The city has also established new bike lanes connecting to the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge, northbound on Centre Street and southbound on Park Row South. Next steps for the city should be establish a southbound lane on Centre St. and connect the northbound lane to the Lafayette St. bike lane at Spring Street, creating a northbound corridor for bikes from the Brooklyn Bridge to Union Square.

The bike lanes are part of the city's ongoing "Bicycle Network Development" initiative.

The NYC Dept. of City Planning has released an inventory of New York City bike lanes and paths, with reports on each facility's surface, striping, signs and other conditions. The "state of the lanes" document will reportedly be available at the Department's web site shortly (www.ci.nyc.ny.us/planning). In the meantime, call 212-442-4630).

Meanwhile, however, NYC traffic calming efforts are not keeping pace, and may even be retrogressing. Signs posted by NYC DOT at busy Manhattan corners like 7th Avenue and 59th Street warn pedestrians to get out of the way of big trucks that mount curbs and sidewalks while blundering through the crowded neighborhood. The signs perversely inform the public that "pedestrian injuries are preventable" Two women were killed by a truck at 7th and 59th in 1995. Transportation Alternatives proposes a traffic calming treatment with neckdowns at the corners and a 59th St. median to prevent sloppy, reckless turning maneuvers.

NYC DOT has also proposed narrowing sidewalks on Houston Street west of 6th Ave. as part of an attempt to make the street more of an on-ramp for the West Side Highway and Holland Tunnel. The neighborhood features very heavy pedestrian traffic, and West Houston in particular hosts the popular Film Forum. The West Village community board has denounced the plan.

Newspapers announced the resignation of NYC Transportation Commissioner Wilbur Chapman this week. Chapman has run NYC DOT since mid-1998, when he moved to the agency after a career in the NY Police Dept., where he had risen to Chief of Patrol. He will reportedly take a high-ranking police position in Bridgeport, CT. Chapman is the third individual in the city's top transportation job under Mayor Giuliani. The post has not been occupied by anyone with experience in transportation since 1996. NYC DOT has become something of a city government backwater during Giuliani's tenure. The Mayor has tended to address traffic and transportation issues more from a policing than a planning or systems point of view.