Ben Fried

Since the theme of the week is snowy streets and what we can learn from them, I thought I would share this photo of snow-covered windshields I took this morning on Park Place in Prospect Heights. The last significant snowfall came down during the wee hours of Wednesday morning, so these cars clearly have not moved since Tuesday at the latest, and in all likelihood have been immobile since before the Monday snow storm. Alternate side parking has been suspended the whole week, after all.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has named Carl Weisbrod to lead the Department of City Planning. Weisbrod, who co-chaired de Blasio's transition team and has deep experience in city government, now commands a post with tremendous power to shape the quality of New York City's built environment. Of particular interest for the city's transportation and housing future will be how vigorously Weisbrod pursues reform of NYC's parking minimums, which Amanda Burden, the previous planning commissioner, barely touched.

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

I'm pleased to announce that our national news site has a new name: Streetsblog USA. Say it with pride.

Here's an idea that should start spreading to police precincts all over the city as NYPD focuses more attention and resources on preventing traffic violence: Brooklyn's 78th Precinct is starting a new monthly public meeting devoted exclusively to how to improve street safety.

Sam Schwartz is out with a list of street safety recommendations in the Daily News today, which he prefaces with a bizarre warning against lower citywide speed limits:

Major media have a habit of blowing bike-share problems out of proportion. Witness the 2009 BBC story that cast theft and vandalism as an existential threat to Velib in Paris. Five years later, Velib is still going strong. The most recent entry in the genre is Christopher Matthews' misguided story on the Bixi bankruptcy in TIME. Headline: "Why America’s Grand Bike-Sharing Experiment Is Failing."

The Montreal-based equipment supplier for several American bike-share systems, including Citi Bike, filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday. It's unclear exactly how the restructuring or sale of the company known as Bixi will play out, but the bankruptcy filing could accelerate the transition to more robust and reliable hardware and software for Citi Bike and other systems. It also figures to be a messy process, though the company that operates Citi Bike expressed confidence today that it won't impede service.

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton's claim last week that 66 percent of pedestrian injuries "are directly related to the actions of pedestrians" was unsourced and at odds with existing research, but already it seems to be shaping NYPD's enforcement efforts.

I first became aware of Jarrett Walker's work through his blog, Human Transit, a few years ago. Here was someone writing about transit in a completely refreshing way, framing questions not in terms of mode or technology but through the prism of values and desires. To call Walker's site a transit blog doesn't quite do it justice. It's about what we want from our cities, and how transit can help us get there. His 2011 book, Human Transit: How clearer thinking about public transit can enrich our communities and our lives, is a must-read if you're interested in cities and want to understand what makes transit work well.