Eyes on the Street

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.

We got a tip yesterday about an errant driver hogging a curbside spot in a residential area:

Clarence Eckerson sends these shots of DOT street safety improvements taken on a recent ride near the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront. Above is the newly traffic-calmed intersection of Joralemon and Hicks -- part of the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project -- which now sports two sidewalk extensions. (According to the Post, a third corner was slated for a curb extension, but DOT changed plans after residents said they were worried about how fire trucks would negotiate the turn.) Says Clarence: "I am sure the speed reductions will be dramatic, the equivalent of a chicane."

Here's another case of dangerously uncivil servitude, via Gothamist's John Del Signore, who came upon an Access-A-Ride driver parked in the elevated Sands Street bike lane. It's no surprise that Del Signore's complaint to the driver was answered with a shrug (or, more accurately, a "What's the big deal? Just go around."). But when he sent the photo to NYC Transit for comment, here was the response:

A reader sends this photo of a huge rig using Kent Avenue's new protected bike path as its own, highly illegal shortcut. Our tipster says the trucker was bearing down on him at a rapid clip for several blocks before slowing down enough to hear an inquiry through the window: "What do you think you're doing?" The driver's response was unenlightening and filled with obscenities, we're told. This shot was taken after the confrontation.

This was the scene in Washington Heights Friday evening, after this guy, along with two others, parked their gigantic rental truck directly in front of a trio of elderly people waiting for the M4 at W. 187th Street and Fort Washington Avenue. Rather than sit passively with the spewing behemoth a few feet from their faces, one of them, a woman shown after the jump, took out her cellphone and began taking pictures.

A reader sent in this photo earlier in the month of what looks like an inlaid stone bike lane on Center Boulevard, in the Queens West development in Long Island City. Repeated queries to DOT yielded no additional info, but we thought this one was too nice to sit on any longer. Anyone know how long this has been in place?

We've received a few reports in the past week about construction work on the Manhattan side of the Williamsburg Bridge. DOT's press office says six bike ramps are being installed, and we hear from observers on the ground that construction is largely complete as of this morning: The bridge approach at Delancey and Clinton Street has three new curb cuts, as does the raised median at Suffolk Street. Now cyclists can get on and off the bike path without having to dismount or hop the curb.