Today’s Headlines

  • City Council No Longer Antagonizing Transpo Commish for Making Streets Safer (Transpo Nation)
  • Silverstein West Side Tower May or May Not Include Bus Garage, Gee-Whiz Bus Elevator (TRD, Capital)
  • MTA Completes Third East Side Access Tunnel Seven Weeks Ahead of Schedule (NY1)
  • Pedestrian Fatally Struck on Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights on Monday; “No Criminality” (DNA)
  • Outraged and Bewildered Mother of Roxie Buta Vows to Find Her Daughter’s Killer (DNA)
  • Five- to 10-Year Sentence Expected for Driver in Staten Island Crash That Killed Passenger (Post)
  • Reasoned Response to Historic Drop in Staten Island Traffic Fatalities From the Advance
  • DOT to Allow Rush Hour Parking on Atlantic Avenue Between Smith Street and Third (DNA)
  • City Begins Five-Year Project to Replace Hell’s Kitchen Water Lines (DNA)
  • Parkscore Ranks New York Number Three City for Parks Access and Investment (Transpo Nation)
  • Crain’s Interviews Driver-Owner of NYC’s First Wheelchair-Accessible Taxi
  • NY Mag Architecture Critic Justin Davidson Redefines “Defensive Driving”

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

  • Larry Littlefield

    With regard to Atlantic Avenue, it seems that DOT is favoring drivers against their own worst enemy:  other drivers. 

    It has decided to stop providing an additional travel lane to those heading to placard parking in Downtown Brooklyn or Lower Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge, at the expense of those driving to the area to park and meters and shop.

    The real conflict is between local parking/driving and through traffic.  To paper it over, since the same people do both, the tendency is to blame bicycles.  But it is coming out,  On 4th Avenue, for example, where Bay Ridge wants traffic calming locally and 50 mph four lanes wide in Sunset Park.

  • moocow

    Saw, didn’t hear, a possible new push for a mandatory helmet bill? It was in the news and I couldn’t hear what was said, does anyone else know more than me? The frustration of the thought of it made my work out go quicker…

  • Brick

    Re: SI Crash

    Take note – if you’re killed while in a car, the killer gets vehicular homicide, if you’re killed on a bike because someone with a suspended license doors you and then leaves the scene, the judge will bend over backwards to pardon you.

    Message received.

  • The inability of law enforcement to find the person responsible for the death of Ms. Buta has really spooked me. I realized yesterday that it could have been the driver of any one of the dozens of private garbage trucks I saw that morning. Please, NYPD, act now to get this killer off our streets!

  • krstrois

    I agree with Jonathan. It’s chilling. This woman was killed in Union Square. Union Square! What the hell are they doing?  

  • Ep243
  • kevd

    I think a re-reading of the NY Mag article would show that it is rather more forward thinking than your headline implies.
    Though, yes, he does concentrate on the moral arguments that any NY Mag writer would probably hear from his privileged friends.
    I just want to not have to pay so much for infrastructure that is designed without me in mind. If everyone was just paying there own way, THAT would be the best way to get people out of cars, because they’d see just how expensive all that asphalt and parking is.

  • fj

    Yes but, . . .  the emperor has no cloths!

    It is amazing how easy it is for people to believe non-rational ideas and get used to doing things the hard way.

    And prime examples are cars and transportation systems based on cars which are terrible designs.

    It is much easier and cost-effective to eliminate cars with advanced highly practical net zero mobility solutions than continue to play patty-cake with reality and the transportation patchwork feudalism and futilism promoted by special interests including the mature and extremely cash rich fossil fuel industry.

    — Which gets 1/2 $trillion annual subsidies, has 10-14 $trillion infrastructure that requires 1.5 $trillion maintenance per year, makes 5 $trillion per year, etc. —

    In the long run, billions of lives depend on us seriously coming to our senses and quick.

    And ultimately, it will be a lot cheaper AND much more convenient to travel the city when cars are gone.

    Carmageddon will definitely be a very, very good thing.

    re:  NY Mag Architecture Justin Davidson Imagines a New York Where Motorists Are Under Siege.

  • Larry Littlefield

    The Feds shut down 26 Chinatown bus companies.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/chinatown-bus-companies-shut-down-in-federal-safety-sweep.html

    “The three primary targets controlled a network of other companies, leading to the 26 separate shut-down orders, the department said. The companies’ networks included one ticket seller, nine active bus companies, 13 companies already out of service that were continuing to operate and three companies applying for permission to operate.”

    Three groups controlling 26 separate companies, each of which could go “poof!”   Beats liability insurance.

  • Joe R.

    @twowheel:disqus It was actually City Council member David Greenfield who introduced a bill to require all cyclists to wear helmets:
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303640104577436902553108514.html?mod=googlenews_wsj#articleTabs%3Darticle I can say two things about this:1) I’ve been cycling for 34 years, and if this bill is passed my days of cycling are over with.2) I expect NYC to pay for any health problems I will develop as a result of not exercising. I also expect them to pay me fair market value for my bikes which will now no longer be useful to me.With mandatory helmet laws everywhere decreasing, this bill makes absolutely no sense. It makes no sense either from a logical or public health perspective. The efficacy of helmets is at best debatable. They’re virtually useless in the types of crashes most likely to kill cyclists-namely bike-motor vehicle crashes. Most importantly, they discourage cycling (although maybe that’s the point here), making it more dangerous for those who continue to do so. Australia passed a mandatory helmet law. The number of cyclists decreased but the number of injuries didn’t.

  • Anonymous

    ”
    “Commissioner, I want to thank you for all the docking stations in my district. I want to thank you for the bike share program. I want to thank you for using my picture, my image, on your website, on the bike — it’s absolutely fabulous. Thank you for the plazas in my district…thank you for all the street renovations…thank you for the bike lanes, thank you for recognizing that we all have to share the space and no one is entitled to a city street.””

    We need more council members like Letitia James!

  • kevd

    HA! I love the new NY Mag headline. Funny!