Wednesday’s Headlines: Fix Canal Street Now

Street safety advocates will gather tonight at 6 p.m. at a vigil for the two victims of Saturday’s horrendous crash on Canal Street and rally for looong overdue fixes to the blood-soaked sluice.

The event will take place at the Manhattan Bridge plaza where the span’s highway-like road spills onto the Bowery at Canal, where Autumn Donna Ascencio Romero, 23, recklessly driving a stolen car, lost control and smashed into Kevin Cruickshank and May Kwok before briefly fleeing the scene, according to police. She was later apprehended and charged with multiple counts, including murder, manslaughter, leaving the scene and criminal possession of stolen property.

Speaking of the horrific crime, on Tuesday a judge ordered Romera held without bail, as Gothamist reported. (For info on the vigil, click here.)

In other news from a second consecutive slow day for the mainstream press:

• So much for NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch’s promise to end unnecessary police chases. (Patch)
• A 10-year-old boy was critically injured by a van driver in Brooklyn. (News12)
• New elevators coming to 12 more stations. (NYDN, amNY)
• You want to hate today’s influencers, I know, but here’s one who makes transit cool. (The Cut)
• Sorry, as you know, we at Streetsblog are huge Bright Eyes fans, but we don’t know what New York City lead singer Conor Oberst is referencing in his new single. (YouTube)
• Traffic fatalities remain high in Brooklyn, despite the decrease in crashes citywide because of congestion pricing, according to Transportation Alternatives. (BK Reader)
• It’s funny how people complain about ugly boxes taking up public space along the cars when the boxes aren’t cars. (West Side Rag)
• The Queens Chronicle is dead wrong about the bike lane on 31st Street in Astoria, and the paper was promptly taken to task on Twitter.
• We were proud of our Streetsblog colleague Aaron Short for his story in the Times about tool libraries.
• And, finally, the Streetsblog staff took part of the night off to enjoy the Mets game at Citi Field last night. And it started off so well…

… and it continued well, as we gave the Department of Transportation a “standing O” for its Vision Zero house ad:

… and it even continued as the Mets beat the Angels in a 3-2 thriller.

But then … disaster struck. The subway had a truly epic meltdown, with 7 trains going station to station (with 10-minute delays in between) and never making it to Manhattan for more than two hours, as Nolan Hicks shared with his stuck colleagues:

But we all eventually made it home (two and a half hours after Ryne Stanek’s last pitch induced a harmless Mike Trout popup) to post these headlines. (Queens resident David Meyer got home in mere minutes, having hopped a Citi Bike at Citi Field.)