywide, 35 modular units will be installed at 17 locations at a total cost of $105 million, Pincus said.
The modulars will also include lifeguard stations and offices for parks security officers and staff.
The stations were welcomed by one of the city's biggest critics from the area.

Citi Bike stations cause headaches for many New Yorkers

Citi Bike stations cause headaches for many New Yorkers

(Excerpt)
As the city works to get its bike share program going by the end of the month, some residents and small businesses are fed up with the rental stations popping up on their streets.

Thursday night, Community Board 2 in Manhattan will host a forum where residents can talk about how the racks being installed by the city Department of Transportation for Citi Bike are grinding their gears.

"They have to come up with something other than this," said Gary Ormiston, 62, who's annoyed that the city put up one of its 330 stations outside his West Village apartment building, adding that he wasn't notified.
A common complaint has been how much space the bike racks take up in front of apartment buildings

Angry Cyclists Turn On Citi Bike For Eliminating Beloved Bike Rack

Gothamist Daily: Angry Cyclists Turn On Citi Bike For Eliminating Beloved Bike Rack

First Citi Bike came for the parking spaces, and we did nothing. Then they came for the parked cars, and some of us paid $250 cash to get our wheels back. Now they're coming for the bicycles, and IT'S WAR. In the greatest of ironies, some residents in Battery Park City are up in arms because Citi Bike is going to get rid of their bike rack.
Shelly Mossey, a longtime cyclist who owns the cargo bike delivery company Urban Mobility Project, tells us Citi Bike has promised to cut the locks of any bikes left attached to the bike rack on May 5th. But over his dead body! "People here are willing to go to jail if they try to cut one lock on Sunday," Mossey promises. "My neighbors use this bike rack with their children. Citi Bike is going to have to walk through our children and our families to get to that rack. They're going to have to forcibly remove us." ATTICA! ATTICA!

As you can see from the photo above, the bike rack in question is pretty packed. Located at the North Wall of the 395 South End Ave building, Mossey says the rack is not on official Gateway Plaza property. "I would love to lock my bike inside Gateway Plaza but there's no room," Mossey explains. "The racks there are overloaded with bikes. It's a complex of six high rises in the middle of a huge construction project, and they have a lot of bike parking already. They've made an effort to provide more bike parking, but we still can't all fit."

Over twenty residents have signed a petition to save the bike rack, including Manon Chezallerau, a Battery Park City resident for eight years. Chevallerau, who hails from Amsterdam, tells us she's been riding her bike in NYC for 22 years. "Given the short notice, I think it's unacceptable to get rid of this bike rack," Chevallerau tells us. "I am for biking and I think the bike share program is fabulous. But I don't think it's right to remove a rack used by so many other bike riders. We don't have enough bike racks on the property at Gateway Plaza, so we're stuck!"
Mossey, who's been riding his bike for forty years in NYC, worries the city isn't ready for Citi Bike. "It's complete overkill," says Mossey. "They're doing this without a trial, they're putting too many bikes out, and I don't think drivers are ready for it. Bike lanes aren't set up correctly. It's dangerous out there if you don't know what you're doing. Is the city prepared to do something about the bike lanes and get all the double parked cars out of there? Because that's extremely dangerous!"
Mossey says he's tried to call the issue to the attention of the DOT, Citi Bike, Transportation Alternatives, and Gateway Plaza, but hasn't gotten much response. "They're bullying people at this point," Mossey tells us. "You don't take a bike rack away to promote cycling. We don't need Citi Bike. We could have a bike share in Gateway Plaza just with all the unused bikes locked up around here!"
The DOT did not respond to a request for comment [update below], but shorty after emailing the DOT's spokesman, we were contacted by Transportation Alternatives, whose spokesman, Michael Murphy, tells us, "It's a private bike rack. If the management of the building is doing nothing about derelict and abandoned bikes clogging up a rack, that's not really the City's problem—it's an issue between the tenants and their building.
"This is also a reflection of the growing demand for bike parking. Obviously tenants expect buildings like this one to provide and maintain that service. I hope more building managers take advantage of this opportunity to attract and retain tenants by making bike parking available and keeping it well-maintained."
Update: A DOT spokesman says, "A bike share location is being installed here at the request of the property owner and it is also supported by the BPCA. We understand that they are looking for an alternate location for the rack (which is not a DOT rack)."
The Battery Park City Authority did not respond for a request for comment. And so the stage is set for a dramatic showdown on Sunday, when Citi Bike stormtroopers march in to cut the locks, rip out the bike rack and set everything on fire discard the unclaimed bikes. Mossey says he isn't planning to handcuff himself to the bike rack, but he is willing to get arrested "to protect this bike rack," if it comes to that.

The Bikes and the Fury

The Bikes and the Fury - NYTimes.com

(Excerpt)
Last week, street vendors in Lower Manhattan protested that racks placed on Broadway and Liberty Street threatened to displace their food carts and would force them to move. Shortly before that, Jacques Capsouto sat down on the curb to protest the placement of a bike rack in front his restaurant, Capsouto Freres on Washington Street, which possibly blocked a service entrance. The Friends of Petrosino Square, in SoHo, have fought the installation of a station close to the park of which they are advocates, believing that it would intensify traffic and impede safety. Such are the tempers in certain quarters that one member of the group created signage that called the Department of Transportation, which began the program, the “Department of Tyranny.”

Bathrooms’ Long Trek - Wall Street Journal

Bathrooms’ Long Trek - Wall Street Journal - WSJ.com
(Excerpt)

Bathrooms and other beach infrastructure along the public sand on Staten Island, Coney Island and the Rockaways, like most other coastal structures, became wrecks under superstorm Sandy’s floodwaters. With beach season now just a month away, city officials are racing to restore restrooms, lifeguard towers and maintenance sheds in time for the beaches to reopen.

The solution: bring prefabricated facilities to the boardwalks for about $2 million each.

But the unwieldy dimensions of these new buildings will turn their migration into a slow-motion race in which nearly three-dozen units will lumber to the city from a factory in Berwick, Pa. In total, the process will require three weeks of multi-state trips at speeds as low as 5 miles per hour, weaving through traffic, negotiating bridges and weaving around red tape.

“It’s just going to take a long time,” said Cristin Burtis, head of the Office of Citywide Event Coordination and Management.

In Bike-Friendly Copenhagen, Highways For Cyclists (CAN THIS WORK IN NYC???)

In Bike-Friendly Copenhagen, Highways For Cyclists : NP

NPR reporter Eleanor Beardsley rides in one
  the new bike lanes in Copenhagen.

Every day, one-third of the people of Copenhagen ride their bikes to work or school. Collectively, they cycle more than 750,000 miles daily, enough to make it to the moon and back. And city officials want even more people to commute, and over longer distances.

So a network of 26 new bike routes, dubbed "the cycling superhighway," is being built to link the surrounding suburbs to Copenhagen.

Lars Gaardhoj, an official with the Copenhagen capital region, says the routes will be straight and direct.

"It will be very fast for people who use their bike," he says. "This is new because traditionally cycle paths have been placed where there is space for them and the cars didn't run. So now the bike is going to challenge the car."

The first highway, to the busy suburb of Albertslund some 10 miles outside the city, was completed in April.
To test it, I got a rental bike and went out for a ride.

No Place For Slowpokes

One of the first things you learn about these bike lanes is that you have to move in fast. This is not leisurely biking — this is serious stuff in Copenhagen.
It's a parallel world of transportation: You've got the cars on the roads and the people on their bikes. There are thousands and thousands of people on their bikes here in this city.

The city is building more than two dozen lanes from the suburbs into the city. They cater to cyclists by including such things as rails and footrests at stoplights.

As commuters pour into Copenhaghen on the new highway, I stop biker Cona Endelgo at a red light. Endelgo says he used to drive his car to work, but biking is better.
"It gives you more exercise and motion, and it's more free, and it's quicker. When I pass the harbor, I wave to the cars," he says.
Each mile of bike highway will cost about $1 million. The project is to be financed by the city of Copenhagen and 21 local governments. And in a country where both right- and left-leaning politicians regularly ride bikes to work, it has bilateral support.

Ocean Parkway Cycle to Cycle Hazard

Locked and abandoned this bike just south of Oceanview Avenue looks like a permanent hazard to cyclists on the bike path unless it is removed.  Let's track how long it takes the Parks Department to get it done.

Steeplechase Pier Renovation Continues

Weekend work goes on to rebuild the damaged Steeplechase pier in Coney Island.

Helping Youth Sports

NFL kicks off charitable giving in NJ, NY - SFGate