Janette Sadik-Khan, the New York transportation commissioner who transformed that city’s streets under former mayor Michael Bloomberg, is in town this week promoting her new book Street Fight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution. In it, she details her experiences, but also provides plenty of specific, nuts-and-bolts suggestions based on how she learned to redesign roads. Inspired by her chapter “Stealing Good Ideas,” we look at some tips from her book that Toronto could consider swiping.

1. Parking-protected bike lanes

How we do it in Toronto: When parked cars and bike lanes share a road, the cars park in the curb lane with the bikes between them and the moving car traffic, often in the “door zone” of the parked cars, as seen here on College St.

Sadik-Khan says: In New York, they decided to put the bike lanes on the curb, with parked cars “forming a barrier between the bike lane and moving traffic,” she writes. “A parking-protected lane reverses the syntax of traffic … It separates bikes and vehicles, reducing the chance that a vehicle will illegally block the bike lane and organizing the street better for pedestrians, with safety islands that reduce crossing distance.”

2. Curb extensions

How we do it in Toronto: The intersection of Keele and Annette ranks among the city’s most dangerous for pedestrians. As seen here, it’s an example of what Sadik-Khan calls in her book “one of the most basic design flaws in city streets: the rounded, right-angled corner. The very wideness of the crosswalk itself provides no prompt for drivers to slow down, inviting them to make the turn at high speed, and it offers no protection for pedestrians against turning trucks and buses.”

Sadik-Khan says: At many street corners in New York, the city implemented “curb extensions.” Sadik-Khan writes that they “decrease crossing distances for pedestrians, reclaiming crosswalk space not needed to move traffic, establishing the presence of people crossing the street and cueing drivers to slow down.”

3. Plazas — new streetside parks

How we do it in Toronto: An oddly shaped intersection, such as this one at Carlaw and Dundas, might lead to the creation of a paved traffic island (with right-turning traffic on one side of it merging with the main street later).

Sadik-Kahn says: In such places, New York began simplifying traffic flow by eliminating the eccentric extra lanes and glorifying the resulting pedestrian space by creating “place-changing” plaza parkettes with public art, benches, planters and umbrellas. “It required only the basic tools already in every transportation department’s arsenal: paint and the street space already there,” she writes. About the first such experimental plaza on Pearl St. in DUMBO, she writes, “The place transformed from a place where people wanted to park into a place where people wanted to be,” filled with employees eating lunch or enjoying a coffee. “The transformation was fast — a couple of weeks — and easily integrated into the neighbourhood.”

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4. Bike rack corrals

How we do it in Toronto: On most retail strips, there is curbside parking for cars, often regulated with parking meters. Bikes can find a lollipop lock-stand along the curb, though in many places they fill up quickly and people try locking their bikes to traffic signs, trees, or patio fences.

Sadik-Khan says: Largely in response to demand from small businesses, New York created a bike “corral” program in which a single curbside parking spot would be replaced by racks for a dozen or more bikes.

5. Improved bus lanes

How we do it in Toronto: In the suburbs, we face several challenges such as at the intersection of Midland and Finch in Scarborough: wide intersections are among the most dangerous for pedestrians to cross, while buses need to pull in and out of traffic and often block right-turning car traffic while stopped to pick up passengers.

Sadik-Khan says: Realizing that “we cannot persuade more people to take buses without making them faster,” New York implemented a bus rapid transit system in many areas with dedicated lanes (policed by cameras) for transit vehicles. Stops placed on the far side of intersections mean cars face no obstacles to turning right and that buses do not need to pull over to pick up passengers. Adding a small pedestrian island inside the right-turn lane makes the intersection safer for pedestrians.

6. Following desire lines

How we do it in Toronto: “Desire lines are naturally occurring travel patterns that reflect where people want to travel,” Sadik-Khan writes. On Yonge St. just north of Queens Quay near the Toronto Star office, pedestrians routinely jaywalk across the street, which is seldom congested with car traffic, rather than walking dozens of meters to a stoplight.

Sadik-Khan says: In one block between Sixth and Seventh Aves. in Manhattan, New York planners noticed similar jaywalking desire lines; “hundreds of people would cross the street midblock,” Sadik-Khan writes. “We built a series of intersections to connect these spaces and give people a safe place way to cross. New York’s newest thoroughfare — 6 ½ Avenue — was born.”