City rolls out ‘Bike Boulevard’ concept for University Place – The Village Sun

BY THE VILLAGE SUN | A month in the past, when The Village Solar reported on the Division of Transportation doing group outreach for ideas for University Place, native stakeholders stated their understanding was that any plan wouldn’t bar automobiles.

At the moment, Shirley Secunda, chairperson of the Neighborhood Board 2 Visitors and Transportation Committee, stated, “They’re not speaking about booting automobiles off the road.”

“There’ll nonetheless be automobiles,” echoed William Kelley, govt director of the Village Alliance enterprise enchancment district.

However simply 4 days after that article, Patch reported that Mayor de Blasio had introduced that, the truth is, College Place would become the city’s first “Bike Boulevard.”

There aren’t many particulars about precisely what a Bike Boulevard is, aside from that it could “discourage automobiles from coming into the area,” sluggish car speeds and hook up with current bike lanes.

De Blasio’s first point out of Bike Boulevards was at his State of the Metropolis deal with greater than a yr in the past again in February 2020. Maybe the pandemic slowed down the plan’s rollout.

D.O.T. apparently is probably eyeing the entire size of College Place — which stretches from 14th St. to Waverly Place, the place it connects to Washington Sq. East — for the Bike Boulevard venture. The one block from 14th St. to thirteenth St. was not too long ago reversed to one-way southbound and made right into a so-called “sluggish avenue,” with a squiggle-shaped street area forcing automobiles to drive by way of slowly.

This week, Secunda stated she was taken abruptly by the Bike Boulevard announcement.

“As , the Division of Transportation has been conducting group outreach as a part of a research to make College Place extra aware of neighborhood wants,” she stated. “We’ve been beneath the impression that the research remains to be occurring — it was presupposed to be by way of the summer season — and that D.O.T. will report on outcomes earlier than any steps are taken. Hopefully, we are going to discover out extra from D.O.T. at our assembly.”

Secunda stated all that she is aware of in regards to the thought is what she learn within the Patch article, which famous that the mayor had supplied “minimal particulars” in regards to the initiative.

“That is all we find out about it — in different phrases, we’re at midnight,” Secunda stated. “That is why we’ve requested D.O.T. to come back to our assembly, to clarify what that is about.”