Noise

A noise, fuel and open space gives a preview of his City Council testimony on Wednesday.

The city can start building a healthier, more sustainable future by reclaiming streets from cars now. It's not rocket science, Bill de Blasio.

Last week I took my first cab ride in recent memory, from Midtown home to Inwood. It was Thursday night, and pretty early -- around 10:00 -- when we exited the West Side Highway onto Riverside Drive and made the left to Dyckman/200th Street. As we passed the bustling Mamajuana Cafe, near the corner of Seaman Avenue, its outdoor tables packed as usual, and the cab driver inched among revving motorcycles, honking livery cabs and boom-car drivers who seemed to have no purpose there other than to cruise the block, I muttered something to the effect of "I'm glad we don't live down here."

As if constant engine noise, gratuitous horn honking, booming stereos and screeching car alarms weren't enough of a collective imposition on millions of New Yorkers, NYPD is about to escalate the street-level aural arms race with the "Rumbler," a souped-up siren designed primarily to pierce the cocoon of obliviousness enshrouding city motorists.

The City Council will hold hearings on new rules for tour bus operators next Monday.

Residents of the Lower East Side and Chinatown have been fighting for improvements to the Allen and Pike Street pedestrian malls for more than a decade. Now, with the city's Parks Department set to begin a $5.4 million renovation of the malls below East Broadway, their wait for meaningful action might be nearing an end.