Today’s Headlines

Unmarked Cop Car Runs Light, Strikes and Injures Pedestrian on Queens Blvd (News)
Komanoff: What’s the Matter With Downtown’s City Council Candidates? (Downtown Express)
Streetsblog Nominates Baruch Herzfeld for Nobel Peace Prize (The Forward)
One-Way Kent Ave Config Is in Effect; Will New Truck Route Be Enforced? (News)
MTA Tests New, Quieter Turbine-Engine Bus (City Room, 2nd Ave Sagas, AMNY, Post)
Three Injured in Chelsea Cab Crash Yesterday (1010 WINS)
Paterson Signs Weak Distracted Driving Bill Into Law (NY1)
Riverdalers Wonder What Took So Long to Fix 181st Street Station Ceiling (R’dale Press)
34th Street Bus Lane Abuse: Flagrant and Rampant (Ecstatic E)
Some Day It Will Be Obvious: Downtown Freeways a Horrible Idea (Broken Sidewalk via Sblog.net)

JSD

Unmarked Cop Car Runs Light, Strikes and Injures Pedestrian on Queens Blvd

“There was no criminality involved in the crash, a police source said Thursday night.”

It’s just a lost cause, isn’t it?
Cap’n Transit

Riverdalers Wonder What Took So Long to Fix 181st Street Station Ceiling

Maybe it wouldn’t have taken so long if their representatives hadn’t been fixated on turn signals and starving the system of money.
jj

” The unmarked car – an anti-crime unit from the 109th Precinct – had a green light, a police union source said, adding that Villa was intoxicated. ”

Multiple witnesses say the car did NOT have a light. How are they allowed to lie like this?

And how was Villa being intoxicated affect anything if he had the crosswalk signal? And considering the last lie, thats probably also not true. I hope hes a religious nut who never drinks so he can sue over false accusations.
Mitch

If the Nobel Peace Prize committee isn’t interested, can we nominate Baruch Herzfeld for a MacArthur Foundation genius grant?
glenn

Some people think that there needs to be some kind of community “consensus” before bike lanes are installed…like they are some kind of controversial idea from a distant galaxy. Rather, we see time and again that bike lanes (which actually have wide public support from every survey I’ve seen) start the conversation about sustainable transportation and automobile dependence that a cranky few have been putting off for decades.
Charles Siegel

I think having any car lanes in my neighborhood violates my obligation of modesty: use resources modestly so we leave a livable world to our children.
Larry Littlefield

Desperate times mean desperate measures:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/california-holds-biggest-garage-sale-to-date-2009-08-27?link=kiosk

“To reduce government waste and raise money, the state is selling thousands of items including old cars — some have Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature on the visor–at what it’s calling the Great California Garage Sale. The sale is taking place at a Sacramento warehouse on Friday and Saturday, and on Ebay and Craigslist.”

Is California the innovator here? No, New York City Transit is. During my first tour of duty there, from 1986 to 1988 (in inventory management), it completed its first-ever inventory, and auctioned off huge amounts of surplus material for significant money, including lots of items sold to transit and rail buffs. I remember going down to the Transit Museum and watching people practically stampeded each other to bid on old train operator badges.