Today’s Headlines

  • Executive Director Pat Foye Is Leaving the Port Authority (NYT, Crain’s, WSJ)
  • Bronx CBs Put Parking Before Housing; East NY and Inwood Fear Being Priced Out (News, DNA)
  • How Did the Man Who Killed Jean Chambers Possess a Valid NY Driver’s License? (DNA)
  • DA Richard Brown: Homicide Conviction for Driver Who Killed Betty Jean DiBiaso (DNA)
  • 24th Precinct Recommends Fixes to Intersection Where Cab Driver Killed Luisa Rosario (DNA)
  • NYPD Tells People to Ride “Hoverboards” in Bike Lanes (DNA); Andy King Eyes Redundant Ban (News)
  • Drivers Injure Pedestrians: Pelham Bay (News); Manhattan Bridge (Post); Cross Bronx Expressway (News)
  • Staten Island Parents Who Ignore Driving Rules Are Putting Kids at Risk Outside Schools (Advance)
  • Historian Says NYC Has Never Figured Out How to Pay for Subways (WNYC)
  • Uh, No (Gothamist)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

  • BBnet3000

    In bike-friendly places all sorts of medium speed conveyances (including electric wheelchairs and mobility scooters) use bike infrastructure. There are even many “bicycle streets” that cars drive on for local access.

    In New York however where bike facilities are designed deliberately too narrow even for one person cycling to overtake another, things like hoverboards are going to cause some people to be bothered by the “intrusion”. Similarly, people pushing carts cause blockage on the narrow Manhattan Bridge bike path, but the bike path is really the only place for them to be as the pedestrian path has stairs.

  • Komanoff

    I beg to differ re your last hed, “Uh, No.”

    The original Gothamist piece deserved that, with its loathsome headline “The greatest danger to you is other bikers.” That’s now gone. And in the body, the quote has been flipped to read, “The greatest danger to other bikers is you,” with the writer’s pro pal commanding her not to salmon. Which is good.

    Revised, the piece is fine in my book. Nice and lyrical at the end: ” … Being on a bike feels free and even rebellious, like you have subverted
    how the city is intended for subways and cars and pedestrians and carved
    out your own autonomous existence. And in that space, the city is
    peaceful and wide and filled with secret delights …” Yes!

  • Matthias

    That Daily News story reads like the Onion.

    “People like Marcos Avila, 32, from Jackson Heights, decided to ditch bikes, subways and buses for the hoverboard when he first spotted them this spring. Now he’s worried he’ll have to return to travel as usual.

    “It’s really going to disrupt my life,” Avila, 32, told the Daily News. “That was my go-to device.”

  • c2check

    Nice and lyrical, but also fiction (at least in my book—my existence is anything but autonomous when I’m being smashed between cars. There’s lots left to do before the city is peaceful and wide)

  • Jeff

    Don’t let activism make you too cynical. Bikes are fun. Nobody can take that away from us.

  • Brad Aaron

    Can’t speak to copy edits, but the headline change was made after I linked to it.

  • Geck

    On hoverboards, the reg banning motorized scooters says :
    “For the purposes of this section, the term motorized scooter shall not include … electric powered devices not capable of exceeding fifteen miles per hour or “electric personal assistive mobility devices” defined as self-balancing, two non-tandem wheeled devices designed to transport one person by means of an electric propulsion system. ”
    http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/nycode/ADC/19/1/3/19-176.2#sthash.KtB1kdLF.dpuf

  • Brad Aaron
  • bolwerk

    Gotta say, they’re very popular [with douchebags] in Philadelphia.

  • Alexander Vucelic

    I am not too stressed by hover boards, skateboards, unicycles, rollerblades, razor scooters, and wheelchairs in the bike lanes. My feeling is these are all active transportation. Critical Mass and all that

  • c2check

    More fun in some places than others! 😉

  • qrt145

    As part of the Times Square work they seem to be expanding the sidewalk of 7th Ave between 45th and 46th St. But this week I noticed that the expansion is actually at a different height, halfway between the sidewalk and the roadway. Could it be a one-block-long raised cycle track? Just asking in case anyone here has more information.

  • Alex

    Interesting to see the NYPD make traffic calming suggestions. 109th is a mess, but I’d argue the problem is actually that split phase south-bound turn off of west-bound Cathedral Pkwy onto the beginning of Columbus. It’s a really wide turn that actually gives the phase totally to cars (don’t walk for peds until turning signal ends). That block between 110-109 is also about 10-15% shorter than a normal city block, so someone who swings a wide left turn at speed onto the Avenue and finds a green on Columbus would have little time to slow down to make a right turn to continue going west. Cars turning left there should be going to a red light at 109.

    108th and 109th are actually heavily used as east/west shortcuts to 110th, as you can often speed on them and make it in one light. 109th caught a death, 108th is a double speed-bump 15mph school zone but it does nothing to stop drivers shopping for shortcuts on residential streets.