Today’s Headlines

  • Cycling a Priority at New DOT (NYT)
  • Fidler, Weprin Make Nice With Quinn Over Pricing Picks (City Hall News via DP)
  • Unknown Number of Cab Drivers Set to Strike (NYT, Post, AMNY)
  • Transit Strike in London (Second Ave Sagas)
  • Horrific Hit-and-Run Kills Child, Leaving Scene Charged (NYT, Post, News, Sun)
  • Pedestrian Killed in Manhattan; No Charges Filed (AMNY)
  • Bike Cop Hit by Car in Queens (Sun)
  • Officials Evaluate Brooklyn Trolley Use (Daily Eagle)
  • Yankees Drop One of Four Planned Parking Decks (Post)
  • Debate Over City’s Own ‘Ring of Steel’ (Gotham Gazette)
  • Senate Buys New Cars for Lawmakers (Times Union via Daily Politics)
  • Feds to Spend $42 Billion on Highways, $1.4 Billion on Transit (Newton Streets)
  • LA Residents Await Light Rail Link (NYT)
  • Daily News Publisher Warns of ‘Energy Emergency’ (US News)
  • mork

    Re: “Brooklyn Trolley”

    Why do they have to call that thing a “trolley”? It’s a bus. Calling it a trolley does a disservice to trolleys.

  • Angus “Germaine Greer” Grieve-Smith

    They used to have one of those “trolleys” in Albuquerque, and one of the Green Party activists called them “transvestite buses.” I was all ready to be offended, but the more I thought about it the more apt I realized the metaphor was.

    There are plenty of ways to dress up a bus to signal that it’s a free tourist shuttle. Dressing it up as a trolley is patronizing and insulting to trolleys.

  • Geoff

    re: times cycling article

    What’s Timothy Williams goal in writing this article? It seems to me to be about scaring people (again) to not commute by bike and stirring up the bike lane vs. double parking thing (again). Are cops really “quick to ticket anyone double-parking in the lanes”? And what’s with that “cautionary tale”? Guys with knives? And then connecting commuting to CM, conjuring up images of mass arrests…

    Oy.

  • The use of “parking decks” is misleading. When I think of a parking deck, I think of one level of a multi-level parking structure. Removing one deck would make a smaller structure, but would have no effect on the use of the land.

    According to the Post article, they are eliminating an entire parking garage from the plans, which suggests that the space for the garage can be used for other purposes.

    Does this mean that the park that was going to be sacrificed for parking won’t be? Or maybe not all of it?

    And, you’ve got to love the line that says the parking reduction won’t be a problem because of the new Metro-North station!

  • Lee

    The bike lanes in NYC are going to be most useful if they are tied together into an integrated system. Part of that should be signage. I’ve come accross bike lanes in Brooklyn, but there is no signage or labels of any kind. I don’t which bike lane this is, where it starts, where it ends, which direction its going, or how far it goes. Am I supposed to rely on faith that I’m going in the right direction?

  • Brad Aaron

    Sean, where I hail from, “parking deck” is commonly used to refer to an entire parking structure, while a “garage” is where one goes to have one’s car repaired.

    No intent to mislead.

  • Of course, a little pre-post research would have led me to the use of “parking deck” to refer to the entire structure.

    I never thought you intended to mislead. I thought that the use of parking deck — which might be construed as referring to a single level — kinda buried the lede.

  • Hilary Kitasei

    The question of what will replace the parking deck is important, because one of the Yankee Stadium deal’s most controversial aspects was its requisite “swap” of equal parkland – in this case, a beautiful community park with many big trees was razed and the community got ersatz “parkland” on top of parking garages. So while it may be good news that they’re shrinking parking capacity, are they still holding up the park bargain (such as it was)?

  • Eric

    Cops are “quick to ticket” anyone who double parks after alternate-parking hours expire, whether they’re in a bike lane or not. I’ve been rung up twice in the past few months after forgetting to move the car back, by just a couple of minutes. The cops cruise for the absent-minded, I believe. It has nothing to do with bike lanes – except that it offers a convenient red herring for anti-cycling cranks.