Aaron Donovan

Date: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 Time: 4 p.m. Location: W. Houston St., south side between Greene and Mercer Sts. Objective: To draw attention to the hazardous conditions for cyclists along Houston St., which DOT and City Planning designate a “proposed bicycle route,” and to pressure DOT to include a safe bicycling route in the currently-underway … Continued

If you've seen those eerie white "ghost bikes" on Houston Street, you may know that three cyclists have been killed on "the Boulevard of Death" during the past two years: Derek Lake, Brandie Bailey and Andrew Morgan. In the wake of this loss of life, members of Community Board 2's Traffic & Transportation Committee are holding a rally on Wednesday to ask the DOT to install buffered bike lanes as part of the street's reconstruction, which is taking space away from pedestrian islands to create left-turn bays for cars.

It isn't just in California where SUV's are secretly banned from certain roadways. Right here in New York City, many SUVs are banned from the Brooklyn Bridge, but nobody seems to know it.

This spring, the DOT transformed the corner of Willoughby and Adams Streets in downtown Brooklyn from a dull gray, little-used automobile pass-through (above) into a pedestrian space complete with chairs, benches, plants, tables and sun umbrellas.  But would the people come? Filmmaker Clarence Eckerson took his video camera to the corner to find out. The result is a 1-minute, 26-second Streetfilm on the Willoughby Street transformation.  He quotes Streetsblog's own Ethan Kent:

(Graphic by Karen Youresh, The Washington Post)

The news media has been writing a lot about energy and oil addiction lately.  One particularly noteworthy package of reporting highlights the hidden problems of oil addiction. Another searches for ways it could be alleviated but misses the most critical one. The first is The Chicago Tribune's enormously important four-part series by Pulitzer-winning reporter Paul Salopek called A Tank of Gas, a World of Trouble published July 29. 

Priest Protests Parking Ticket He Got While Called for Last Rites (AP via AMNY) Patient He Visited, Who Lived, Demands City Refund the Ticket (Daily News) State Authorities to Study Rail Safety After Teen’s Death (AP via NYT) Team Begins 24-Hour Subway Endurance Ride (Gothamist) Tri-State Transportation Campaign Comments on Atlantic Yards DEIS (TSTC PDF) New Financial Backer to Finish … Continued

Two years ago, Slate had a piece noting that California weight restrictions against vehicles over 6,000 lbs prohibited SUVs from many streets, but nobody realized it because people thought the signs were for delivery trucks. (A Hummer H2 weighs 8,600 lbs.) It seems most of the ordinances were written with trucks in mind, not SUV's, and so the secret SUV-ban went unenforced.