From the assignment desk: Transportation Alternatives and Families for Safe Streets will hold a vigil for Daniel Cammerman, the beloved pediatrician, husband, friend and father of two who was run over and killed by the driver of a yellow school bus on Wednesday on Central Park's 96th Street transverse.
The grieving and political rallying will begin at 4:30 p.m. There have been far too many such vigils this year, when 29 cyclists have died on New York City streets, up from 10 in all of last year.
Mayor de Blasio has not commented on the death, the local tabloids blamed Cammerman instead of the bus driver, and the Department of Education has (once again!) declined to tell us how yellow bus drivers are vetted and screened (and we've asked basically once a month for about a year).
Maybe we'll learn more today — which will be a tiny bit warmer than yesterday. Until then, here's the news:
- It looks like the year will end in the bloody way it has played out for 12 months: On Thursday, two more people were killed by truck drivers, one in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn (NYDN, NY Post). And that's on top of two more pedestrians killed in separate crashes in Queens and Brooklyn killed earlier in the week that the NYPD just released info on.
- Entitled drivers will whine, but the MTA is going to raise the toll on the $4-billion Mario Cuomo Tappan Zee Bridge to help pay for it. (NY Post)
- The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership is the latest group to call for what we have long advocated: more pedestrianization and dramatically lower speed limits to improve basic quality of life. (City Lab, Downtown Bklyn Partnership PDF)
- Assemblyman Bobby Carroll of Brooklyn is still on his pitch that Amazon and other deliveries should be taxed because there's nothing free about free delivery: it causes congestion, pollution and undermines local business owners. (NYDN)
- The MTA revealed the locations of 70 stations that will become fully accessible finally. (NYDN)
- And in case you missed it, Gothamist gave a thumbs-up to the pedestrian improvements around the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
