Inwoodite

CB 12 Transpo Committee Avoids Action on Dyckman, Bennett, Everything Else

This proposed Dyckman redesign was presented to the CB 12 transpo committee last February, long enough ago that members have understandably forgotten it.

For the third time this year, residents of Inwood and Washington Heights Monday night presented the Community Board 12 Traffic and Transportation Committee with a vision for a traffic-calmed Dyckman Street. One with a separated bike lane connecting the Henry Hudson and Harlem River bike paths, sidewalk bulbouts, leading pedestrian intervals, and street trees. A destination corridor where people can shop, stroll and mingle without constantly feeling under siege by untamed auto traffic.

And for the third time this year, the committee asked these residents to come back when they have a better idea of what they want.

Members of Inwood and Washington Heights Livable Streets were hopeful that an audience with Paimaan Lodhi, urban planner with Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's office, would help the case for the Dyckman Greenway Connector. But after distributing copies of "Sustainable Streets" guidelines to committee members (it was hard to tell if any of them had heard of the DOT program), Lodhi deflated those hopes. Any action by Stringer's office, he said, would require consensus from CB 12.

Just how likely is consensus to emerge that an innovative, people-friendly design for Dyckman, similar to the Ninth Avenue bike path, would be a boon to Upper Manhattan, where just 20 percent of households own a car? To get an idea one only has to tune in to Jim Berlin, the most outspoken member of the transpo committee, if not the whole of CB 12. Last night a neighborhood mom told the committee that she feared a pedestrian bridge over Dyckman at Tenth Avenue, used by students at P.S. 5, her child's elementary school, was structurally unstable. Berlin, minutes after declaring that any plan to alter Dyckman should not impede auto traffic, agreed that the condition of the bridge is a concern, as it "keeps kids away from a ridiculously dangerous intersection where a school should never have been built in the first place."

In other words, rather than make the intersection safe, the city should keep vulnerable populations -- read: anyone who can't run fast enough to get across without being run down -- away from it. In other words, to Berlin and other CB 12 members, Dyckman Street is already a connector -- between the West Side Highway and the FDR. Its function as a neighborhood street, used by school children and hundreds of thousands of other non-driving Upper Manhattanites, is purely incidental.

Rehabs Planned for Courts, Trails, Steps

Inwood Hill Park is set to receive over $1,000,000 in renovations to its paths, tennis and basketball courts, while the notorious 215th Street steps are to be reconstructed next year, according to a news release from Assembly Member Adriano Espaillat's office.

A press conference scheduled for today was postponed, but Espaillat and Council Member Robert Jackson were to announce their procurement of funds for the Inwood Hill Park upgrades. As of this writing no new date was set for the official announcement.

Martin Collins, CB 12 board member and community liasion for Espaillat's office, tells Inwoodite that the dilapidated 215th Step-Street will be rebuilt in 2009 (roughly 10 years after Inwoodites began calling for it to be repaired). Proposed designs are expected sometime this fall.

Last year an Inwood woman was injured last year on the 215th Street stairs, tripping in a hole and cutting her legs and face. Democratic District Leader and CB 12 member (and current City Council candidate) Mark Levine noted the incident on his blog:

Van Cortlandt Bike Route Planned

At Transportation Alternatives' Greenway Summit this week, DOT rolled out a slew of bike and pedestrian improvements to come over the next year. One of those is a planned bike lane link between the Broadway Bridge and Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. We'll post more details as they become available.

We're told that Inwood advocates were on hand to lobby for the Dyckman Street Greenway connector as well.

On a related note, as Bike Month winds down, Bike New York and the City Parks Dept. are teaming up for a kids' bike class TOMORROW in Inwood Hill Park. It's free, but registration is required. Info and links are here.

Photo: jag9889 via the Inwoodite Flickr photo pool

Man Takes Plea in Broadway DWI Death

This is late, but last week Kevin Casado pleaded guilty to killing off-duty police officer Alexander Felix in a July 2007 crash on Broadway.

From the Daily News:

Casado, 32, admitted he was driving too fast July 2 when he lost control of his minivan on Broadway near Dongan Place in Inwood.

His blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit.

Casado's northbound van crossed the double yellow line on Broadway and slammed into Alexander Felix, 31, who was heading south on his brand-new Yamaha motorcycle.

The impact knocked off Felix's helmet and sent him flying. He landed on the hood of a car.

Felix, who was an auxiliary cop before joining the NYPD, worked in the 30th Precinct, racking up more than 100 arrests in his 2-1/2 years on the job.

Casado, an elevator operator in a Fifth Ave. apartment building, is the father of three. He had been out drinking with his younger brother on the night of the accident.

Casado will serve two to six years for Felix's death.

Recall that last year Inwoodites were promised cooperation between DOT and the 34th Precinct to look into calming this intersection. If any changes have been made since, it would be news to us.

Related on Inwoodite:
• Inwoodites Prepare for Precinct Meeting
• 34th Precinct Answers to Public

Photo of Alexander Felix via New York Post