Stephen Miller
In spring 2017, Stephen wrote for Streetsblog USA, covering the livable streets movement and transportation policy developments around the nation.
From August 2012 to October 2015, he was a reporter for Streetsblog NYC, covering livable streets and transportation issues in the city and the region. After joining Streetsblog, he covered the tail end of the Bloomberg administration and the launch of Citi Bike. Since then, he covered mayoral elections, the de Blasio administration's ongoing Vision Zero campaign, and New York City's ever-evolving street safety and livable streets movements.
Recent Posts
After Two Meetings, CB 6 Still Hasn’t Decided on QBB Bike Access Plan
| | 22 Comments
At the end of its second meeting on a DOT proposal to improve bike safety on the Manhattan approaches to the Queensboro Bridge, the transportation committee of Manhattan Community Board 6 reached a conclusion. The committee needed more time to make up its mind. “We will have a decision by June,” chair Fred Arcaro said. North of 59th […]
How Many Parking Spots Will Developers Build at Transit-Rich EDC Site?
| | 9 Comments
Since being cleared for redevelopment in 1967, several city blocks at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge on the Lower East Side — known as the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, or SPURA — have lain fallow. For decades, the largest undeveloped, city-owned land below 96th Street was used only for surface parking lots. After years of planning work, […]
Eyes on the Street: First Avenue Protected Bike Lane Extends Uptown
| | 22 Comments
Our most recent progress report on the protected bike lanes for East Harlem and the Upper East Side came last October, when crews installed the bike lane and pedestrian refuges on Second Avenue between 100th Street and 125th Street. Last year also saw the construction of a protected bike lane on First Avenue between the Queensboro […]
Pulaski Bridge Bike Lane OK’d by DOT Traffic Study; Engineering Review Next
| | 13 Comments
A protected bike lane on the Pulaski Bridge — calming traffic heading to McGuinness Boulevard and providing much more breathing room than the bridge’s narrow bike/ped path alone — has cleared a significant planning hurdle. In a letter to Assembly Member Joe Lentol [PDF], DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said that the proposal meets traffic analysis […]
FDNY: “We Haven’t Had Any Issues” With Bike-Share Locations
| | 18 Comments
Republican mayoral candidate Joseph Lhota, on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show yesterday, said that while he didn’t “know this for a fact,” he views the bike-share program as an example of failed agency coordination in the Bloomberg administration, because he’d read press reports that people were complaining about new bike-share stations potentially impeding emergency response. Despite […]
Bergen Street Cyclists Thank NYPD Precinct for Protected Bike Lane
| | 15 Comments
Bergen Street near Flatbush Avenue used to be a trouble spot for cyclists going from Prospect Heights to Park Slope, with one segment of the bike lane frequently obstructed by police vehicles. Last summer, a guerrilla protected lane appeared, buffered by orange cones, then disappeared, then reappeared, incredibly, in the form of metal crowd control barriers from the NYPD’s […]
Car-Free Parks? Not During This Hudson River Greenway Drive-In Picnic
| | 27 Comments
New York City’s parks are supposed to be a respite from the noise and stress of the city. It seems a few people haven’t got the message — and are using the Hudson River Greenway bicycle and pedestrian path as their personal driveway to the Upper Manhattan waterfront. Reader Katty Van Itallie tells Streetsblog that she […]
Bike-Share Has a Great Safety Record in Cities More Dangerous Than NYC
| | 16 Comments
With bike-share stations hitting the streets but the launch still a few weeks away, there’s a lot of misinformed speculation floating around about Citi Bike. A favorite tactic of the bike-share opposition is to conjure visions of chaos and “hell on wheels” after the system launches, as the Daily News did in a recent opinion […]
I Bike, I Walk, And I Vote: StreetsPAC Launches With Focus on Council Races
| | 7 Comments
This morning, a group of livable streets advocates gathered in the Madison Square pedestrian plaza to announce the formation of StreetsPAC, a political action committee to put street safety front and center in New York City’s 2013 election cycle. Many of the names behind the effort should be familiar to Streetsblog readers, including Aaron Naparstek, Streetsblog’s founding […]
Scenes From Last Night’s Bike-Share Forum in Fort Greene
| | 28 Comments
Last night, Council Member Tish James held a public forum after receiving complaints about bike-share stations in her district, covering Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. The event, held inside Sacred Heart Church on Clermont Avenue, attracted an audience of about 100, with a small majority there to show support for bike-share. For two hours, residents expressed […]
Rewriting the Manual: How Safe Streets Will Be the Rule, Not the Exception
| | 1 Comment
Cities and towns have been leading the charge for safer streets, incorporating design elements like protected bike lanes and sidewalk extensions. But design guidance from state highway officials often gets in the way when agencies don’t have the technical or political heft to deviate from “the rules” that have long held sway in the field […]
Bike-Share Works Just Fine in Historic London, Boston, and DC Neighborhoods
| | 11 Comments
While polls have shown that upwards of 70 percent of New Yorkers support bike-share and DOT engaged in a multi-year public process for station siting, a vocal minority in Fort Greene is objecting to public bike stations in the landmarked district. At least one extremist has gone so far as to tar newly-installed stations with wheatpaste posters decrying the Citibank-sponsored kiosks. In response […]