Midtown

The campaign for a more bike- and pedestrian-friendly design on crowded Fifth and Sixth Avenues has crossed its first major milestone, with Community Board 5's transportation committee advancing a resolution asking DOT for a complete streets study.

The cab driver who hit a cyclist and drove onto a Midtown sidewalk, severing the leg of British tourist Sian Green, will not be charged with a crime by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance.

The sidewalks of Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Midtown are packed -- sometimes overflowing -- and the streets see some of the highest bike volumes in the city. While this should be one of the world's premier walking districts, both avenues are designed primarily to move motor vehicles, and injury and fatality rates are high. Since last summer, Transportation Alternatives has led a campaign to improve conditions for walking and biking on Fifth and Sixth.

The Post is doing its best to assign partial blame to the cyclist who was struck by cab driver Mohammed Himon in Tuesday morning's crash on Sixth Avenue, but the paper got Himon to confess that he intentionally stepped on the gas before mounting the curb and hitting Sian Green, the 23-year-old tourist who lost part of her leg.

The Taxi and Limousine Commission is moving to suspend the hack license of the cab driver involved in Tuesday's curb-jump crash in Midtown, which would keep him off the job for 30 days. Meanwhile, the Post reports that NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly says police are investigating the crash.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's office is investigating Tuesday's Midtown curb-jump crash, which injured three people, including a woman who lost part of her leg.

[Update: According to Cy Vance's office, prosecutors are investigating this crash. We'll have another post shortly.]

A man standing with his wife and kids on a Midtown sidewalk was hit by a cab driver yesterday in a precinct where speeding is practically unenforced by NYPD.

Clarence has been unearthing old footage from the Streetfilms vault this summer in preparation for Transportation Alternatives' 40th anniversary bash. This week's installment takes us back to the end of 1997, when the Giuliani administration and NYPD erected pedestrian barricades in Midtown, preventing people from crossing major avenues to make way for turning traffic. TA's protest got covered on all seven local newscasts, but Giuliani went ahead and made the barricades permanent. They remain to this day.