Salām*
And welcome to this newsletter.
It's where I (John Surico) talk each month about cities & all their discontents: streets, environment, energy, cultures, people, food, form, etc. This month, we cover:
- The growing role of BIDs in rethinking public space;
- The bike-share dilemma;
- A hyper-local approach to planning safer streets;
& much, much more.
If you received this missive last month, then you got a tiny glimpse into how I assemble Streetbeat each month.
Above the fold of the ‘On the Radar’ section was [INSERT PHOTO]. When I first get going, I dot each section with this label and a few TK’s, which, in journalism, means ‘to come.’ (The field is filled with all sorts of wacky expressions, like calling paragraphs ‘grafs.’) Then I spend the last week of the month filling in each part—writing a few sections a day, before a final run of edits, hyperlinks and images. And in the mad dash leading up to last month’s edition, which was written right before a trip, I happened to forget one. My bad!
I’ll try to minimize when I do that as much as I can, but hey, we’re human, and the stakes here are thankfully low. Sometimes we slip up! Hypothetically, I could go back and add the photo right now, but I figured it’s a good learning moment for myself and readers of how this machine chugs on each month. So enjoy the void of art! (It was just going to be a picture of The High Line anyway.)
Now, onto all the (image-laden) news:
A public space role reversal
There are very distinct moments in the history of cities, one of which, to me, is the late 1970s and early 1980s—the last major existential crisis in urban living, before the pandemic. Stubbornly high crime rates, reflected in reality and stretched in popular culture, coupled with global ‘stagflation’ brought disinvestment. It was the era of graffitied subway cars and trash cans on fire, with suburbia waving in the distance as an appealing alternative. (But this was also the era of disco, punk rock and LGBTQ+ rights. So, it’s complicated.)
In many ways, cities are still living in the limelight of that time. One lasting legacy, in particular, is the BID, or Business Improvement District. As city dollars retreated from basic services, business-funded groups stepped in to complement, or wholly replace, what were previously seen as municipal responsibilities; things like litter cleanup, graffiti removal, and street beautification. (It’s no surprise that we saw a similar movement unfolding in city parks, with the rise of the conservancy model, at this same time.) To many critics, this is the origin of the neoliberal city — ding! ding! ding! — where public services were co-opted by private entities, rewriting the urban social contract in the process.
Almost fifty years later, BIDs are alive and well. And that historical context is important to know for what I’m about to say next. See, BIDs were borne out of an effort to win back the white-collar residents who had decamped to the suburbs. (And now, with remote work, that’s still the mission in many ways.) That pitch, naturally, included car access: discounted parking passes, convenient garages, and easy car access. But in 2023, something has changed: BIDs and BID-like groups are now pushing—and, in many cases, leading—some of the most ambitious street redesigns out there, away from the car. And just like the 1970s, that shift holds serious ramifications for what our cities could look like next.
This is a story I’ve been circling forever. So I’m glad I could write it up for Bloomberg CityLab. Check it out here.
Bike-share or bust
American bike-share is in a weird place. It is, still, the only mass transit system that has grown ridership since the pandemic—2023 is on track to be a banner year, with 45 million trips in total. But at the same time, the model itself is struggling to find its financial footing. It was reported last week that Lyft—which operates New York’s Citi Bike, Washington’s Capital Bikeshare (CaBi), Chicago’s Divvy and others—is having second thoughts. The ride-share giant is no longer certain it wants to also be a bike-share giant, and apparently the interest from buyers is inspiring them to consider selling.
So, to summarize: the bikes are hot but nobody knows how to make ‘em profitable. And no story tells that better than the plight of the e-bikes.
If you’ve ridden an electric Citi Bike in New York recently (or any of those cities above, although to a lesser degree), you know maintenance is a problem. Bikes are either out of power, broken, or hiding issues in plain sight. The red dot, which signifies the bike isn’t available, is omnipresent at stations. This is largely a demand issue: folks are riding the e-bikes way more than Lyft anticipated (good thing!) that the e-bikes are breaking down way faster than Lyft anticipated (bad thing!). And the system in place to address this is stuck in manual, where mechanics have to drive around and do everything by hand: battery swaps, fixes, etc. There are also bureaucratic barriers that definitely don’t help, like the 20% cap on e-bikes in the fleet and the lack of station electrification.
For my latest story in New York Magazine’s Curbed, Lyft gave me an inside peek at the dramatic labor processes behind maintaining North America’s largest bike-share system, which continues to break records almost every week. And folks, it is wild. But as questions swirl around Lyft’s capacity as an operator, it’s worth asking: are they up to the task? And if not them, who is?
OSA: Neighborhood visioning
In 2019, the New York City Council forced a vote on the NYC Streets Plan, a far-reaching, five-year vision for transportation and public space. By 2026, the city would have to, legally, build 250 miles of protected bike lanes and 150 miles of bus lanes—50 and 30 each year, respectively. City Hall balked at the time, claiming capacity issues—which would later prove to be accurate—but in the end, the bill passed. And now, it’s official agency policy.
Suffice to say, progress hasn’t been great. The administration of Mayor Eric Adams, which has committed $900 million to the cause, missed the goal last year, with little explanation. (Because what does enforcement actually mean?) This year, the city has built just 10 out of the 50 miles for protected bike lanes, and it’s August. There are a lot of reasons for the slog: staffing limits, as mentioned; diminished morale in government writ large; slow planning processes; and lack of political will, as the coup de grace. But I think it’s also a lesson in applying citywide goals to hyper-local battles.
Take Fordham Road in the Bronx, for example. City officials said the long-planned ‘busway’ (a street for buses and trucks only) alone would have made up nine out of the 30 miles required for bus lanes. That was until local businesses and nearby institutions made a stink. Now, it seems destined for dilution.
How does planning avoid this pitfall? One solution, I think, is a neighborhood-centric ‘streets plan,’ where ambitious goals are met but they’re devised from the ground up, rather than the top down. Community organizers come up with strategies at a smaller scale, and once all pieced together, they meet the targets laid out. (Because, believe me, that mileage isn’t much in a major urban area.)
That’s the hope I have for what’s unfolding where I live. After a scourge of traffic fatalities in my backyard, which I’ve written about here, elected officials are working with advocates to craft a district-wide streets plan, with specific and broad calls to action. (I’m a part of that effort, as a rep of the 31st Ave Open Street Collective.) It’s one of the first of its kind in New York; if successful, it could serve as a model for hyper-local planning citywide. Wish us luck.
Bright Side: Hometown pride
Since I reported on bike buses in May for The New York Times—this is when parents and kids form a parade of wheels to get to school safely—I’ve been heartened to see the space evolve. Several bike buses I follow are offering summer rides. One was created near me; the first, it seems, in the borough. And another popped up somewhere I least expected: my hometown.
I spent most of my childhood cycling in Floral Park, Long Island. But like most kids in suburbia, it was on the sidewalk, not the street. And as I got older, my friends and I were drawn to cars, even if the bike ride to school would’ve been 10 minutes. I think about why this was the case a lot (I even wrote my planning dissertation on it, ha) but at least some of it has to do with the fact that: a) there are no bike lanes, let alone secure parking; and b) the culture leans car, not cycle. So I didn’t ride again until I moved to New York City, where both of those things changed for me overnight.
But the pandemic may be a turning point. My dad picked up a bike for the first time in 20 years “because everyone else was doing it,” he said. And a couple of years out, it seems like it’s sticking: last month, a group called ‘Bike Floral Park’ formed to organize group rides from the town square to a local bird sanctuary, and back. I don’t know who’s behind the group (I will find out!) but they are raising salient points not often heard on Long Island, like the fact that our business district has 825 car parking spaces and only about three bike racks.
Other ‘bike bus’ groups have been successful in getting the attention of local leaders by simply showing how unsafe streets are for kids. Let’s see if my hometown is ready for the same message.
On the Radar
How TV Writing Became a Dead-End Job, by Noam Scheiber (NYT)
I’d be remiss not to mention in this newsletter what’s happening in Hollywood at the moment. Picket lines of writers and actors have been going strong not too far from where I’m writing this—at Queens’ Kaufman Studios and Silvercup Studios; at Brooklyn’s Steiner Studios; and across Manhattan—bringing studios to a screeching halt. (Fran Drescher, SAG-AFTRA’s outspoken leader and “The Nanny” star, was born and raised nearby, in Flushing.)
It’s no surprise that labor is suddenly resurgent in America; the cost of living has far outpaced wages for some time, and the country’s unionization rates track closely with the divergence of those two indices. But what’s happening in TV and film right now says something much larger about our modern economic lives: a concept known as “the fracturing of work.”
You’ve heard of this idea, but probably in different ways. It’s the pivot to freelance in media. It’s the growth of part-time educators in academia. It’s your Uber or Lyft driver. It’s the deliveristas of DoorDash and Seamless. It’s the dog workers on Wag, the makers on Etsy, and the people assembling your IKEA chair on TaskRabbit. It’s the gig economy, baby. Plain and simple.
But what’s meant by ‘fracturing’ is that work is being subdivided into smaller tasks or jobs. And with that comes a fractured workforce as well: as Scheiber, the Times’ labor reporter (whose work is excellent), writes, you have “fewer officers, more grunts.” Newspapers have fewer editors but an army of contributors. Universities have fewer faculty members but an army of adjuncts. And Hollywood has fewer studio executives but an army of content producers.
As someone who’s only ever been freelance, I’ve long extolled the values I see in being a sole proprietor, namely: the freedom and flexibility with projects; the resilience to disruption; and the variety of experience each day can bring. But I often give the example of holiday as its downside: sure, I can take off time whenever, but it’s not paid. And if I do, it means I’m that many days delayed on getting paid next. (Don’t even get me started on healthcare.)
This is the give and take that millions of more Americans are choosing each year. Our economies are adopting a new form of LinkedIn-fied rugged individualism, and our cities are adapting to that change: a different sense of what an office is; new labor rules; and upended traveling patterns. But let us not forget there’s a power structure that now very much wants to keep it that way. It’s the studio execs refusing to give in on pretty basic demands (like being paid more than a few hundred dollars as a writer on The Bear) and it’s Uber fighting tooth and nail to keep drivers classified as ‘contractors,’ not employees, because the latter would mean that they’re afforded protections and benefits.
It’s also worth noting that we’ve been here before: as Scheiber reports, Ford’s assembly line followed a similar pattern. What gave those workers dignity then was organizing for better pay and laws to protect their livelihoods. It seems that history is repeating itself. (Except this time, with AI!)
Streetbeat Gig Board
Wanna post a job? Submit it here.
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TransitCenter, a foundation focused on public transit, is looking for a freelance writer to help them tell success stories across the U.S.. (Remote; if interested, email me!)
Urban Design Forum, a nonprofit that organizes New York’s leaders around the built environment (of which I just re-enlisted as a Fellow!), is hiring an executive assistant and program manager. (New York City, US)
Transportation Alternatives, one of the leading advocacy groups for safer streets in New York City, is need of a Manhattan organizer and senior director for people and operations. (New York City, US)