Today’s Headlines

New Yorkers Allowing Selves to Get Excited About Second Ave Subway (2AS, DNA, News, NY1, AMNY)
Seems Like an Opportune Time to Discuss How Much NYC Needs School Buses (NY1, Advance)
TA Wants City Council to Consider Pedestrian Safety in Food Cart Expansion Bill (Politico)
Motorist Critically Injures Woman Crossing Street in St. George, CIS Called to Scene (Advance)
No Urgency From City Hall as NYC Motorists Kill and Maim With Impunity (Voice)
Why Is the Speed Limit on a Vision Zero Priority Corridor Higher Than 25 MPH? (News)
Tri-State: NYC Isn’t Doing Enough to Make It Easy and Safe for Kids to Get Around (MTR)
It’s Little Wonder NYPD Hides NYPD Crash Data From the Public (Gothamist)
Post Worried Proposed LPI Law Would Cause Cyclists to “Feel Even More Entitled” to Keep Living
A Bronx-Focused TV Station Did a Nice Segment on Grand Concourse Redesign (@BronxnetTV)
New York Lawmakers Are Just Fine With Low Voter Turnout (WNYC)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

ItsEasyBeingGreen

No Urgency From City Hall as NYC Motorists Kill and Maim With Impunity

Wouldn’t it be more constructive to simply say that people are dying and being maimed on our streets? I suspect that the identity politics of “motorists” vs “pedestrians” and “cyclists” hurts the campaign for street safety more than it helps. A lot of people killed and maimed on our streets are in cars. Are we actually just using “motorists” as a politically correct version of “cagers”?
Brad Aaron

Because ignoring the fact that people who drive recklessly are doing virtually 100% of the killing is a big reason why there’s so much killing.

If you’re looking for traffic violence reportage in passive voice that removes agency from motorists and treats crashes as random acts of nature you can tune in to just about every other news source on the planet.
ItsEasyBeingGreen

people who drive recklessly

The headline said “motorists”. If it had said “people who drive recklessly” my original comment wouldn’t exist. Conflating the two causes some members of the former (and much larger) group to push back on safety initiatives, which impacts their own safety as well as everyone elses.

If only “cyclists” cycle, only “pedestrians” walk and only “transit riders” ride transit, the use of these modes is not going to expand, and we’re probably not going to see the safety gains we’re hoping for either.
danbrotherston

“The bikes are more of a danger than the cars….,”

How do people say this with a straight face?
Jeff

Your critique reminds me of this effort by a Seattle non-profit to use less divisive identity-politics-type language:

http://peopleforbikes.org/page/-/uploads/GLP/safe%20streets%20language.jpg
Brad Aaron

“The headline said ‘motorists’. If it had said ‘people who drive recklessly’ my original comment wouldn’t exist.”

First of all, that does not follow from your original comment. What you suggested was to take the people doing the killing out of the headline altogether.

We use “people in cars,” “people on bikes,” “people walking” etc. in our content. We don’t do it exclusively, and it doesn’t always fit in a headline, when we have to sum up why readers should be interested in a story while keeping it to one line of text.

A person who does not drive recklessly and isn’t mainly concerned with their own primacy in the streets hierarchy won’t see themselves in that headline. If they do it probably means they should.

Words matter but I disagree with the notion that people will stop leaving other humans to die in the street if we’re more polite about it.
walks bikes drives

I think school buses are necessary in the outer reaches of the outer boroughs as well as for special education students who really can’t get to school on their own. However, what I really have a problem with is the fact that New York City is required to pay for the busing and transportation of students TO PRIVATE SCHOOL. If a patent decides to send their kid to private school rather than their neighborhood school, why are my tax dollars required to pay for their transportation when their neighborhood school would have been free? It’s one thing if they are special education students who need to be enrolled in private school because the public schools are unable to meet the requirements of their disability. But any other school which is actually by parent choice is ridiculous.
AnoNYC

-I watched the Bronx TV segment but there should have been more fact checking on the side of the GC complete street proponents. The anchor mentioned that bike lanes were mostly empty in Manhattan for example. Another thing that kind of irked me was the fact that double parking was mentioned multiple times, but the only solution proposed was enhanced enforcement. They should have mentioned that we need citywide parking reform to increase turnover and create many more loading zones. That’s important because drivers double park because often times they do not have any place to stop. You need to gain allies with drivers when possible to achieve these goals.
Ferdinand Cesarano

Please realise that the category of “people who drive recklessly” encompasses virtually all motorists. Due to lax standards of licensure, bad road design, and indifference to driver misconduct on the part of law enforcement, drivers quickly become accustomed to bad behaviours, and wind up considering these behaviours normal. In other words, ordinary people become sociopaths when they are driving. The “good driver” is essentially a fictional character.

The point worth emphasising is that driving is by its nature a dangerous activity; and even someone who is operating a motor vehicle carefully and entirely legally constitutes a grave danger to everyone in his/her vicinity, including to himself/herself.

What we really need is leadership that is responsible enough to say unequivocally to drivers: you are the problem; and you will be closely scrutinised and, when necessary, severely punished. Until we have this kind of approach, with the police on board, all efforts towards public safety will be a pathetic charade.