Today’s Headlines

  • U.S. DOT Distracted Driving Summit Starts This Morning: Follow It Here (Fast Lane via Streetsblog.net)
  • Comptroller, Public Advocate Primaries: Liu, De Blasio Win Handily; Voters: Yawn (NYT, NYT)
  • Bloomberg Courts Drivers With Parking Meter Tech, Ticket Amnesty, Sensitive TEAs (News, News)
  • NYPD Ped Killer Andrew Kelly Had Zero BAC Seven Hours Later; Pleads Not Guilty (NYT, News)
  • Investigators Pursue Evidence of Crime Scene Cover-Up (Post)
  • Cops to Lose Hoyt-Schermerhorn Sidewalk Parking to Ped Plaza; Cue Carmageddon Prediction (News)
  • Parking Spot Panhandling Upsets Bronx Motorists; Pedro Espada: Yawn (Post)
  • Riverdale Parents Implore DOT to Protect School Kids From Riverdale Parents (R’dale Press)
  • TWU Rallies for Raises in Midtown (Post)
  • Denmark PM Cycles Central Park, Forgoes Helmet, Marvels at Aggressive Cops (NY Mag)
  • Climate Change-Denying U.S. Chamber of Commerce Losing Members (NYT)

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

  • vnm

    Take the train to Fordham Road. Avoid the hustle.

  • The sidewalk parking “detective” was fantastic! “…all the traffic and double parking…” it’s as if these are as natural and unstoppable as sunrise- and can’t be cured with enforcement by people who work for the same department as he does!

    I wonder what revealing observations he could make about Jay Street.

  • Yeah, you would think that transit police would take the train or the bus to work. Apparently not.

  • neil

    i hope the judge doubles the raises that TWU received. they deserve it, and then some

  • Brooklyn

    Thought everyone would enjoy this, courtesy, of all places, Lance Armstrong’s twitter feed:

    http://www.psfk.com/2009/09/bicycle-beats-helicopter.html

    Related, something else interesting there — scroll down to 9/28, 9:18pm. . .

  • “It’s not a very bright idea,” said one transit detective speaking on condition of anonymity. “There’s literally nowhere for us to park around here. That’s why we’re on the sidewalk in the first place.”

    Which is why everyone else takes the train. Reminds of the Danish PM’s bodyguard’s excuse: “We’re the police!”

  • clever-title

    The “We’re the police!” shouted at a jogger came from the NYPD escorts, not the Danish PM’s bodyguards.

    Typical NYPD attitude — we’re above you proles who have the responsibility to get out of our way or be assaulted and/or locked up on bogus charges.

  • (Pardon, I thought his bodyguards _were_ NYPD.)

  • Ian Turner

    Neil,

    I guess that since you have decided they deserve these wages more that any other conceivable use for the money, that you are willing to fund it 100% yourself?

    Cheers,

    –Ian Turner

  • neil

    THere;s plenty of money..did you notice the ceo’s new salary????
    transit workers are probably the most underpaid civil servants in NYC

  • This talk of relative worth is silly. Transit workers are worth precisely what they’re paid. If they were worth more they’d be paid more. Such are the laws of wages.

    If they think they’re undercompensated they should negotiate for higher wages. Unions get in the way of this, forcing everyone to negotiate together. This is why I’ll never join a union, and oppose the unionization of my own industry.

    Also, nothing’s stopping a transit worker from workin’ somewhere else. They elect the job. Nobody’s pointing guns.

    I’d recommend any transit worker who feels undercompensated to quit and go work somewhere else for more money. I’d wager that they don’t do this because they can’t find any similar work at better pay; I prefer to believe this, than that they fail to leave out of sheer laziness, or the life-planning equivalent of couchlock.

  • Niccolo Machiavelli

    Kaja, and many other bloggers apparently, prefer the cut-throat, race to the bottom labor market competition that is seen in the Taxi and Limo industry. You see how well that works. Maybe in the sky high skill market Kaja inhabits individual bargaining is a big success, it works real well with egg production too, we can all agree on that. But the stability that comes through collective bargaining, healthcare and pensions, where workers have a stake in their job, know what they will earn and have tools for fighting for it is a much better way to run a complex critical enterprise like the MTA.