SUMMER STREETS AUGUST 15, 2009

August has been glorious for New Yorkers who've had a rough summer.  It hasnt been warm enough to head for Coney Island a couple of times a week by now.  Finally the heat is heating the macadam and it is nearing the end of summer.  But Summer Streets has lightened the city's spirits.  New York is on its feet: with new reasons to invent imaginative bicycles and pedicabs.  This weekend saw a variety of creative and arresting bicycle designs on Park Avenue.  People have planned on this event as a special experience, staying back in the city just to bike up Park Avenue and down to the Brooklyn Bridge without car traffic.

The Department of Transportation is proving that policy can be creative and transformative.  The symbiotic relationships between different bicycle organizations, local transportation organizations and the DOT is producing a new New York City, one that is finally taking Jane Jacob's invitation to explore a human scale development on a scale never realised before in New York City.  The reclamation of Broadway and Grand Street along with 9th Avenue, 8th Avenue and Bleeker Street is changing the logic of commuting in a critical way- it is impacting a new conversation about how people traverse distances in New York, and what we need to do to make this happen more.