Car Culture

Stuck in traffic congestion all day long, one might think that New York City's bus drivers might be at the center of the movement to reduce automobile dependence and encourage more efficent forms of urban transportation. But if the conversation I heard last week is representative, it's the cyclists that are wrecking all that havoc out there on New York City's streets.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is reportedly pressuring -- some might say coercing -- council members into backing her effort to override of Mayor Bloomberg's veto of stringent pedicab restrictions. Tony Avella of Queens talked to the Sun about Quinn's anti-pedicab campaign among council members.

From the Tri-State Transportation Campaign's latest newsletter, three examples of how City Hall contradicts its stated Long-Term Planning and Sustainability goals with policies that foster more automobile dependence:

The CB2 Traffic & Transportation Committee met at the LGBT Center on Tuesday. 

From Alternet, the following is an excerpted version of James Howard Kunstler's recent speech to the Commonwealth Club of California, well worth reading in its entirety. An audio stream of the speech is also available:

Gowanus Lounge reports on the debate over DOT's 9th Street redesign plan at last night's Park Slope Civic Council meeting. The Civic Council voted overwhelmingly to "table" a plan that would provide the neighborhood with improved pedestrian safety on one of the most hazardous streets in the area, enhanced cyclist safety along a key access route to Prospect Park and Red Hook, and traffic-calming along an overly broad street with low vehicle counts and a serious speeding problem.

Brooklyn City Councilmember Lew Fidler and a small group of his outer borough colleagues have put forward Resolution 774 "calling upon the Mayor of New York City to oppose the institution of any form of congestion pricing." The resolution is based on a March 2006 report commissioned by the Queens Chamber of Commerce that was, to put it mildly, filled with misinformation and gaping holes about the City of London's congestion charging experience.

General Motors would like you to like them. No, really.

 When the Supreme Court held this week that the Environmental Protection Agency does, in fact, possess the latitude to protect the environment, the New York Times called it "a victory for a world whose environment seems increasingly threatened by climate change."