Brooklyn Bridge and cloud, by The life of Boyne at flickr At 125 years old, it's time for the Brooklyn Bridge to undergo a little fix-up work. The Dept. of Transportation is about to begin a multi-year series of projects to shore up Roebling's bridge structurally, as well as give it a cosmetic touch-up. Popular Mechanics recently named the Brooklyn Bridge one of the top ten pieces of national infrastructure most in need of......

Wow! Streetsblog attended the Department of Transportation's and New York City Transit's "co-presentation" of the city's Bus Rapid Transit program and discovered "A Transit Miracle on 34th Street." DOT will repave and restripe for five lanes between Third and Ninth Avenues by the end of this year, with painted bus lanes on the north and south sides and three auto lanes in the center. Service hours will also be extended. Phase 2 calls for......

The above photo was taken on April 9th at the intersection that was previously known as Mercer Street and W Houston Street. Adjust your Google maps, the city has (accidentally) renamed Mercer to Merser. Any guesses as to how long it will take the DoT to white this one out? Check out some past signage typos here. [via Nylon]......

A study revealed that a lack of secure bike parking was the biggest reason why people don’t cycle to work. So the Department of Transportation is cooperating with Cooper-Hewitt, Google and Transportation Alternatives to organize an international design competition for the next generation of city bike racks. More than $50,000 in honoraria to develop prototype bike racks and $15,000 in prizes will be awarded to the top designs. Contestants are asked to submit designs for......

Remember the tall mystery bench of '07 that baffled onlookers for at least a day? We thought we got some closure in December when Suckapants unmasked the duo behind it (Brad Downey and Mike Wrobel), but like any good story this one reveals its layers slowly. Here's what went down before the bench went up: The "magical bench" (as it's described) has likely been discarded by the DOT by now, but it will live on......

The League of American Bicyclists has awarded New York City a bronze medal for bicycle friendliness. League representatives met with Mayor Bloomberg and DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, who sometimes cycles to work, at City Hall yesterday to present the award. Though bronze is the lowest rung on the friendliness ladder, New York City is the only community in the region to be designated a Bike Friendly Community (BFC). While the total number of cycling fatalities......

Charles F. Luce, who was Con Ed's chairman and chief executive between 1967 and 1982, died last week at the age of 90 in California. The Bronxville, NY resident died of prostate cancer. The NY Times notes that unlike most "big business executives," Luce was a liberal Democrat and environmentalist. He took a considerable amount of heat for a NYC blackout during the summer of 1977 and faced angry shareholders who didn't appreciate their dividends......

Although traffic fatalities decreased for pedestrians, drivers and their passengers in 2007, last year saw an uptick in motorcycle and bicycle deaths. The numbers announced yesterday by the mayor at a press conference in Brighton Beach add up, overall, to the lowest number of traffic deaths since the city began keeping track almost a century ago. Chart via Streetsblog. As Streetsblog notes, the number of pedestrian and cyclist injuries is unknown. Last year the DOT......

Photo of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King reflected in a Fort Greene storefront window, by Paul Fugelsang Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Stuyvesant Ave. and Hart St. in Brooklyn, a multiple stabbing on West 49th St. and Broadway in Manhattan, and a car in the water on Beach St. and Rockaway Pt. Blvd. in Queens. After a 14% surge between 2005 and 2006, complaints about the NYPD from......

After talk of flight caps to help ease airport congestion that leave many travelers very irritable, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced another policy to help ease airport woes. The DOT will let airports charge airlines based on the time of day and volume of traffic their planes are landing in. Previously, aircraft was only charged based on plane weight. The hope, per the USDOT, is that "airports would be able to spread traffic more......

For just 25 cents, you finally can experience the steel-and-glass splendor of the city's first new public toilet. City officials gathered in Madison Square Park for the ceremonial first flush of the Automatic Public Toilet (APT). Almost a year after the location was announced and almost 2 years after the toilets were first previewed, Department of Transportation Commissioner Jeannette Sadik-Khan said she was "flushed with excitement in this new era...New Yorkers had their fingers......

As the ones who first reported on the mysterious tall bench on the median of East Houston Street, we feel some responsibility in bringing closure to the story. (fYI amNY: Link.) Contrary to some of the comments in our original post claiming that the bench was just an amateurish photoshop gag, it turns out the surreal furniture was real, quite real. And now it is quite gone. We spoke to Ted Timbers at the DOT......

The city's shocking sidewalks strike again! An Upper West Side pup was electrocuted Thursday during a late night walk on 72nd and Amsterdam. This has happened too many times over the past few years, more recently to a NY Post reporter's dog in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, who died from the shock. A few years ago when Jodie Lane died, and her two dogs were injured from a similar shock, Con Ed reported they......

With the winter weather causing more difficult driving conditions, last night a dump truck jumped a divider on Route 3/Meadowlands Parkway. Fifteen cars piled up behind it, causing hours of traffic issues. Twenty-eight people were injured, five were treated at hospitals, and one died. Route 3 was closed for 8 1/2 hours Sunday night until 6:30AM this morning, and residual delays are expected. Other accidents occurred in the icy conditions and a tow truck operator......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unusual rescue on 68th St. and Central Park West in Manhattan, a confined space rescue at Lorimer and Meserole Sts. in Brooklyn, and a shooting on Carpenter Ave. and 221st St. in the Bronx. Columbia University is a-brimming with protests, against things like torture and apathy. A young man and his family are recovering from a freak accident involving a fallen tree branch in Riverside Park that put......

While 30 Rock writers are on the picket line, Alec Baldwin is worried about his neighborhood.. And listening to the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. This morning, during a segment where Brian was discussing the future of NYC's streetscape with Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and the Open Planning Project's Mark Gorton, the acclaimed actor and gossip target made his debut as a caller. After joking that he needed a job, here's a transcription......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a stabbing on 168th St. and Hillside Ave. in Queens, a sexual assault at Stanton and Attorney Sts. in Manhattan, and a missing child on Himrod St. in Brooklyn. Artist Eve Mosher is outlining in chalk the high water lines that floods will reach every four years by 2080 if global warming continues unabated. The project can be seen at her site highwaterline. Six-year-old Natalie Shea is now a......

If you've ever struggled to figure out which direction you're facing when you step out of a subway station (and there are no landmarks or sun to guide you), you won't have those problems at four subway stations in Midtown anymore. That's because the Department of Transportation and the Grand Central Partnership are placing temporary directional compass decals outside them. DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan explained, "Not a single person, native New Yorker or visitor, can......

No one thought congestion pricing would be easy but now some of the economic reality is sinking in. The MTA announced that it would need $767 million to upgrade service if people shift from cars to mass transit. How does that money break down? According to the NY Times, there's "$284 million in 2008 and 2009 for 367 new city and suburban buses, 46 new subway cars and many station renovations and service enhancements; $163......

Drivers living on exceptionally clean streets could earn a respite from the burden of alternate-side-of-the-street parking. Residents of Red Hook, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and Park Slope were granted a stay of parking execution by the Dept. of Sanitation yesterday. Because the area has consistently received scores of 90% or higher for street cleanliness over the last few months, residents will no longer have to move their cars to comply with street cleaning requirements. According......

Like many, whenever we traverse any streets along Grand Army Plaza, we basically run (or bike) for our lives. So we were relieved when we read the Department of Transportation's announcement that construction has begun on the $400,000 project to remake the oval plaza constructed in 1870 by Olmsted and Vaux. It was originally called Prospect Park Plaza, but it was renamed in 1926 to pay homage to the Union Army, according to the......

Yesterday morning, around 7AM, Queens resident Hope Miller was fatally hit by a truck turning right onto Houston Street from 6th Avenue. The driver, Roger Smiley, was fleeing the scene of an accident at Prince and 6th Avenue. Miller had been crossing Houston Street, near a construction site. 1010 WINS reported that the impact "knocked her out of her shoes." Smiley was arrested and charged with "leaving the scene of an accident, driving under the......

In recent years, Third Avenue in Brooklyn has seen three children killed by vehicular traffic. Last year, 4-year-old James Rice was fatally struck by a Hummer at Third Avenue and Baltic Avenue, and in 2004, PS 124 Juan Estrada and Victor Flores were fatally struck by a vehicle as they crossed Third Avenue at Ninth Street, just blocks away. On Tuesday, arts organization Groundswell Community Mural Project unveiled a mural at Third and Butler:......

Last month, much-to-do between Mayor Bloomberg and the state powers-that-be resulted in a kind of agreement that congestion pricing in NYC should be considered and studied (after months of Mayor Bloomberg campaigning for it). And today, the U.S. Department of Transportation is expected to announce its support of NYC's plan. The USDOT could give NYC as much as $350 million (though not the half billion number the Mayor and US DOT Secretary Mary Peters had......

Earlier this week, Governor Spitzer said that a quick review of the state's bridges showed that all are basically safe, including ones with similar designs to Minneapolis' I-35. However, some bridges, such as the Brooklyn Bridge, rated low on a 7 point scale (7 being the safest) for safety. Still, Spitzer touted the fact that this year's budget added another $900 million to the $18.8 billion infrastructure plan. But now that the NTSB are investigating......

A no parking sign? A fire hydrant? Mere street dressing when it comes to drivers with a DOT-issued Department of City Planning placard. Streetsblog observes that a yellow Porsche convertible parked on Seventh Avenue belongs to City Planning Commissioner Dolly Williams. Hello, Dolly indeed. Streetsblog notes that Williams, Brooklyn's sole representative on the planning commission, "has been barred from participating in Kings County's most important recent land use processes." For instance, she can't attend Atlantic......

As many people wonder about the state of the bridges in the New York City region, in the wake of I-35 collapsing in Minneapolis, the city's Department of Transportation is trying to reassure residents that our bridges are safe. Though many bridges meet the definition of "deficient" - 19% of bridges are in "fair" or "poor" condition, 15% meet the federal definition of "structurally deficient" - a DOT first deputy commissioner Lori Ardito says,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person struck by a police car at Canal St. and Broadway in Manhattan, an escaped prisoner at West 110th St. and 7th Ave. in Manhattan, and an amputation on Brewer Blvd. in Queens. A downturn in the markets will hurt more than those that work on Wall St. Mayor Bloomberg warns that a bear market will hurt the whole city as reduced tax revenues necessitate spending cuts. Woody......

After hearing about the tragic rush-hour bridge collapse in Minneapolis that has claimed at least four lives, we wondered what the conditions of New York City's bridges were. Like the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis, several of our city's largest bridges are undergoing what seems like constant construction. All the East River bridges are either undergoing repairs right now, have plans for the future, just finished construction, or all of the above. Gothamist looked......

The Department of Transportation announced that Central Park's West Drive will be car free until 8AM starting on Monday, August 6. Per the DOT's press release, via Streetsblog: Beginning Monday, August 6th, the West Drive of Central Park between Lenox Avenue and the 7th Avenue Exit will be closed to motor vehicles for an additional hour (7-8am) during the morning peak period. Currently, the West Drive is open to motor vehicles between the hours......