Monday’s Headlines: Common Ground Edition

Today, our editor is going into the belly of the beast: He’ll be a guest on lawyer Arthur “Don’t Call Me NIMBY” Schwartz’s radio show on WBAI. Schwartz reps a coalition of West Village landowners who are demanding the city undo the dedicated bus and bike lanes it installed in anticipation of the now-scrubbed L-train shutdown. Schwartz has claimed he’s only seeking to reduce car traffic that would likely end up on Village side streets if 14th Street became a “busway,” but his group’s anti-bike-lane rhetoric has been alarming (including people leaving dangerous glass and hostile notes).

But all of us in the livable streets community want fewer cars in Manhattan — so that’s what we hope to convey to Schwartz’s listeners today at 5 p.m. on 99.5 FM. Tune in!

But before then, here’s the news:

• Soft-spoken humanist Vin Barone at amNY offered a nifty takeout on the battle to keep all the L train improvements against rabid, pro-parking forces in the Village (maybe he should go on Schwartz’s show!)
• Taxi drivers rallied against the new congestion fee in front of Gov. Cuomo’s Midtown office on a Sunday when he’s not there. (NY Post)  The same paper’s coverage of the taxi-only fee was oddly written to suggest all drivers are now subject to the charge.
• Dammit: New England wins the Super Bowl again — and Boston gets congestion pricing before New York City? (Boston25)
• This transit joyrider’s got nothing on Darius McCollum. (NY Post)
• Carnage in Queens. This is what happens when drivers drive recklessly. (NYDN)
• Staten Island Beep Jimmy Oddo and Rep. Max Rose want their borough to get all the extra buses the MTA ordered for the now-scrubbed L-train shutdown. (NY Post)
• The Times took a lot at a new Muslim community police patrol in Brooklyn. If you have a problem with that, you’d better have a problem with Shomrim, too.
• Forbes became the latest outlet to realize that the rise in pedestrian deaths is a big deal.
• And finally, here’s the Streetsblog angle on the Super Bowl: Every single car commercial conveyed the notion that automobiles exist to inspire human achievement. Even the two commercials that mentioned how drivers nearly killed a violinist and a football coach were presented not as carnage that should be stopped, but as mere hurdles for the human spirit to leap past. Why does biting into a new and improved Dorito make the snacker suddenly get an upgraded hot rod? Why is Mr. Peanut driving recklessly to make sure A-Rod doesn’t eat a kale chip by accident? Why does the owner of a Mercedes get to vaporize parking tickets? Why did Big Boi show up for the halftime show in a Cadillac? (Isn’t a football field mapped as green space?) Wake up, America!