Aaron Naparstek

The Atlantic Yards plan superimposed on the released JFK-to-Lower Manhattan rail link study (PDF docs). Click here for a much bigger map.

New York City's Department of Transportation failed to follow through on a 2004 pledge to build potentially life-saving pedestrian safety improvements along the Third Avenue corridor where a 4-year-old boy was run over and killed last Tuesday.

Sources say that Janette Sadik-Khan (left) is a top candidate to replace Iris Weinshall when she resigns on April 13. Sadik-Khan met with Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff this week to talk about the job.

Emil Choski has given his Car-Free Bedford Avenue project a serious face lift. The 22-year-old freelance graphic designer and community organizer's new web site includes a three dimensional "flyby" visualization accompanied by some very un-Williamsburgy classical music. With apologies to the Meatpacking District and Ninth Avenue, Emil's project has to be my favorite grassroots livable streets initiative going right now. When is Dan Doctoroff going to wake up and give this kid a job at the Economic Development Corporation?! Choski writes:

The May 2003 final report of the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project recommended pedestrian safety measures designed specifically to prevent the kind of collision that killed a four-year-old boy in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn on Tuesday afternoon.

DOT's press office sends along the 2006 pedestrian fatality numbers for New York City along with a couple other years for context. The official count for 2006 is up from 2005 but a bit lower than Transportation Alternatives' number:

In the wake of yet another gruesome killing of a pedestrian walking in the crosswalk with the right-of-way -- this time, a 4-year-old boy run over by a guy driving a Hummer -- Transportation Alternatives is arguing that these kinds of deaths can be prevented or, at least, made less likely, with the following five street design measures:

More on tomorrow's rally and press conference on the city's proposed pedicab regulations: Chad Marlow of the Public Advocacy Group, the pedicab industry's lobbyist, sends along this press release arguing that Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Speaker Christine Quinn's proposal to put a cap on the number of pedicabs and ban electric-assist technology harms the industry and compromises safety while, really, helping no one in particular. We don't like publishing press releases verbatim, but this one is really pretty good reading. You get the sense that these new pedicab regs were designed with the same level of sensitivity and awareness as the city's new school bus system. Here's what the pedicab industry has to say:

While Parisians are starting to complain that "an invasion of noisy scooters and motorcycles and a rise in accidents involving pedestrian and motorcyclists" is one of the "unintended consequences" of Mayor Bertrand Delanoe's traffic reduction policies, "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz's consulting firm just issued a report claiming that New York City could better meet its long-term sustainability goals by adding more scooters to the traffic mix. Commissioned for Piaggio, the Italian manufacturer of Vespa scooters, the study says:

Red lights mean gridlock on this real-time map of Parisian road traffic.