While we were out videotaping for another Streetfilm, Gary Toth the Director of Transportation Initiatives with Project for Public Spaces (his resume includes 34 years of management experience at NJDOT) took a moment to give a short explanation on what "floating parking" is, why using it is a very smart budgetary decision by the NYC DOT, and why a buffer-zone exists between exiting drivers and cyclists.
We hope this Streetfilm is a great resource that will help ally many fears this new concept (in the U.S. anyway) is experiencing in some cities. It shows after a very brief adjustment period that drivers do grasp it. Along the way you'll see ample, helpful footage of some of the many configurations of the NYC's new complete streets in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Gary Toth:</i> [00:06]
One of the things that occurs to me about floating parking, which is
what you see behind me, where the cars are not parked directly against
the curb but they’re parked against a couple of stripes that are buffering
it for the bike lane. But one of the interesting perspectives
is is it’s very different from what we have come to expect from our
roads around the country and Americans are like all people, we get used
to a certain kind of structure, and we see something different we begin
to wonder why is that happening? And then in this instance, it’s
actually a very clever way on the part of the city DOT to try to convert
this to a complete street, to accomplish some of the goals of slowing
down the traffic and making it safer and more vibrant for the neighbourhood.
And doing it in the way that doesn’t involve a lot of the taxpayers
dollars to come in and build the infrastructure. So the purpose
of the buffered area is not really to protect the bicyclist from the
door when it opens from getting what I guess bicyclists call being doored,
but also it’s also to protect the motorist as he’s stepping out
of the car so that he doesn’t run into the possibility of stepping
out of the car and walking right in front of a bike. So while
the design that you see here with the parking being separated from the
curb way is unusual in America, and therefore is causing some consternation
amongst folks, it’s not unusual in Europe and it’s been proven over
the years to work over there. And it’s not unusual every time
we introduce a new feature or type of design into the highway system
to the street system that people begin to worry about it. I remember
reading a historic study about the first grade separated interchange
that was built in New Jersey near Newark Airport in 1919 and folks began
to call that Great Separated Highway that now typify all of America
as the extravagant ideals of visionaries. It took a couple of
years for us to get used to the fact that horse and buggies weren’t
going to be able to get onto our freeways, but over time that became
mainstream. And over a period of time this sort of approach will
also become mainstream in America. </font> <br></p>
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