Eyes on the Street

This reader account of a run-in with a Traffic Enforcement Agent on Douglass Street in Park Slope is another example of how official privilege often trumps public safety.

A tipster sends this shot from 34th Street near Seventh Avenue, taken this morning. The photographer says he heard that the driver and a pedestrian were injured, though we could find no media reports on the crash.

Denver bike-share firm B-cycle has set up a demo station at Pier 84 on the Hudson River Greenway. Reps should be there until around 5:00 today.

Reader Liam Quigley of Cyclosity fame sends this shot of the Grand Street bike lane on Saturday evening. He tells us the production company crew unloading this box truck between Bowery and Elizabeth stayed long enough to force at least five cyclists to ride up on the sidewalk and three others to ride into car traffic. That wasn't enough to merit a ticket from the officers sitting nearby:

Via EVGrieve, this was scene on East 12th Street near First Avenue on Wednesday evening. A crew of local bloggers and tweeters have crowdsourced some of the details about what happened. Five people were hurt, luckily none seriously, according to EVGrieve's email tipster. Neighborhood blogger Chris O'Leary found out from an officer at the scene that the driver was drunk and fled on foot. He also tracked down this picture, via Twitter, of what looks to be the offender's vehicle. (And found another aftermath shot here.)

Thanks to tipster ddartley for the latest chapter in NYPD's ongoing mistreatment of bus riders on 34th Street. Yesterday, eight cruisers from northern Queens (precincts 110, 111, 112, 114 and 115) sat parked in the bus lane between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. During evening rush hour. You know, we're starting to think there may be a pattern here.

A reader sent in these photos from a media scrum last Friday evening in the Tillary Street bike lane in Downtown Brooklyn. Notice how the press vehicles have completely blocked the two-way protected lane, forcing cyclists onto the other side of the barrier.

We're accustomed to the dangerous disrespect shown by NYPD to non-driving commuters, but a tip we received yesterday shows that cops haven't cornered the market on civil servants putting lives at risk. Our reader reports from Union and Eighth Avenue in Brooklyn:

This vid from BicyclesOnly shows a school crossing guard, at Madison Ave. and 96th St., who takes her job seriously. Whenever the light on Madison turned green, BO writes, she entered the intersection to assert the rights of those passing through on foot. Good thing, too.