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Early Addition
If you ran the city, what would you do? That's basically what the Times asked a bunch of New Yorkers back in November. The Gray Lady then picked their favorite bits of advice and asked the city what could be done about them. Some of the ideas are plain silly (uhm, a high speed underground moving walkway instead of the the never-going-to-get-built 2nd Avenue Subway?) and some of them are highly controversial (hello, reserved residential parking!) but some of them are actually good ideas. These were our two favorites:
The city has an alternate-side parking calendar online, and also subway and bus maps. It would be great if it could also post online a map of alternateside parking rules by neighborhood. Alternatively, a listing by neighborhood and streets might work. Everyone knows the rules in their own neighborhood, but there’s no way to know the rules at your destination. It would help drivers pick the best day and time for scheduling doctor appointments, package pickups and so on.Inlay a compass in the sidewalk at the top of every subway stair in Manhattan. This will direct the disoriented to walk in the right direction. I have lived here 71 years and I am still one of the disoriented. Since Manhattan is essentially laid out on the compass points, this would work.
The Times made it sound like the City really liked the second idea but their response to the first one ("It would take hours and hours of manpower to make such a map.") kinda pissed us off. If you were to suggest a low-cost high-impact improvement for the city to implement, what would you do? In the same vein, what did you think of the ones the Times chose?
Illustration by Aaron Meshon for the New York Times.
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As far as the first suggestion, couldn't they just, um, talk to the department of sanitation? or parking? I'm pretty confident that the street sweepers and parking enforcement officers that hang out on my block during street cleaning hours aren't just guessing as to where they're supposed to be?
You know the maps they have in subway stations that show the neighborhood around the station and what streets the exits empty onto? I'd love to see the MTA post those on its website so that the anal-retentive planners among us -- or just people who know they're going to be trying to get somewhere on a tight schedule -- could plan better ahead of time where to transfer, where to exit, and whether to ride on the front or back of the train.
Dedicated express bus lanes on 2nd and 3rd and other avenues instead of the 2nd Avenue subway, which will never be built: never enough money or political will. Express bus lanes are quite doable.
www.forgotten-ny.com
No wonder gramps is confused. Manhattan isn't "essentially laid out on the compass points." Deceptively, the grid uses terms like East and West, North and South, when the avenues actually run Northeast-Southwest and the streets Northwest-Southeast. Even with a compass, and assuming it's accurate and not disoriented by metal and whatnot, the confused will have to compensate for the island's tilt.
Since subway stairs aren't mobile and the grid isn't compass-oriented, a single direction label for each subway exit will suffice. But not at the top of the stairs, or traffic will slow to read it. Maybe a standard symbol and color code as prefix to existing exit descriptions?
Add London-style digital "the next train is coming in X:XX minutes" signs in the subway. Makes waiting much more bearable.
As to the alternate side parking schedule, perhaps some kind of user-spawned map, a la the google maps meets housing/blogs/etc maps that have cropped up everywhere, since it won't get done otherwise.
And yes -- compasses.
***AS FOR THE "NEXT TRAIN SIGNS"***
I should just copy and paste this information.
The A-Division (numbered lines) is now ready for the signs and will have these by the end of the year, and the B-Division (lettered lines) will have them, um, in like 2010. The 7 line might not see them right away, though, because they are installing CBTC on it.The Automatic Train Supervision (ATC) system, which allows these displays to function, is only fully in place on the A-Division. It's in the budget to be finished on the B-Division by 2009. Oh yeah they should be on the L line as well, in a few months, because it uses CBTC.
This is when your train line will likely get the digital displays giving train arrival information and service alerts:
1-6 lines: End of 2006
L line: End of 2006
7 line: 2007-2009
Rest of the lines: 2010 or later
Forget reporting car horns. It's worthless. I'd suggest a Federal law where all new cars have to come with horns that are every bit as loud inside the car as outside. If it hurts the ears of the jackasses who use their horns as doorbells, then maybe they'd finally stop using them casually.
How about bike racks on buses. I have seen and used them elsewhere and they work well and would make for better multimodal travel. Here is a picture of a fake NYCTA bus with a bike rack.
I forgot to mention, that the bike racks for buses would cost about $600 per bus to add. Some more info.
The compass idea is brilliant. I've thought about having one many a time but I can't be assed to carry it.
It isn't that hard to carry a compass. They sell cheap ones that clip unobtrusively onto any webbing. I keep one on my messenger bag's shoulder strap all the time for whenever I come out of an unfamiliar subway station.
Praxis 81 wrote:
"No wonder gramps is confused. Manhattan isn't "essentially laid out on the compass points." Deceptively, the grid uses terms like East and West, North and South, when the avenues actually run Northeast-Southwest and the streets Northwest-Southeast. Even with a compass, and assuming it's accurate and not disoriented by metal and whatnot, the confused will have to compensate for the island's tilt."
Relax. Gramps isn't an idiot and you're overthinking it. You're assuming he means a real, magnetic compass. Which you don't need if they're permanently mounted. It would be simpler and cheaper to have fixed compass points in the sidewalk that just point, "Uptown, downtown, west side, east side." Nobody needs to know where true north is.
yay for aaron meshon!
encourage building ownerss to build rooftop gardens and/or install solar panels. It would save energy, and give employees/residents some place semi-private to relax. Also give citizens tax breaks if they buy a hybrid car, and tax people more in general if they own a car in the first place.
Cameras mounted on the city's most notorious intersections to catch red-light runners in the act (other major cities like SF have 'em).
More pedestrian safety measures like those signs in intersections that say "yield to pedestrians in crosswalk - ny state law" etc.
You don't need the compass for most areas. Here's a tip. Look at the signs at the exit stairs. They usually say "SW Corner of", "NE Corner of", etc. Works fine for the number streets. I'll admit it gets tricky downtown though.