Seth Kahn, pictured here with late TV pitchman Billy Mays. Photo via Facebook

Inevitably, some media reports portray Kahn, who was in the crosswalk, as trying to beat the light, while making less of the fact that the bus driver, turning left from 53rd, must have also rushed into the intersection. The driver was not charged.

Despite the constant presence of pedestrians, Ninth Avenue is a notoriously dangerous place for people to walk. The quotes have been removed from the story now, but a local resident told NY1 (via Gothamist): "That particular corner always has some accidents. All the cars travel very fast and there's too many buses using 53rd Street and they don't even look for pedestrians."

Kahn was the fourth known pedestrian to die in the city in less than a week. On Tuesday a corrections officer with a suspended license hit Dorothea Wallace of Prospect Heights as she walked to work. Luis Rivera of the Bronx was struck and killed by a city bus driver on Halloween after he reportedly threw something at the bus' windshield. And last Friday, off-duty NYPD detective Kevin Spellman ran down 67-year-old Drana Nikac as she crossed a street in Kingsbridge.

Ke Hai Du. Photo: Daily News

In the unofficial battle for the most irresponsible, over-the-top media endorsement of motorist entitlement, the Daily News took the trophy this morning, declaring that drivers are within their rights to run down human beings who stand between their vehicles and on-street parking.

To many people accustomed to the norms of civilized society, this would seem a clear case of assault, if not something more serious. But to the News it's a game, which the victim rightfully lost when he challenged the "finders keepers" rule -- or, as News editors put it, "a basic and inviolable tenet of the universe."

What Du did is right up there with stealing a taxi from the person who hailed it, or bringing 15 items to the "10 items or less" register, or stopping at the top of a subway stairway to read e-mail, or backing up in an E-ZPass lane.

The lesson is clear: Park your carcass in a parking space, and you may end up as road kill.

In August, 8-year-old Axel Pablo was killed by a cab driver in Harlem. Witnesses say the cabbie was on his cell phone. Though police cleared him of wrongdoing, the TLC has since revoked his hack license. Photo via Daily News

According to the News, keeping cab drivers off the phone should only be required when passengers are present -- apparently because News editors believe distracted driving is a mere annoyance, rather than a well-documented threat to public safety:

The present TLC rules forbid cell chatting while cabbies are driving. That's reasonable; you shouldn't have to listen to your hack yack while you're paying $2 per mile, no more than you should be forced to listen to the radio at full blast.

But when drivers are alone, using their cabs as cars -- just like millions do -- they should live by the same rules as the rest of the population.

So instead of advocating for more stringent distracted driving laws for everyone who gets behind the wheel, the editors of the Daily News would prefer that we "cut some slack" to thousands of professional drivers who patrol streets teeming with vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists 24/7/365. Never mind that cell-phone-using drivers, hands-free or no, are four times more likely to be involved in a crash. And remember that national summit a couple of weeks ago, when the U.S. secretary of transportation declared distracted driving a "deadly epidemic"? Honestly, people: Where have you been?

For the record, the Post is in favor of the new TLC rules. And no wonder. It's hard to believe a position so ill-informed as that of the Daily News editorial board could be held by anyone who reads a newspaper on a daily basis, much less publishes one.

Can't make the light in time? In the eyes of the Post, you're a scofflaw.

If only New Yorkers stopped jaywalking, the Post posits, we wouldn't suffer so much needless death and destruction. Adding to a news-ish feature on reckless pedestrians published yesterday, the paper bemoans "jaywalking's steep toll" but says nothing about the rampant speeding and lawless driving that make the simple act of crossing the street so risky. No mention of the fact that many city streets are so wide that elderly New Yorkers can't get across during the allotted time. No indication that the Post editors have the slightest clue about engineering and enforcement improvements like leading pedestrian intervals, red light and speeding cameras, and, most obvious of all, wider sidewalks, which hold the most promise for improving street safety.

It takes a special kind of windshield perspective to look around at the vehicular carnage in New York City -- the hundreds of lives lost and thousands of injuries suffered every year -- and point fingers at the most vulnerable people on the street. You'd think real New Yorkers would recognize that the only way to make our streets safer is to embrace our inherent strength as a walking city. So, I'm curious: Do any Post editors actually live here?

Photo: The Wall Street Journal

For some reason Owen has taken a dislike to congestion pricing, and it has led him to construct an elaborate Rube Goldberg argument to prove that congestion pricing leads to more driving:

If reducing [congestion] merely makes life easier for those who drive, then the improved traffic flow can actually increase the environmental damage done by cars, by raising overall traffic volume, encouraging sprawl and long car commutes.

What a lovely paradox … and how ridiculous, as Owen could have discovered by giving London’s congestion pricing experience (or Stockholm’s or Singapore’s) more than a cursory glance.

As any student of urban traffic now knows, London’s cordon pricing scheme cut traffic within the charging zone an average of 15 percent, raised travel speeds 30 percent, and greatly expanded bus ridership and cycle commuting — with little increase in traffic outside the zone or other negative effects. Nearly seven years on, the reasons are fairly obvious:

• Raising the price to drive into the center of London made car commuting less attractive.
• The gain in driving speeds attracted some new trips but not so many as to cancel the lost ones.
• Bus transit benefited from a virtuous cycle in which improved speeds attracted riders, further reducing traffic and also financing service improvements which attracted still more riders, further reducing traffic, etc.
• Ditto for cycling, though here the synergy was via safety in numbers.

All this was intuited back in the day by Transport for London staff, including Jay Walder, who has subsequently become the new MTA chief. The only uncertainty was the extent to which new car trips attracted by the time savings would undercut the reduction in trips from the congestion charge.

As it happened, some “induced traffic,” as Owen might have termed it, did materialize, but at far less than the one-for-one rate he assumed in his article. Without it, the drop in traffic might have been 20 percent or more. But the actual equilibrium, a settled 15 percent reduction in cordon traffic, was robust enough to achieve the desired results: faster travel by every mode, greater use of transit, and less VMT (vehicle miles traveled). Congestion pricing is indeed green.

To trace Owen’s error, look no further than his hypothesis: “If reducing [congestion] merely makes life easier for those who drive …”

Emphasis added; the “merely” is quite important. When the reduction in traffic is caused by a congestion charge, life is not just easier for those who continue driving but more costly as well. Yes, there’s a seesaw between price effects and time effects, but setting the congestion price at the right point will rebalance the system toward less driving, without harming the city's economy.

What's that right price point, then? It's not quite rocket science to figure it out, though it does take some thinking (not to mention continual tinkering if exogenous reductions in road capacity erode the original congestion benefits, as TfL reported recently). It's a subject Ted Kheel and I have in fact been thinking about for quite a while now, and if you would like to do some thinking about it too, start with our Balanced Transportation Analyzer and contact us with questions or criticisms (email: kea AT igc.org).

In his piece, Owen linked former Londoner and current MTA honcho Walder with the idea of congestion pricing. One can't help wondering whether he or the Journal intended it as a pre-emptive strike against a possible renewed push for congestion pricing in New York City. Whatever the motivation, it’s disappointing to see a writer who has rightly urged Americans to “live closer” peddling the defeatist — and false — notion that the price of urban virtue is eternal gridlock.

"I am six times more likely to be in a crash right now."

The U.S. DOT's distracted driving summit, now in its second day, is getting some major nationwide media play. As well it should. New York's own CBS2 reports that distracted driving claimed the lives of 6,000 people last year.

But in an otherwise fine story, reporter Don Dahler unwittingly demonstrates how easy it is to fall prey to the mindset of drivers who believe everyone else is the problem.

Watch as Dahler films part of his report while driving. By our count, he looks toward the camera seven times as he explains that motorists are six times more likely to be involved in a crash while using a cell phone -- i.e. driving distracted.

Sorry to pick on Dahler, but didn't it occur to anyone at CBS2 that this might not be the best treatment for this particular story?

Council Members Vincent Ignizio (l) and James Oddo scientifically prove that bikes can't fit on Jefferson Avenue in Dongan Hills. Photo: SI Advance

For its part, three times in the past two months the Advance has editorialized against bike infrastructure, while criticizing NYPD for enforcing laws intended to keep drivers out of bike lanes. Here's a passage from the first screed, published July 4, entitled "The City's Bike Obsession":

More people should ride bicycles, for a number of reasons. But in the real world, that's not going to happen to the degree the cycling true believers fantasize about. Many people simply can't. And the great majority of those who have the physical ability have no desire to ride bicycles for transportation or sport -- especially on city streets. So hard-core cyclists will always be a finite minority, no matter how many bike lanes the city creates. And the notion that all these new lanes will promote a massive surge in cycling is pure fantasy.

Not only do they object to safer cycling conditions on the grounds that so few Staten Islanders bike -- in part because it isn't safe -- Advance editors claim that helpless motorists are bound to occasionally act out against cyclists who insist on exercising their right to the road.

You really have to read this August 21 editorial in its entirety for the full effect, but here's a sample:

An ugly incident of road rage recently on Father Capodanno Boulevard underscores the folly of the Bloomberg administration's over-the-top infatuation with dedicated bicycle lanes.

The particulars of the incident -- this time between a motorist and a bicyclist -- are in dispute. The bicyclist says the enraged motorist got out of his car and pushed him off his bike.

The motorist, who was arrested and charged with assault and harassment, insists he merely tried to pull the bicycle off the street after the bicyclist had gotten off it.

What seems certain, however, is that the confrontation was the direct result of the city's contradictory and confusing policies regarding the rights of bicyclists and drivers, respectively.

In other words, if a driver stops and exits his vehicle to physically accost a cyclist in a bike lane, Mayor Bloomberg made him do it. Amazingly, the Advance stops short of calling for charges against Graziuso to be dropped. Perhaps a cyclist-induced temporary insanity defense is in order.

Foran urges cyclists and others interested in safer street conditions -- bike riders aren't the only vulnerable ones, after all -- to contact the mayor, DOT Commish Janette Sadik-Khan, and Council Member John Liu to show support for Staten Island bike lanes and continued enforcement of the law. And it couldn't hurt if Messrs. Ignizio, Oddo and Molinaro, and the editors of the SI Advance, were admonished to tone down their rhetoric, before the next like-minded road rager decides to take action.

How much of a non-event was this year's Summer Streets in terms of media critique? In this Fox News piece, via Crooks and Liars, the story isn't traffic tie-ups or wacky spandex-clad elitists or howling business owners, but the fact that more everyday New Yorkers are taking to the streets on two wheels. Summer Streets, it seems, has become a mainstream event in just its second year. Reported the Downtown Express at the beginning of August:

"I thought last year it was going to cause havoc in the community," said John Fratta, chairperson of Community Board 1's Seaport/Civic Center Committee. "For the most part I was pretty pleased. It was a nice event." He said he supports the event this year.

The Fox segment does refer to the questionable Hunter College study on unsafe cyclist behavior (without acknowledging more revealing data on the causes of bike-car collisions), and there's a completely unsupported ticker squib that attributes complaints over spending on bike infrastructure to unnamed "critics." But these feel like token attempts to "balance" an otherwise positive story.

Who knows, maybe in a year or two even Steve Cuozzo will have to re-read his old columns to remember what he hated so much about car-free Times Square. 

Ed Fay: time-polluter and proud of it. Photo: Daily News.

I decided that I'm not going to give the transicrats another cent to get to and from work. The MTA has stuck it to all of us countless times over the years and now it was time for me to pay them back. I will personally screw them out of $1,000 over the next year.

The ironies are many. For one thing, Fay could offset that toll hike three times over by signing up with E-ZPass, but he swears by cash. For another, since straphangers are a big part of the dwindling market for the daily paper, you could say that Fay’s rebellion undermines his employer by shrinking NYC Transit's take from the toll revenues. There’s also the fact that in stiffing the MTA Fay is paying a stiff price in lost time; by his own estimate, detouring around the tolls adds 15 minutes each way to his commute. As one Streetsblog commenter pointed out, Fay implicitly values his own commuting time at not much more than the minimum wage.

But Fay’s biggest grotesquerie is his obliviousness to the consequences of his commute for other drivers. By my estimation, an average 11-mile rush-hour car trip into the Manhattan Central Business District and back out again creates three to four hours of aggregate delays to all the other people trying to get around in cars, trucks and buses on the same roads at the same time. (With the recessionary drop in traffic, that figure is currently somewhat lower, but it’s also higher in Fay’s case if most of his return trips take place in the p.m. peak.)

By choosing to car-commute daily into the CBD, Mr. Screw-the-MTA is mostly screwing his fellow drivers.

And this is true whether Fay drives on local streets or ponies up the $3 bridge toll ($2.09 with E-ZPass). To be sure, those three to four hours of delay are spread among thousands of drivers, no one of which loses more than 10 or 20 seconds queued behind Fay’s automobile at each stoplight or highway ramp. And his contribution to traffic delays is no greater than that of anyone else who drives in the same places at the same time.

What’s different is Fay’s glee. He’s spewing pollution, not so much from his tailpipe (autos rank relatively low in emissions these days), but "time pollution," by stealing precious minutes and seconds from his fellow New Yorkers. And he’s proud of it:

Each night I add $6 to the pile. And when the pile gets to $1,000 -- about eight months from now -- I'll take my family out for a spectacular dinner and raise a glass toasting the bloated bums at the MTA and the toll increase that sent me over the edge.

Fay's bluster notwithstanding, I’ll wager that after the big blowout he'll tire of rat-running and revert to the toll bridge. After all, even if he makes “just” $100,000 a year at the News and values his commute time at only half his imputed hourly pay, he’s still trading $12.50 worth of time each day to save a measly $6.00. But that return to sanity won’t solve the systemic dysfunction by which anyone choosing to make a single car-trip to and from the CBD can impose $100 in societal delay costs but pay just $5 or $10 in tolls themselves.

What Fay confronts us with is nothing less than the moral imperative of congestion pricing. Decisions that impose large delay costs on others demand commensurate charges. These need not begin at full-price. Congestion fees on the order of one-tenth of the full cost, as Ted Kheel and I propose (with revenues allocated to benefit transit), would be an excellent start. Let Ed Fay, time-polluter, pay.

(Photo: TTI Urban Mobility Report)

The TTI found a one-hour drop in the annual traffic delays suffered by the average urban American in 2007, a result attributed to the run-up in fuel prices and the beginning of the economic slowdown. The Wall Street Journal deemed the one-hour reprieve "The Upside of Recession," while LA Weekly dubbed Southern California's congestion decrease a "Recession Bonus."

Other coverage of the TTI report emphasized a different breed of cold comfort, playing up the congestion rankings that were given to major cities. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution resorted to surveying drivers on their local roads' drop from second-worst to third-worst in the nation (surprisingly, no one was celebrating), while D.C.-area outlets seemed to take morbid pride in their ascension to the No. 2 spot.

If only the TTI report had a solution to urban traffic woes that had a measurable impact on congestion! Oh, wait. As the chart above shows, transit service saved the nation's cities 645 million hours of delay in 2007. That's more than double the number of hours saved by all five most prominent road "operational improvements" combined -- with HOV lanes being the most notable of those latter options.

The report's authors devote an entire section to solutions to congestion, recommending "a balanced and diversified approach" tailored to the needs of each area. Promoting "denser developments with a mix of jobs, shops and homes, so that more people can walk, bike or take transit" is featured on the list.

But unfortunately, the value of transit and denser urban development got only sporadic mention in most coverage of the TTI report. The Oregonian was one of the exceptions; its reporter drew a line between Portland's less grim traffic situation and its planning priorities. Here's an excerpt:

The report also underscores how different the mass-transit and car-commuter experiences are in Portland than in most urban areas. It shows in clear, numerical terms how significantly higher mass-transit use and compact-growth patterns affect the rush-hour commute.

Consider that traffic and congestion normally get worse in the most highly populated metro areas. Portland is the 24th-largest metro area by population, but its 37 hours of delay make it the 34th worst.

The more urban media digs into not just their rank in the congestion tables, but the reasons why their city is stuck, the better.

Sources say that a recent bag search at JFK revealed contraband including planning notes, renderings and other "big ideas" from "somewhere else."

Peñalosa is the head of a group based in Mississauga, Ontario called "Walk and Bike for Life," a non-profit dedicated to raising awareness of "the benefits of walking and cycling as activities and of urban parks and trails as great places." Sources place Peñalosa at the center of an international ring of transportation and planning professionals trafficking in ideas to make cities safer, livelier, more sustainable, and less choked with gridlock.

Through a complex network spanning at least four continents, Peñalosa funnels innovations from one city to the next. Formerly the parks commissioner of Bogotá, Colombia -- where his brother, Enrique, is known as the godfather of "Bus Rapid Transit" -- Peñalosa is the mastermind behind the "Mexico City hop," an intellectual property route whereby Latin American BRT cartels reach massive North American markets with an unslakeable thirst for surface transit improvements.

The appetite for transportation innovations steers product in myriad directions. When New York City produced a bumper crop of pedestrian plazas in fiscal year 2008, Penalosa whisked the city transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, on a coach flight to Toronto for a debriefing session with local government officials. (New York City has also served as global headquarters for Wall Street investment firms, Bernard L. Madoff, and David Berkowitz, so, you know, draw your own conclusions.)

Meeting minutes show that the group discussed "planning for pedestrians." Expense records obtained from Walk and Bike for Life reveal that Sadik-Khan was plied with free coffee and hot water for the purpose of steeping tea, which was provided gratis in little bags. According to a source who attended the session, she went with Earl Grey.

When reached for comment, Peñalosa initially had trouble recalling the meeting, then admitted that the transaction of ideas and strategies "all went according to plan."

In the real world, here's what actually happened...

I spoke to Gil Peñalosa today and he told me that Sadik-Khan's airfare and lodging for the one-day junket were funded by a grant from the Ministry of Health Promotion, an agency of Ontario's provincial government. At a midday event hosted by Rob MacIsaacs, chair of Toronto's regional transportation agency, Metrolinx, Sadik-Khan addressed a crowd of more than 200 transportation and planning professionals. Afterward, at a one-hour meeting with Toronto Mayor David Miller, Peñalosa says there was a good deal of "sharing ideas in both directions." In the evening, Ontario Health Minister Margarett Best hosted a public event at which Sadik-Khan spoke and drew another crowd numbering in the hundreds. Admission was free. There were "no professional fees, no parties, no drinks," said Penalosa, because in Ontario, "we're very boring people."

"It was work, work, work, work all the time," Peñalosa said of the trip. "People are still talking about it. New York is doing a lot of innovative things, and it's good to learn from other cities. There are many, many cities paying attention to what is happening in New York."

So, in all seriousness: Michael Barbaro, New York Times editors -- what were you thinking?

Instead of focusing on the whys and wherefores of the fare hike, instead of explaining how Albany has left the MTA out in the financial cold, it’s far easier to find people outraged than it is to educate.

Take, for example, Irving DeJohn and Stephanie Gaskell’s piece in the Daily News about rider reaction to the fare hike. It is chock full of quotes bemoaning the price increases, and the statements of the riders are, frankly, ignorant.

Take the first one in the article from Emmanuel Louis of Brooklyn: "You shouldn’t raise the fare if you’re not going to increase service. It's just not fair." This is where a reporter should challenge Louis and ask him how he feels about raising the fares if the alternative means worse service and significantly less of it.

You really can't overstate the significance of the vicious cycle at work here. The person-on-the-street MTA bashing echoes the MTA bashing you hear from legislators every time they're asked to make a tough decision on how to fund transit. If this is a co-dependent relationship, there's no doubt that the press plays the role of enabler too. Rare is the story that mentions the root causes of the MTA's financial woes. Common is the hatchet job about executive salaries or personal commuting habits.

The Daily News editorial board held Albany's feet to the fire for months during the last round of debate about transit funding. We'll be going through all of that again, very soon. Can newsrooms figure out how to keep up the heat?

Update: If you missed the broadcast, here's the report filed by correspondent Deborah Garcia.

Photo: CBS 2

Stanislaw Zak, of Brooklyn, was struck and killed as he waited at a bus stop near the intersection of Bay Ridge Parkway and 18th Avenue at about 9:20 p.m. Tuesday, police said.

The teen will be ticketed for driving with a learner's permit without a licensed driver, police said. No word yet as to whether the teen will face additional charges.

Police say the teen's Mazda struck another car before it struck and killed Zak.

The teen was taken to Lutheran Hospital, and is said to be in stable condition.

Also in Brooklyn, the Post is reporting that "a pedicab crashed into a yellow taxi" this morning at Broadway and Bedford Avenue, near the Williamsburg Bridge bike approach. The pedicab must have been traveling at an amazing speed, because the impact caused it to snap in half, according to the story. The Post says the pedicab driver and two passengers were all hospitalized in critical condition with head injuries, but CBS 2 reports that one passenger was not injured. No mention of any pending charges.

This graphic comes from an online poll Crain's put up last week, once the expansion of New York's red light camera program seemed assured. What I couldn't fit into the screenshot is the headline, which reads, in huge type, "Should NYC continue using 'spy cams' at traffic lights?"

Interesting that cameras triggered when a driver has likely broken the law -- and designed to capture identifying information about vehicles, not human faces -- get saddled with the "spy cam" designation (also favored by the Post). Despite the leading headline, most Crain's readers welcome the expansion of automated enforcement to deter dangerous driving. Makes you wonder what the results would be if "safety cams" were the devices at issue.

Wisconsin's Jeff Frings is an avid bike rider. He's also a photographer for Milwaukee's Fox 6, which may be why this report is among the most fair and balanced we've seen on cyclists' right to the road.

Like many if not most cyclists, Frings has had his share of run-ins with space-hogging drivers. Unlike most, Frings's bike is equipped with front- and rear-facing cameras. As you'll see, this has given him an edge when making his case following a close call -- his footage resulted in a ticket for one motorist -- but it's still not enough when law enforcement officials are ignorant of, or are unwilling to enforce, traffic laws.

While straphangers who opposed tolls were in the minority of those interviewed, far more common in the interviews last week were transit riders who feared the looming fare increases and supported bridge tolls.

No surprise there, right? Thing is, that little nugget above was buried halfway into an article headlined, "N.Y. Drivers' Unexpected Allies: Transit Riders." And here's how Neuman (or his editor) chose to lede the article and sum up their man-on-the-subway findings:

Interviews with residents in these districts revealed that the holdout legislators have tapped into a concern shared by many of their constituents, even among those where it might be least unexpected: transit riders. And while toll opponents made up a spirited minority among straphangers interviewed in recent days, their views stood out, because they were both unexpected and passionately held.

As one Streetsblog commenter put it this morning:

Why doesn't Willie Neuman just write an op-ed stating his personal opposition to bridge tolls instead of hunting out a few subway riders with contrarian and illogical positions on the matter?

Photo: Paula Agostino/Flickr

Consider this an open thread on Robert Sullivan's piece in the Times' City section this weekend, and his four suggestions for better cyclist PR.

The question of how cyclists should use the road is often framed as a classic chicken-or-egg situation: Which comes first, streets that accommodate cyclists' needs or cyclists who use the streets courteously? I was glad to read a piece that takes the measure of how far New York City has progressed in each respect, but it's too bad the Times ran it with a headline and above-the-fold photo that don't match the intent of the story. Minimizing internecine conflict in any discussion about the ethics of cycling is already tough. The phrase "The Wild Bunch" doesn't exactly move the conversation forward.

Sullivan's four suggestions are posted after the jump.

NO. 1: How about we stop at major intersections? Especially where there are school crossing guards, or disabled people crossing, or a lot of people during the morning or evening rush. (I have the law with me on this one.) At minor intersections, on far-from-traffic intersections, let’s at least stop and go.

NO. 2: How about we ride with traffic as opposed to the wrong way on a one-way street? I know the idea of being told which way to go drives many bikers bonkers. That stuff is for cars, they say. I consider one-way streets anathema -- they make for faster car traffic and more difficult crossings. But whenever I see something bad happen to a biker, it's when the biker is riding the wrong way on a one-way street.

There will be caveats. Perhaps your wife is about to go into labor and you take her to the hospital on your bike; then, yes, sure, go the wrong way in the one-way bike lane. We can handle caveats. We are bikers.

NO. 3: How about we stay off the sidewalks? Why are bikers so incensed when the police hand out tickets for this? I'm only guessing, but each sidewalk biker must believe that he or she, out of all New York bikers, is the exception, the one careful biker, which is a very car way of thinking.

NO. 4: How about we signal? Again, I hear the laughter, but the bike gods gave us hands to ring bells and to signal turns. Think of the possible complications: Many of the bikers behind you are wearing headphones, and the family in the minivan has a Disney DVD playing so loudly that it’s rattling your 30-pound Kryptonite chain. Let them know what you are thinking so that you can go on breathing as well as thinking.

Like New York and dozens of other American cities, Minneapolis is facing the prospect of higher transit fares and less service amid the economic downturn. To impress upon state lawmakers that their constituents depend on transit to meet basic needs, the St. Stephen's Human Rights Campaign compiled this video of testimonials from bus riders (hat tip to Twin Cities Streets for People; see all the testimonials here). They asked a simple question: What do you use the bus for?

Watching the answers calls to mind all the reps in Albany who oppose funding transit through bridge tolls and fees on driving by invoking the plight of working-class New Yorkers. As if their transit riding constituents don't need to get to work, make trips to the doctor, or take their kids to school. One wonders whether the Gang of Three would so shamelessly obstruct the rescue of our transit system if New York's local TV crews asked bus and subway riders this question, instead of, say, putting the screws to Lee Sander about his morning routine.

Photo: AntyDiluvian/Flickr

From 1998 to 2007, some 700 pedestrians were injured and five were killed in Midtown Manhattan along Broadway, making it one of the more hazardous stretches in the city.

Mr. Bloomberg’s reordering of Broadway might not work for everyone. Taxi drivers are alarmed that it will cut down on fares, and theater owners are, as always, nervous. But with pedestrians in danger and growing complaints that Broadway has become too "crowded," the mayor is right to provide more elbow room for people who give Broadway the life it needs.

Good to know that not every editorial board considers public health and happiness to be "frivolous" boom-time luxuries.