Media Watch

Dear Steve Cuozzo --

Yesterday we noted the auto-centric bias in local media coverage of an expected Ravitch Commission proposal to toll East River bridges as one source of revenue for the cash-strapped MTA. In perusing said coverage, we couldn't help but notice a second common element. See if you can guess what it is.

MTA chief Elliot Sander announced this morning that the city's transit agency is up against a $1.2 billion budget deficit, and needs government aid or new sources of revenue to avoid fare increases or service cuts. But an expected recommendation by the Ravitch Commission to toll East River bridges is already taking heat from the usual suspects.

To complement your headlines today, check out the Brooklyn Paper's trio of transportation/public space stories, grouped under a new beat that the paper is calling "Mean Streets."

Early Saturday morning, two 26-year-old women were killed while trying to cross 14th Street at First Avenue in the East Village. According to the Daily News and other outlets, Stephanie Dees (right) and Ann Sullivan were both hit by a taxi traveling west on 14th, and Dees was hit by a second cab, apparently heading east. Reports vary, but most say Dees died at the scene, while Sullivan was pronounced dead at nearby Beth Israel Medical Center.

Today's New York Post features the wacky story of a motorist from the Bronx who -- get this -- drove through the window of a Midtown map store. A "befuddled" Rodney Bailey "left a West 43rd Street parking garage at about 8 a.m. and made a right turn into the front of a Hagstrom Map shop next door, smashing the plate glass to smithereens."

Yesterday we noted how it took a cyclist-involved collision to get the Daily News riled up over pedestrian fatalities. Regaining its senses, the paper today again turns its attention to the real victims: motorists. Specifically those who park illegally and are indiscriminately ticketed for doing so.

On average, a New York City pedestrian is killed by a car about every three days. It happened again on Friday, when six-year-old Clarente Turner (right) and his mother were hit by a runaway SUV as they stood in a median, holding hands, at Kings Highway and E. 95th St. in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. The child died at the scene; his mother was taken to the hospital with serious injuries.

Projects like Broadway Boulevard are intended, in part, to reduce auto-pedestrian conflicts.