Marissa Mayer’s billion-dollar bet is finally paying off. I’ve started to use Tumblr.
I happened to visit their HQ several months ago, for a Splunk user-group meeting, and felt like I was in a dorm at a well-endowed school. Though they had a lot of tasty stuff in their fridge, I really had no idea what I might use Tumblr for.
But when I wanted to create a quick site for pictures of NYC car crashes, the light-bell went off.
So feel free to check out Cars Do The Darndest Things.
Gothamist covers the street surface that DOT has proposed for DUMBO/Vinegar Hill. They’re on display down by the Atlantic Avenue entrance to Brooklyn Bridge Park..
I’m pretty sure though, that something very similar has already been deployed in DUMBO. Here’s the corner of Water and Dock (and my city bike had no problem on it).
And if you say, “That’s not DUMBO, it’s the Fulton Ferry District”, I’ll bitch-slap you.
Nikolas Giakoumidis - AP
When I read the amazing news that in the course of building a new subway line in Thessaloniki, Greece, workers have unearthed a 2,000 year-old Roman road, I couldn’t help but think of this scene from Federico Fellini’s Roma.
The road still bears the marks from horse-drawn carts, as well as children’s games. Thankfully, unlike in the movie (which is fictional), this bit of history will be preserved.
Kudos to Councilman Steve Levin for documenting the speedway that is the western portion of Atlantic Avenue. Armed with a radar gun, he clocked 88% of motorists going at least 10mph over the 30mph speed limit.
Since speeding is the number 1 cause of crashes in the city, and fatality rates double for pedestrians when struck by cars traveling 40 versus 30mph, you’d think the NYPD would be all over this. Hundreds of New Yorkers are killed every year by cars, and they wrote bicyclists over 13,000 moving violations in 2011 (and cyclists caused zero fatalities)
So how many speeding tickets did the officers of the 84th precinct, (whose bailiwick includes the western portion of Atlantic Avenue), write in January? (the latest month where data is available) Zero.
On Second Avenue Sagas, Ben Kabak rightly chided the Times for white-washing overlooking the racial under-currents in its coverage of opposition by East 69th Street residents to a new subway entrance for the IRT 68th Street station?
The stop is heavily used by Hunter College students, who are majority non-white. Does anyone doubt their attitude would be different if it were the Whiffenpoofs that were the “people looking to hang out”?
And to those who say, “You don’t know this is about race”, I say, “Bullshit.” I was born, and have lived my entire life in New York, (as has I believe, Ben). We both know it when we see it.
On Gothamist, John Del Signore has great coverage of Wednesday’s City Council hearings that got on record, what everybody knows..the NYPD cares a lot more about sleeping bags in Zuccotti Park, and busting people for having a joint in their pocket, than they do about the leading cause of injury-related death for children in the city, and the hundreds of pedestrians and cyclists killed year-in, year-out, by cars on the streets of New York.
Already known was the police’s botched investigation of the killing of Mathieu Lefevre and the non-investigation of the hit-and-run that critically injured Michelle Matson, but the the hearing offered up a smorgasbord of new exposed things to get sick over. Take your choice..
Graph courtesy: Transportation Nation
Props to Council-members Vacca and Vallone for holding this hearing. It’s the first step to holding people accountable.
This is the countdown-clock at the IRT Borough Hall station in downtown Brooklyn. What’s great about it, is it not only does it display information for different lines, (the East Side 4/5 and West Side 2/3), but it’s placed in a location that it allows a rider to make an intelligent decision as to which platform to go to.
For example, let’s say I was going to Atlantic Avenue. I could grab the 5 in two minutes, rather than waiting double the time for the 3 train, on a different platform. Granted, in this particular case, the difference is not a lot…
It would also work Manhattan-bound, particularly if headed somewhere downtown, where the lines run very close to one another and even converge. Other stations where this would come in handy are at Fulton Street, Park Place, or West 4th Street.
So props to the T.A. However, the clock at Clark Street, worked for about a week, before going “dumb”, and reverting to only showing the date and time.
Update: Ben Kabak reports at Second Avenue Sagas, that this non-functioning is deliberate. Apparently the recent heat wave can be be too much for the electronics that give the clock its smarts, so they’ve been disabled at more than a dozen stations. (With absolutely no notice to passengers). Kabak writes that the TA says it is working on a solution. I presume by that, they mean winter.
Perhaps it’s a lack of imagination, or I just haven’t worshipped at the altar of Cthulu for long enough, but just when I thought I grasped the extent of WCBS reporter Marcia Kramer’s anti-bike lane crazy, she raises her game.
Streetsblog covers her fever-dream exposé about the bike lanes being installed on First and Second Avenues and the fact that it goes by the Israeli consulate!
“A Second Avenue bike lane is next to the Israeli Consulate,... Imagine if the man on the bike was a terrorist!”
Bet you didn’t see that one coming!
Kramer then switches from terrorirsm to the man-on-the street-, the voice of the people. She interviews Bruce Silberblatt, bike-hater, and head of the Turtle Bay Association; a go-to guy for grumpy old man for sound-bites.
“Anybody trying to ride a bike is taking their life in their hands. It’s that dangerous.”
As Streetsblog notes,
Classic Kramer jujitsu. This guy who hates the bike lane? He’s actually concerned about cyclists. So concerned, in fact, that he appears to believe no one should ever ride a bike.
Never mind that Community Board has 6 repeatedly approved the lanes, Kramer titles her clip, “Issues, Opposition Mounting For New Bike Lane In High Traffic Turtle Bay”. Just a bald-faced lie. And it used to be known as the “Tiffany Network”.
Kramer’s report closes with this gem..
“Opponents might argue that the 90% who use cars and buses should rule the road, especially in an area with such high levels of congestion..”
Brilliant. Since pedestrians vastly outnumber the number of people on city streets, can we make the sidewalks proportionally that wide?
More seriously, it’s as if giving cyclists the opportunity to cycle safely on a tiny portion of Manhattan island, changes the fact that motor vehicles already rule the fucking road. And we see the result, week in, week out.
.
 |
| From Fulton Street Transportation Center |
From a window in my office, the oculus, the centerpiece of the new Fulton Street Transit Center, is clearly coming into shape. The MTA says it’s still on the (revised) schedule for a 2014 opening. The project has multiple components, big and small. They range from renaming the entire multi-station complex to “Fulton Street”, constructing a passageway connecting to the WTC site, to providing new entrances.
 |
| From Fulton Street Transportation Center |
One of those, is an ADA-accessible access to the 2/3 platform, at the corner of William and Fulton, in a storefront last occupied by a vitamin store. You can see one of the Marine Grill mosaics, already installed. The mosaics, originally from a restaurant in the old Hotel McAlpin, and nearly 100 years old, were literally in pieces inside of dumpsters and about to be carted to the trash, before being rescued and installed in the old concourse of the station back in 2000. Now, they’re being installed in the station once again.
 |
| From Fulton Street Transportation Center |
“What you need is the same standardized process that has integrity and is followed in all decisions like this.” — Jim Walden, New York Times, 6/3/11
Whoa, Nellie! Is this the same Jim Walden, who is representing (at no cost), Neighbors For Better Bike Lanes, Lois Carswell, Iris Weinshall, and Norman Steisel in their attempt to eradicate the Prospect Park West bike lane?
Yup. Walden is representing (also pro bono) the Brooklyn Heights Association in a lawsuit to prevent the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation from handing the Tobacco Warehouse in Dumbo, over to the St. Ann’s Warehouse theatre company.
Councilman Brad Lander and former CB6 chairman Richard Bashner have filed an amicus brief in the suit Walden has brought against the Department of Transportation. It details the multiple meetings and votes taken by the board in support of the project. A project that has delivered the results of traffic calming and cycling/pedestrian safety that it was designed to achieve.
Yet back in April, Walden wrote an “open letter” to Community Board 6 decrying the lane, and the board’s actions, stating they were “inconsistent with the greater public good.”
It’s not clear to me that Walden understands the meaning of the words “greater”, “public”, or “good”. He does though, seem to have a firm grasp of “irony”.