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MichaelRahmani OP t1_iw4agyt wrote

I believe they just finished doing this on 8th ave and are almost done with the 9th ave reconstruction.

Its much improved but I can't help but notice how flawed it looks to have an extended sidewalk to be just a painted part of the road. Why would they not actually extend the pavement to make it seamless?

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TeamMisha t1_iw52dzm wrote

> Why would they not actually extend the pavement to make it seamless?

The NYCDOT's strategy is to avoid what is called "capital construction", or pouring concrete or utility work, at almost any cost. This is why they only almost always do painted treatments such as painted curb extensions, aka bulbouts, medians, refuge islands, etc. You're probably asking well if they save all this money, when do they ever do capital construction? I can't tell you, despite the budget approved this year being 1 billion dollars, no clue lol. The biggest "problem" with expanding the sidewalk is drainage, you would need to move every catch-basin which involves digging up the road and can be quite costly.

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RAXIZZ t1_iw56qej wrote

> NYCDOT's strategy is to avoid what is called "capital construction"

AFAIK, capital projects have to go through DDC. So it's not just much more expensive, but also requires cross-agency collaboration, which means it's basically impossible.

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TeamMisha t1_iw57050 wrote

I believe you are quite right that sounds very familiar and you're spot on, some projects are already miracles to begin with so if you add two agencies into the mix then it's a giga-miracle, and 3 or more... not even god himself can achieve the coordination 💀

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kapuasuite t1_iw7c49r wrote

New York City's bureaucratic feudalism never ceases to amaze me.

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nycfoto t1_iw7dlb4 wrote

DDC is part of the cross-city agency collaboration for decades. DDC, DOT and DEP are sister agencies that work in tandem, but not always in the correct order.

For example, they would repave the road over a long stretch.....then rip up the streets to expand water mains and sewer pipes. Then patch up the pavement. Instead of doing it the other way around. Replace the underground pipes THEN put fresh new asphalt pavement.

I know. I used to work for DDC ;)

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SI_MonsterMan t1_iw7lk2l wrote

Sounds like the revamping of the South Ferry terminal and Peter Minuit Plaza that had been rebuilt and torn up a half dozen times from 1990 to 2010.

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nycfoto t1_iw7msso wrote

Ridiculous. Perhaps the contractors didn't build to spec. Drainage issues, possible post-9/11 secured barricades?

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Dragon_Fisting t1_iw7d2zs wrote

Do they have to move the basins though? Couldn't they connect the extended sidewalk to the current catch basins with diagonal holes?

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TeamMisha t1_iw8r1c4 wrote

So I think there are ways to do it whereby you keep the current basins and cover conduits basically for the water to flow into them, but I am not 100% sure of current design standards if that is what the city would do or consider

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doodle77 t1_iw4l02e wrote

Changing the curbs requires a drainage redesign.

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_Maxolotl t1_iw5j8am wrote

Does using real metal bollards instead of plastic bollards that might as well be imaginary require a drainage redesign, though?

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sabotage45 t1_iw5pr2h wrote

The short answer is yes.

The longer answer is the redesign for the footings needed and the having to raise grade around the bollards to ensure normal traffic doesn't hit them because they win everytime not the car. And have setbacks from the new curb to ensure someone can open their car doors easily. There is a lot of planning and coordination that occurs between a bunch of city and start agencies and utilities and private stakeholders where the bollards are places

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_Maxolotl t1_iw5se69 wrote

The entire point is that they win every time not the car. And cars win every time not a human being walking.

Paint them orange make them reflective and if people can’t manage to avoid hitting shiny orange things that have a foot or two of painted striped in front of them, then they deserve a fucked up car.

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sabotage45 t1_iw6syol wrote

I don't disagree with you. But also there are many factors that go into these decisions. It's not that black and white. Engineers have to consider a lot of city state and federal laws rules and regulations. Such as ADA requirements. Utility interaction (existing and future). How the general public will use and abuse them. Because people are dumb. Engineers often have to thing about how to help the dumbest of us.

Also everytime the bollards get hit they need to be redone. If it's just a surface scratch then no but any kind of hit that can damage a car. Because the integrity of the bollard is compromised and it won't work as designed the next time it gets hit.

Also proper drainage needs to occur around the bollards otherwise water will degrade the metal and they are no longer useful to protect.

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[deleted] t1_iw4coft wrote

[deleted]

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huebomont t1_iw5vvk0 wrote

traffic is always bad. eliminating half of it by cutting the number of general purpose lanes is a huge benefit for everyone except drivers, who will always be miserable anyway.

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edman007 t1_iw53bb3 wrote

It doesn't really leave any emergency access. The parking between traffic and bike lane intentionally blocks all vehicles, no cops illegally parked, no delivery trucks, no crashing vehicles.

That said, emergency vehicles can just take a traffic lane so it's not really an issue.

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mr_birkenblatt t1_iw5j642 wrote

imho it's actually better. if you have to swerve out of the bikelane (e.g. if something is blocking it) you can just do that. if the sidewalk was raised that would not be possible

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gko2408 t1_iw8qrcf wrote

I thought of it as flawed too, but it might have a helpfully unintended benefit of keeping pedestrians/tourists aware of where where they are relative to bicyclists and the street. Especially if people will be looking at their phones while walking, the color change in their periphery could help.

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_allycat t1_iw8igxe wrote

I'm not going to argue over the semantics of what they intend with 'painted' but the extended sidewalks they've made without moving the original curb are fine. Examples are by Worth Square and outside Macys and up Broadway a bit.

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