City Council member Daniel Dromm and the Jackson Heights pedestrian plaza

Jackson Heights businesses are slamming a pedestrian plaza the Department of Transportation commissioned on a main thoroughfare, the Wall Street Journal reported. The plaza, along 37th Road between 73rd and 74th streets, blocks off traffic to a once-bustling South Asian business hub in Queens.

Shop owners claim the area has become dead, that business has declined 60 percent and that they’ve had to lay off workers as a result. [more]

Midtown-based SL Green Realty wants to petition the
city to move the Grand Central shuttle bus station of Airporter, which offers trips to LaGuardia, JFK and Newark airports, because the disembarking passengers are
interfering too much with the foot traffic in the area that is close to a building it owns, DNAinfo
reported. Retailers on Park Avenue between 41st and 42nd streets have
been complaining about the crowds on the block, Elizabeth Majkowski,
senior vicepresident of operations at SL Green, which owns 125 Park
Avenue, said. [more]

Prospect Park’s Terrace Bridge may be only a few yards long, but it’s one of the most structurally-deficient in the city, according to the city’s latest ranking of its bridges. That’s why the Department of Transportation is planning a restoration of the 140-year-old stone structure — once it’s finished bringing the Brooklyn Bridge, also on the city’s list of bridges in “poor” condition, up to snuff. A “poor” designation means that a bridge is not consistent with current engineering standards, but the DOT said it doesn’t necessarily mean it is unsafe. Because an average of 127,000 drivers per day cross the Brooklyn Bridge, compared to the Terrace Bridge’s zero (it’s closed to cars, and according to Eugene Patron of the Prospect Park Alliance, “doesn’t get much day-to-day use”), fixing the former is the city’s first priority. A reconstruction timetable for the Terrace Bridge has not yet been set. [Brooklyn Paper]

The manager of 2 Park Avenue near East 32nd Street is requesting that the Department of Transportation create a “No Standing” zone near his building to prevent the influx of food trucks. According to DNAinfo, food trucks have garnered complaints from the building’s retail tenants, including Crumbs Bake Shop, Pret A Manger and Europa Café. “Everyone… complains, ‘You’ve got to stop these food trucks. They’re taking away our business,’” Jose Toro, the building’s manager, said. “The last thing you want to see is a truck that sells halal food when I have Café Europa.” Toro also claims that a falafel truck left a trail of grease that cost him $4,000 to clean up, although the truck’s owner denies the claim, saying Toro is looking for any excuse to evict the trucks. [more]

A massive project that would upgrade Flushing’s Long Island Rail Road station at Main Street and create new housing units around it is now taking a back seat to higher-priority projects like Flushing Commons, the Macedonia Plaza and Willets Point, city officials told the Daily News. The plan, first proposed by the Flushing Willets Point Corona Local Development Corp. during the fall of 2009, calls for new station elevators and a platform extension, plus housing and commercial space on a parking lot adjacent to the station and currently owned by the city’s Department of Transportation. [more]

The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway

The crumbling Brooklyn-Queens Expressway will probably not be transformed into a tunnel despite local residents’ best efforts, according to the Brooklyn Paper. The BQE fails to meet federal highway standards, is accident prone and has elicited the state to appointed a citizen’s committee to help plan a huge repair. But the Department of Transportation does not have access to the estimated $2.2 billion needed to push the tunnel underground, officials said. The agency has not ruled out a tunnel, but given budget restraints will likely resort to cheaper surface improvements along the worst stretches of the highway, including that between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street. [more]

The city is dropping its plans to build a 34th Street pedestrian plaza between Fifth and Sixth avenues in Manhattan in the midst of mounting criticism from the community, the Bloomberg administration announced yesterday. The project, which would have barred automobiles on the block between Herald Square and the Empire State Building and established bus-only lanes separated by concrete barriers on either side by the end of 2012, will now be revised and unveiled to the public March 14, Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan told the New York Times. [more]

Bob Diamond, a legendary railway explorer announced last Thursday that he is suing the Department of Transportation to regain access to the abandoned subway tunnel under Atlantic Avenue that he rediscovered three decades ago. The DOT canceled the official tours that he ran in the defunct tunnel, saying they were a fire hazard due to air quality concerns and having just one emergency exit, according to the Brooklyn Paper. Diamond is expected to argue in his suit that the city canceled his tours without allowing him to address the Fire Department of New York’s concerns. [more]

DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan

As many as 12 new pop-up cafés may open in the spring in New York City, if they can gain approval from the Department of Transportation, the Wall Street Journal reported. A two-year pilot program allows temporary seating platforms for restaurants ineligible for sidewalk cafés due to narrow sidewalks or zoning restrictions. The pop-ups were a result of the “tremendous unmet need for quality public space in the city,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, DOT commissioner. “[It] was an innovative way to take a look at solving the riddle of how to create a sidewalk café in a place where there just isn’t enough sidewalk.” The owners of Fika Espresso Bar and Bombay’s Restaurant, on Pearl Street in the Financial District, housed the city’s first pop-up café, which went up in August and is expected to come down in the next two weeks. The DOT is accepting applications until Dec. 3 from eligible restaurants in all five boroughs. According to the Department of Consumer Affairs, the number of sidewalk cafés in the city has been on the rise, reaching 1,126 in the last fiscal year, compared with 884 in fiscal year 2006. [WSJ]

A new $500,000 pedestrian mall on Broadway between 17th and 18th streets was completed today in Union Square, DNAinfo reported. The newly converted space — replete with tables, chair and umbrellas — had been a prime location for accidents, with 22 pedestrian injuries occurring there between 2004 and 2009, according to the Department of Transportation. More than 200,000 people walk through Union Square on peak summer days, including more than 4,000 NYU students, according to DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn. As part of the project, the intersection’s traffic signals were also simplified, making it safer to cross the street. The DOT also announced that the pedestrian plaza at Madison Square, which was created in 2008, will be extended one block south along Broadway. [DNAinfo]

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