VOLUME 29, NUMBER 25
Count on us Fidi residents demand city fund traffic study
BY COLIN MIXSON Fidi residents fed-up with constant gridlock and towering trash piles are soliciting signatures for a petition demanding that the city fund a study measuring just how crowded Downtown’s streets and sidewalks have gotten after decades of breakneck growth. Quantifying the swirling deluge of car, truck and foot traffic in Lower Manhattan is a key first step in unraveling the quagmire of Downtown’s traffic woes, the petition’s author argues. “We realized that no one knows how many vehicles or pedestrians there are,” said resident and Financial District Neighborhood Association member Paul Proulx. “We know that there are a lot of ways that we could make our neighborhood better, but how can we propose solutions without a comprehensive study of the problem?” The so-called Manhattan Tip is the city’s oldest neighborhood, and the layout of its current streetscape dates back to the colonial era, when horses, buggies, and the occasional wheelbarrow comprised the sum total of ye olde traffic pattern. Now, as Manhattan Tip neighborhoods undergo an unprecedented residential boom — with the Financial District in particular experiencing the fastest residential growth in the city — the area’s narrow, disjointed streetscape, coupled with rampant construction, is becoming a serious liability to locals’ quality of life, according to Proulx, who expects the problems to only worsen as more newcomers pile into to the towering luxury condos currently on the rise. Traffic jams aside, massive garbage piles — which will increase by 19 tons come 2019 — left to rot on Manhattan Tip’s narrow sidewalks are among the collateral damage locals fear, as gridlock stalls garbage trucks, which in turn worsens traffic on thin streets that forbid passing. And lingering garbage piles occupy valuable real estate on Downtown’s slim sidewalks, forcing pedestrians to spill out onto the street, which then creates obstacles for drivers, thereby further compounding the traffic issues that plague the area. Tight security cordons, construction, scaffolding, sidewalk sheds, and placard parking found through Manhattan Tip present additional obstatraffic study Continued on page 14
DECEMBER 15 – DECEMBER 28, 2016
Two minutes to MELTDOWN
Sparks fly at BPCA’s first ‘experiment’ with public comment at board meeting
BY BILL EGBERT It was called “an experiment,” and though no test tubes exploded, the first-ever public comment session at the Battery Park City Authority’s December board meeting did cause tempers to flare. Residents and elected officials had lobbied for months to convince the BPCA to allow public comment at board meetings — as do many similar state and city authorities — and pushed back against the board’s compromise measure to allow only elected officials to speak during meetings. The BPCA finally relented in a surprise move at its October meeting, voting unanimously to allow members of the public to speak for two minutes each, provided they register for time ahead of the meeting. Only six people had signed up to speak, at the Dec. 7 meeting, and of them only three were actually able to show up — a problem that one of the registered speakers, Community Board 1 member Tammy Meltzer, predicted for meetings scheduled during the workday. “BPCA meetings are very difficult for most residents to get to,” she said before the board convened last week, adding that allowing public comments should help make the BPCA more responsive
Photo by Bill Egbert
The first member of the public ever allowed to comment at a BPCA board meeting, a Cove Club resident who identified herself as “Jeanette,” got into an argument with chairman Dennis Mehiel over the strict two-minute time limit. Seated are the other two residents who spoke at the Dec. 7 meeting, Tammy Meltzer, at right, and Justine Cuccia.
to residents, but is only part of the solution to the Albany-appointed board’s notorious detachment. “This is an important step, but it’s only part of what’s needed.” While the invitation for public comment may not have prompted a mob of villagers with torches, it
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didn’t take long for tempers to flare when the limits of the BPCA’s concession were felt. The first member of the public ever allowed to speak at a BPCA board meeting was a Cove Club comment Continued on page 13