Today’s Headlines

  • Which NYC Do We Want: A City Where People Can Afford to Live or a City With Lots of Parking? (NYT)
  • It’s Settled: DOT and MTA Need to Claim Lots of Street Space for Buses Before the L-Pocalypse (News)
  • BMW Driver Critically Injures Pedestrian on East Tremont Ave in Schuylerville (News)
  • SUV Driver Backing Up to Park Critically Injures Woman, 83, in Upper East Side Crosswalk (Post)
  • Good Questions for Polly Trottenberg From NY1‘s Josh Robin
  • Trottenberg: DOT Considering Automated Enforcement to Keep Bike Lanes Clear (WNYC)
  • Has Mayor de Blasio Ever Ridden a Bike in NYC? (Bklyn Spoke)
  • Crain’s Asks If BIDs Have Already Done Everything They Can Do for NYC
  • Yes, There’s at Least One Member of Queens CB 9 Who Talks Sense About Woodhaven SBS (QChron)
  • LIC’s City Ferry Service Will Dock at Gantry State Park (AMNY)
  • Scenes From Park(ing) Day Around the Region (MTR)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

  • Guest

    Mayor de Blasio’s “VisionZero”:
    Sorry you’re dead, but somebody had to “you know, let someone off at an appointment or something like that, or just drop off kids at home or something quickly.”
    http://www.wnyc.org/story/nyc-sets-bike-lane-record-cant-keep-cars-out-them/

  • Guest

    What world is Trottenberg living in? NYPD “can do smart enforcement, they can look at the camera feeds and see where they’re seeing hot spots”???

    “Hey, look Bill, there’s a bunch of cars parked in the bike lane outside the station house.”
    “No way Steve! I never saw that before. Better get rotation over there right away and tow those cars!”

    Yeah, just kidding… we all know she’s deliberately putting up a smoke screen. Shame on her.

  • Vooch

    what is with UES drivers killing seniors while manuvering into a parking spot ? I think this is the 3rd senior killed on UES by a parking driver in 12 months. (

    FYI – Drivers kill one pedestrian every 5 weeks on UES.

  • djx

    Too many bike lanes and Citibikes up there – makes it really dangerous.

  • Reader

    It’s pass the buck politics. Build bad infrastructure that doesn’t take parking and then say that if only the cops would enforce the law it would be good infrastructure. It’s why we get sharrows on high-speed arterials. It’s also why people die.

  • qrt145

    Regarding the de Blasio interview: the city already allows citizens to report taxis abusing bike lanes. I don’t see why it wouldn’t want to extend the same privilege to other types of drivers.

  • Kevin Love

    And begrimed.

  • Kevin Love

    And this whole, “If it is only for a few minutes it is OK” thing is deeply disturbing. How long does Mr. de Blasio believe that it takes a lethal hazard to kill someone? Does he think there is a two minute magical force field protecting people?

    Can we imagine any other crime of violence being treated this way? Suppose someone accused of sexual assault told the judge, “I only had my penis in her body for a couple of minutes, so what’s the big deal?”

  • vnm

    How does one do this? Call 311? Use the 311 app? Is there one way that’s better than another?

  • qrt145

    I’ve never done it myself, but people who post on Twitter with #cyclistswithcameras say it’s possible. I don’t think it’s possible with the 311 app, but maybe it is with the web application. https://twitter.com/hashtag/cyclistswithcameras

    But see also http://www.streetsblog.org/2016/05/19/tlc-cab-driver-blocking-the-bike-lane-well-allow-it/ . There are recent Twitter posts mentioning fines for blocking bike lanes, so I wonder what happened about that.

  • JudenChino

    I use this app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reported/id916072964?mt=8

    Works pretty well. I’ve got a few taxi’s ticketed. The TLC takes this seriously. Had a TLC prosecuting attorney reach out to me. Highly recommend but it also helps to have photo or video evidence, which you can upload.

  • Vooch

    of course – damn bike lanes

  • JamesR

    As a general rule, whenever anyone in the planning and policy world uses the word “smart” to describe a particular measure without getting into specifics as to HOW it would actually function, it means that they don’t have any idea whatsoever about how that particular thing should be implemented in the real world. It’s a weasel word used to help fill out plans that sit on shelves and/or to provide political cover.

  • JamesR

    It’s worse than just parking in bike lanes. Motorists will actively commandeer bike lanes as vehicle travel lanes if given the opportunity. I see it all the time in the striped lane on Avenue C in Alphabet City. They’ll squeeze their way into the lane (which is sufficiently wide surrounding the M14 bus stop pads to accommodate a car) and muscle their way in front of other traffic, with horns blaring from the aggrieved driver who gets cut off. One has to marvel at the brazen sociopath at work.

  • Kevin Love

    Particularly when said brazen sociopath turns out to be an off-duty NYPD officer.

  • Vooch

    Who killed Mathew van Ohlen ?

  • RyanMcShane

    I was standing at the corner of W. 107th and Amsterdam (the exact northern end of currently constructed bike lane) on Saturday morning waiting for the light to change so I could cross to the other side of the avenue. The crossing signal gave me the go-ahead, I took about two steps forward, and then a motorcoach driver (intercity bus) came roaring through a light that would have been for him long dead red, probably three or four seconds.

    The thing is — as most of you surely know — he was gonna get full-stopped a hundred yards ahead at a light so far changed that no one except a driver with an eye towards manslaughter could pretend they could still sneak through. So he stopped. I was on foot, and once I sort of gathered myself, I sprinted up the block where I knew he was going to be stuck, ran up to the high, driver’s-side window, an unleashed an (admittedly salty) disquisition on how he should proceed through neighborhoods where kids and families and elderly and me are all trying to continue living our lives in our very own neighborhood.

    With that story told (in which I catch up to the miscreant on foot) I highly recommend this Guardian (UK) story. Cops in Manchester are now deployed, in plain clothes, riding bicycles and charged with ticketing drivers who overtake cyclists too closely.

    I can think of a million other such offenses — so can you, just driving offenses — for which cops on bikes would be so much more effective than automobile-bound patrols. Like catching up to red light runners. C’mon, NYPD, surprise us.

    Link: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2016/sep/16/undercover-bike-cops-launch-best-ever-cycle-safety-scheme-in-birmingham

  • Flakker

    Re: top story about parking and chief advocate for it being a former squatter who was granted her co-op by the city: did I not just say Friday I’d be ok with the kind of arrangement she got if she were barred from doing exactly this thing today? hire me think tanks