To signal their displeasure with law enforcement, Council members David Weprin, Simcha Felder, and Vincent Gentile ripped up parking tickets on the steps of City Hall. Photo: Daily Politics.

According to Council Member Peter Vallone, Jr. the bills are "an attempt to legislate common sense and discretion." But really, what we have here is old-fashioned pandering combined with a failure to comprehend the consequences of giving away curb space.

The council calls it a "grace period," but what does it really mean to ban parking agents from issuing a ticket until five minutes after the allotted time expires? Well, if you drive somewhere and pay for 40 minutes of metered parking, now you get 45 minutes. The bill gives on-street parkers more bang for their buck -- a subsidy for the minority of New Yorkers who get around by private car.

With less turnover of metered spaces, drivers will double-park more and cruise around longer as they search for open spots. Whether you're walking, biking, riding a bus, or driving, you'll have to contend with more traffic clogging up the streets.

The expansion of parking placards for clergy will have the same effect -- more free curb space for an entitled class of drivers, with less to go around for everyone else. The bill flies in the face of placard-reduction policies that the Bloomberg administration began enacting in 2008 with an eye toward cutting congestion.

City Room reports that Bloomberg, predicting "chaos and enormous increases in contested tickets," is ready to veto the grace period bill. A council override would not augur well for the next four years of New York City transportation policy.

An off-set bus lane, which DOT may or may not employ for BRT on the East Side. Image: NYCDOT [PDF]

I checked in with DOT to see if the off-set design has indeed been finalized, and the answer is "No." The agency is still considering different bus lane configurations. "An image we presented to the board on Tuesday night did show an offset lane," said a DOT spokesperson, "but this is a baseline design, one which we've used in presentations for the last six months."

An off-set configuration would give bus riders on the East Side a faster ride, but without a physically-separated busway, there are few certainties. Off-set bus lanes would have to be paired with camera enforcement to deliver the full potential benefits, said Walter Hook, director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. Hook has advised several global metropolises on the implementation of Bus Rapid Transit.

If everything lines up and Albany does pass a law enabling the use of bus-mounted cameras, then, Hook estimates, total travel time on the M15 corridor could be reduced from 70 minutes to 48 minutes during peak hours using off-set lanes. Hook projects that a physically separated busway would cut that time to 42 minutes. No permission from Albany necessary.

Mayor Bloomberg has already shown how much his administration can accomplish in just a few years. Since Janette Sadik-Khan's appointment to head the DOT in 2007, the city has striped hundreds of miles of bike lanes, reclaimed acres of street space for pedestrians and improved bus travel for tens of thousands of New Yorkers. "More of the same" is no longer a dirty phrase when it comes to local transportation policy. During the next four years, the mayor needs to accelerate this progress, and introduce a few key innovations to maximize the value New Yorkers get from their new streets.

There is plenty of room to build on the Bloomberg administration's record of support for safer, greener streets. Photosim of 34th Street: Luc Nadal and Marc De Decker, ITDP.

Well, the release of DOT's Street Design Manual back in July was an especially auspicious development. This groundbreaking playbook contains templates that can transform streets in neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs. The manual is an engineering document, but it also makes sense as an outreach tool. Community groups concerned about street safety could use the manual as a menu, requesting traffic calming solutions for their neighborhood from DOT. Liberal use of these new designs, applied through a smart community-based process, could pay huge dividends all over the city.

For a fraction of the cost of subway line construction, buses could move millions, if the mayor throws his weight behind BRT.

One sensible way for the NYPD to roll out this approach to traffic enforcement would be to start in areas frequented by children and seniors. Seniors make up 12 percent of New York's population, yet account for 39 percent of pedestrian fatalities. And according to the Department of Health, auto traffic is the leading cause of injury-related death in children ages 1-14. DOT's Safe Routes to School and Safe Routes for Seniors programs have spawned imitators around the country, but our city is no longer the national leader. Other cities are now far ahead of New York when it comes to implementing these street safety programs. Combined with police enforcement, short-term and inexpensive improvements such as leading pedestrian intervals, reductions in signalized crossing speeds, and a citywide slower speed limit in school zones would prioritize pedestrians, save the lives of children and seniors, and get New York City back in the forefront of planning streets for safety.

Greater safety helps more New Yorkers feel at ease riding on our streets. As the city's bike network matures, a large-scale public bike-share system is a no brainer. Bike-sharing weaves cycling into the larger transportation network. In Paris, Velib tripled cycling in a few months with 20,000 bikes spread over 1,400 stations. Montrealers took more than a million rides on Bixi in fewer than six months, and similar gains have been repeated around the globe. The same explosive growth would happen in New York overnight, if Mayor Bloomberg backed bike-share in a big way. Seventy-four percent of trips here are five miles or less, meaning they're very bikeable and easily converted to bike-share trips. If he builds it, they will come.

The same is true of new and better bike facilities. Since the city installed the Ninth Avenue cycle track, biking on the West Side has gotten safer, and so has walking. In Brooklyn, the Kent Avenue protected path is having an identical effect. Traffic-protected bike lanes on Queens Boulevard, through upper Manhattan, down the Upper West Side, and all along the East Side -- where there is a dearth of safe space for cyclists -- would encourage thousands more New Yorkers to ride.

Mayor Bloomberg is a MetroCard guy, but it's much easier to spot him on the subway than riding the bus. That should change in the next four years. Although 2.4 million people ride New York City Transit buses each weekday, the bus system is the city's most underperforming transportation resource. Improvements like pre-paid boarding and signal priority, which have been installed along Fordham Road in the Bronx, could speed service on bus routes around the city. And a true Bus Rapid Transit network, with dedicated lanes for buses and level boarding for passengers, would add another dimension to our transit system. For a fraction of the cost of subway line construction, buses could move millions, if the mayor throws his weight behind BRT.

Mayor Mike has a lot on his plate in the coming weeks, months and years. But if he wants to keep New York City moving toward a sustainable future and shore up his legacy as the Livable City mayor, then safer streets, robust bike-share and better buses are the fastest way to get there.

A reader sends this photo of a huge rig using Kent Avenue's new protected bike path as its own, highly illegal shortcut. Our tipster says the trucker was bearing down on him at a rapid clip for several blocks before slowing down enough to hear an inquiry through the window: "What do you think you're doing?" The driver's response was unenlightening and filled with obscenities, we're told. This shot was taken after the confrontation.

The last time we checked in on the Kent Avenue project, which converted the street to one-way flow, truck traffic was the burning issue. The 90th and 94th precincts are supposed to keep trucks off streets where they don't belong. From the looks of it, police need to send a stronger message.

See the head-on view of the rig after the jump.

When will pedestrians and cyclists be able to feel safe and secure on New York City streets? Photo: Bryan Goebel.

In a recent interview with Streetsblog, Tompkins evokes "Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs," a traditional marketing and psychology concept, to explain why ensuring public safety was the crucial first step in the renaissance of Times Square, and a pre-requisite for reclaiming sections of Broadway for pedestrians and public space.

You need to take care of the basics of comfort and security first before you can even think about anything else. That played out with respect to nature and parks, but wasn't really playing out in the streets and sidewalks. I think not only in Times Square and in New York City, but in a bunch of places... we've been paying attention to that. And that's been the paradigm shift that's driving a lot of this.

Tompkins' assessment has important implications for the movement to tame the streets. If establishing basic security is a fundamental prerequisite for widespread public use of any space, what about creating order and safety on our streets?

Crime and the perception of disorder have plummeted in public spaces like parks, squares, and sidewalks. But it is abundantly clear to anyone who bicycles, walks or drives in New York City that this isn’t true in the streets. Speeding and dangerous driving are epidemic. This perception is backed by study after study and by the reality that thousands of cyclists and pedestrians are struck every year. The dangerous chaos on the streets also means very few children or older people feel comfortable bicycling, and only a small portion of people who consider cycling actually ride regularly.

It will take decades before the Department of Transportation can re-engineer most of the city's big streets for cyclists and pedestrians. Even then, laws must be enforced. New York City has changed the equation in parks and on the sidewalks. What about the streets?

Much of the answer, says Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former Baltimore cop, boils down to the way police perceive their work:

Photo: Wiley Norvell.

The NYPD fails to enforce traffic crime in part because the NYPD does not track traffic crime. And part of the reason the NYPD doesn't track traffic crime is because deterring it doesn't bring the same clear rewards as more traditional law enforcement.

"It doesn't draw on the skills police see themselves as having. It is annoying and time-consuming for officers to do traffic stops," Moskos says. "Partly because the people you are helping aren't there to appreciate how you are helping them. There is not much gratification for traffic work on a personal or professional level, because the people you are helping are not there to thank you."

To make the benefits of law-abiding behavior behind the wheel more apparent, perhaps a good first step would be to strengthen the NYPD's working relationships with advocates for street safety. (Case in point: San Francisco's new police chief, George Gascon, said he would consider creating a liaison to cyclists in an interview with Streetsblog San Francisco last month.)

Drawing on the "broken windows" school of policing that NYPD has famously employed for two decades as a core strategy to deter crime, Singer notes that New York's streets will remain hazardous as long as motorists perceive the consequences of reckless driving to be arbitrary and rare:

Applying the rigor of the Broken Windows Theory to traffic enforcement would change the way the NYPD measures and deters traffic crime. The new regime would end the practice of consistently ignoring moving violations spotted through the patrol car window. But more importantly, as the application of Broken Windows did with street crime, it would indicate to drivers that they cannot get away with it, that the lawlessness police ignored in the past will no longer be tolerated in the present.

"There is no question about it, you would have to do this on a regular basis, almost consistent basis, to be effective," says Lou Riccio, Commissioner at the NYC Department of Transportation during the Dinkins administration. Riccio was one of several traffic experts interviewed for the "Executive Order" report. "That's the problem with enforcement, it is random. [Behavioral psychologist B.F.] Skinner said [you need] random rewards and certain punishments. What we do is no rewards and random punishments, and they may actually exacerbate the problem. If [drivers] get caught, they think it's just the bad luck of the draw. And therefore they don't change their behavior."

A revised law attaches a stiff fine to the type of carelessness that caused the deaths of two children in Chinatown, but it's up to NYPD to make it stick.

The obvious question: What good is it to jack up idling fines, even by a factor of 50, when police can't be counted on to ticket for traffic fatalities? That's where Council Member Dan Garodnick comes in. Last year he introduced legislation that would allow Traffic Enforcement Agents to issue idling tickets using their hand-held computers. The bill stalled some time ago, but a Garodnick spokesperson says it hasn't been forgotten. Since learning that such a change can be handled administratively, Garodnick's office has been waiting for NYPD to carry it out.

Streetsblog has word that the department has completed programming and testing the hand-held units, and now plans to begin training agents, though no timetable was available.

"Obviously it's still something we'd like to see done," Garodnick's spokesperson said, adding that unattended vehicles should be covered under the new protocol. At $250 a pop, it probably wouldn't take many tickets before companies start telling drivers to take two seconds to shut down their trucks.

The unidentified driver of this car, who injured six when he slammed into a Queens bus stop this month, is one of thousands of city motorists who harm and endanger others without consequence.

Maureen McCormick has specialized in prosecuting reckless drivers for 14 years. She led the Kings County Vehicular Crimes Bureau in Brooklyn, and now works for Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice. On Tuesday, McCormick said she believes the state's criminally negligent homicide statute, by virtue of its status as a Class E felony -- the least severe of all felony categories -- is "illogical on its face." Further, McCormick said, courts often go soft on killer drivers by twisting the language of the statute in ways unintended by the state.

McCormick cited a 2008 case as an example. Here is her account from a March Streetsblog interview:

As recently as May 2008, New York's highest court held that a 17-year-old driver who violated his junior license by driving with four unrelated passengers, without seatbelts, and who also was speeding at 70-72 mph through a curve with a posted caution speed of 40 mph, and who lost control sending the car over an embankment and killing three of his passengers, could not be held criminally liable (People v. Cabrera, 10 NY3d 370 [2008]). This decision alone has resulted in numerous defense motions to have cases dismissed claiming that "speed alone" or any traffic infraction "alone" is not sufficient to sustain criminal negligence. Our position is that this is nonsense.

McCormick wants state legislators to tell the courts they are misinterpreting the law. Another panelist, Oregon civil attorney and bike lawyer Ray Thomas, suggested that instead of trying to read defendants' minds -- the Cabrera case turned on the driver's perception of risk -- states should rely on objective, definable criteria. In Alabama, to cause a death while violating a traffic law is to commit homicide, regardless of intent. In Alabama, Georgia, Idaho and North Carolina, the severity of the charge stemming from a non-fatal crash depends on the extent of the victim's physical injuries. These approaches have worked well, Thomas said. Another way to remove subjectivity from court decisions, and to reduce the chance of reversal on appeal, said Thomas, is to assign penalties to certain acts undertaken while driving, like texting.

Thomas was instrumental in the successful push for Oregon's "vulnerable user" law. Focusing on road workers and school kids is a good way to win over police and appeal to the "protective impulses" of legislators, Thomas said. While acknowledging that Oregon, too, has a long way to go in the traffic justice arena, its vulnerable user law has singled out anyone not "encased in a steel exoskeleton," as Thomas put it, as worthy of extra care. A driver convicted of causing death or serious physical injury to a vulnerable user in Oregon must complete a traffic safety course and 100 to 200 hours of community service, or else pay a fine of up to $12,500 and lose his or her license for one year.

New York has its own vulnerable user law in the works, named after Hayley Ng and Diego Martinez, two pre-schoolers who died when an unattended, idling van backed onto a sidewalk in Chinatown. But given the horrific consequences of driver-on-pedestrian violence, such measures are abysmally inadequate. As McCormick said Tuesday, to truly be punished in New York State for killing someone with your vehicle, you almost have to be intoxicated.

Not that weak laws are 100 percent to blame. The only charge that applies to either a vehicular assault or homicide that does not require the presence of alcohol or drugs, said Peter Goldwasser of Transportation Alternatives, is criminally negligent homicide. Between 1994 and 2008, there were only 29 indictments for this crime in all of New York State, according to Goldwasser. During that period, about 10,000 people died on New York State roadways.

The third symposium panelist, Brooklyn-based criminal defense attorney Scott Cerbin, believes New York prosecutors have the tools at their disposal to dispense justice, but lack fiscal resources. Due to overwhelming case loads, Cerbin said, the majority end in pleas, which result in lighter sentences. In fact, Cerbin is skeptical that Cy Vance will be able to substantially beef up Manhattan's vehicular crimes unit as promised, especially if the city experiences a surge in other violent crimes. McCormick agreed -- to a point -- likening traffic safety efforts to school art and music programs: the first to be cut when budgets get tight.

Cerbin also said that NYPD officers virtually never charge motorists with reckless driving, and prefer to issue summonses rather than make arrests. This breakdown at the point where a traffic offense occurs, be it a fender-bender or a gruesome death, illustrates what could have been the theme of the day: in the words of Ray Thomas, "perspective imposes outcome." Every level of lawmaking and enforcement -- from the cop to the assistant district attorney, the state court judge to the state legislator -- is populated by people who identify as much or more so with fellow drivers as with victims of vehicular violence.

Thomas argued that, since a vehicle can do catastrophic damage even with no intent to harm, a new paradigm is needed wherein driving a car is considered a privilege requiring a considerable amount of care, with commensurate consequences for recklessness. What we have instead is a system so infused by car culture that anyone outside a vehicle is considered to be tempting fate. As for other drivers or passengers who lose their lives, well, accidents happen.

Whether a cultural shift is needed to bring about changes in laws and enforcement, or vice versa, one thing is clear. To paraphrase Maureen McCormick: We have a lot of work to do.

Cy Vance, far right, joined by (l-r) Oregon attorney Raymond F. Thomas, TA's Peter Goldwasser, New York attorney Scott Glen Cerbin, and Nassau County prosecutor Maureen McCormick. Photo: Brad Aaron

Don't take our word for it. This is the message from Cy Vance Jr., the candidate who next Tuesday is all but certain to be elected Manhattan's next district attorney. Speaking at today's legal symposium on vehicular violence at the Cardozo School of Law, Vance called the number of city traffic fatalities "extremely large" when compared to its 500 annual murders, and reiterated his campaign pledge to make vehicular violence a priority on his watch.

"Safety on our streets is going to be a very, very important issue for our office," said Vance, who noted that his son is a Manhattan cyclist.

Vance restated his commitment to allotting additional resources to the Manhattan DA's Vehicular Crimes Unit, as well as his intent to curb dangerous driving with prevention techniques currently applied to other potentially deadly behaviors. Vance also said he plans to approach traffic crime through the "community justice" model [a concept explained in this PDF], working with NYPD precincts to identify specific problem areas.

Much of today's event -- co-hosted by the Cardozo School, Transportation Alternatives and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign -- was devoted to what other states are doing to hold killer drivers accountable. We'll delve into that in a follow-up post. Vance said that he, too, plans to look nationwide to keep up with case law.

"I have a lot to learn," he said. "I will be an active student."

-- MTA Chairman Jay Walder, quoted in the New York Times.

These are heartening words for transit advocates. Incoming MTA Chairman Jay Walder clearly wants to make big improvements to the agency's 250 bus routes. But given his time, budget and authority, there is a big gap between what he can do and what he would like to do for buses.

NYPD cruisers parked in the 34th Street bus lane. When it comes to bus route enforcement, Jay Walder has his hands full.

Let's look at the things that Walder and the MTA can realistically do for buses.

First up: contactless or “swipe less” MetroCards, like London's Oyster card, which are waved over a sensor instead of swiped. These contactless cards speed bus boarding and can save a lot of time over the course of a day. They also help reduce bus bunching by making loading times more consistent on every bus. Contactless cards are a mature technology which the MTA has already funded, and which Walder helped pioneer in London. So, there is every reason to think he can hurry its implementation.

Walder can also help with the long-delayed GPS bus locator system and real-time arrival information for passengers. These are also mature technologies which bus systems around the world use to reduce bunching, troubleshoot delays, and keep riders informed. To date, the MTA has bungled GPS tracking, and insisted on trying to solve the canyon effect caused by Manhattan skyscrapers instead of deploying GPS and passenger information on the huge majority of routes that don't go through Midtown, or even enter Manhattan. This is a highly visible and affordable improvement that Walder would get a lot of credit for.

Fortunately for Walder, when it comes to bus improvements, he has a strong ally in the NYCDOT and the mayor, who are leading the effort to institute Select Bus Service. SBS routes include elements of Bus Rapid Transit, including pre-paid boarding, transit signal priority, and painted bus lanes. Planning for SBS is well-advanced, though the initiative has very modest funding by MTA standards. Currently, DOT and the MTA intend to roll out one or two new SBS lines a year. Walder may be able to accelerate SBS through additional planning and funding, and by making the case for more physically protected bus lanes like the one planned for 34th Street in Midtown.

During Walder's tenure at Transport for London, the agency employed express bus lanes and other BRT features to great effect. So Walder is keenly aware of the need to "prioritize" buses on the street. In his interview with the Times, Walder emphasized the compelling reasons to enforce bus lanes and bus stops more vigorously. Bus riders, advocates and transit experts all agree on the desirability of better enforcement. The need is obvious. But increasing enforcement enough to make a difference in bus service will probably be the most difficult thing for Walder to achieve.

In London, more than 1,000 automated enforcement cameras mounted on buses -- and another 50 or so on utility poles -- help keep bus lanes and bus stops clear of other vehicles. Violations caught by these cameras result in steep fines. Unfortunately, in New York City, enforcement cameras and increased fines for lane blockers require the approval of the state legislature.

In 2008, NYCDOT made bus enforcement cameras its highest legislative priority. But the legislature has a long history of resisting enforcement cameras of all types. It took from 1993 to 2009 for the city to win an increase from 50 to 150 red light enforcement cameras. The MTA and transit advocates first started asking for bus enforcement cameras in the 1990s. Without cameras, enforcing bus lanes and stops is very difficult. You can do it on small numbers of specific corridors, like Fordham Road, but overall, it is extremely hard to keep the thousands of bus stops and hundreds of miles of lanes clear using only police and traffic agents. Which is why most modern BRT systems use enforcement cameras or physically separated rights-of-way. Whether Albany will grant legislative approval in the next year for enough cameras to make a visible impact -- or even any cameras at all -- is a question mark.

The specific approaches Walder pursues to improve bus service will probably meet with different degrees of success. But overall, his interest in better buses will give a big boost to efforts to dedicate more street space to transit and surely result in better service.

This is the second of two posts exploring how incoming MTA Chairman Jay Walder can improve New York City's bus system. Read the first part here.

-- Jay Walder, MTA chairman, as quoted in the New York Times

Improvements like real-time arrival displays led bus ridership to grow significantly during Jay Walder's tenure at Transport for London. Photo: King Huang Chung/Flickr.

While it may seem obvious that the chair of the MTA should devote considerable energy to buses, this is rarely the case. The head of the MTA is typically consumed by planning, funding, and managing mega-projects and the capital plan. Historically, the MTA has been heavily oriented toward subways and commuter rail. On the average weekday, the agency's subways carry 5.2 million trips and its buses 2.4 million.

But these are not normal times at the MTA. Walder has one year to make a big impression. After that he will almost certainly have a new boss as governor, who will have two options: fire Walder or rehire him. Bus improvements can be done relatively quickly and cheaply, and by reducing delays can actually save money while resulting in better service and higher ridership.

Buses are also attractive to Walder because the mayor and DOT are already aggressively pushing bus corridor improvements. DOT and the MTA have launched a successful Select Bus Service route on Fordham Road in the Bronx, with new routes planned and funded for First and Second Avenues in 2010. The mayor is a good friend to have. He controls streets, parking enforcement and seats on the MTA board.

But Select Bus Service only helps a handful of the MTA's 250 bus routes. Also needed are system-wide improvements. Walder has identified three of these as priorities.

First is a swipe-free or "contactless" MetroCard like London's Oyster Card, which is waved over a sensor on buses and subways. This would reduce boarding times.

Second is GPS-based, real-time information for riders waiting at bus stops. This would reduce uncertainty over travel times and help reduce bunching. The MTA has struggled with GPS location for years, while similar technology has been adopted by transit systems around the world and in New York City taxis.

Third, but most emphasized by Walder, is improved enforcement of bus stops and lanes, especially with automated enforcement cameras. Enforcement cameras are in widespread use in London. But here, they will require approval by the state legislature. Given that the legislature is struggling with profound internal dysfunction, massive state budget deficits, and a collapsing MTA capital plan, it will likely be a tough lift for bus lane cameras to win approval. It took DOT decades of effort to win its relatively small number of red light cameras.

Regardless of the exact improvements he undertakes, there is a powerful logic steering Jay Walder toward bus improvements. And that is good news for long-suffering bus riders.

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.

Cars blocking crosswalks, drivers failing to yield to pedestrians, unnecessary honking -- New Yorkers have to contend with these violations every day on nearly every corner in the city.

As Streetsblog publisher Mark Gorton says in this Streetfilm, most drivers are not bad or mean people, but few seem to realize how their conduct behind the wheel inconveniences and endangers pedestrians. It's a level of rudeness and carelessness that we tend not to tolerate in other spheres of life, especially when you consider the risks involved in piloting a multi-ton vehicle. New Yorkers can get brusque or nasty on the subway, but you rarely see straphangers engage in behavior that poses an immediate danger to the people around them. So what is it about driving a car that lets people disregard the safety of others?

We've posted many times on NYPD bus lane abuse, so it's nice to have this reader-submitted shot. This scofflaw driver was tagged Monday evening on E. 57th Street between Madison and Fifth -- just in time for bus passengers to witness a rare act of traffic law enforcement.

With new MTA chief Jay Walder citing bus lane blockage as a top priority, hopefully we'll be seeing a lot more of this. Who knows, maybe there's even an order of concrete on the first 100 days' agenda.

Yesterday we saw what it looks like when police value pedestrian safety and enforce the integrity of the crosswalk. That's how they roll in Sacramento. Here in New York, the NYPD's priorities are a little different.

Clarence Eckerson recently shot this clip at the intersection of Canal and Lafayette. As you can see, an officer crossing the street with other pedestrians noticed a vehicle blocking the box (and a bike lane). Instead of giving the driver a summons, he proceeded to hold up everyone who had the right of way and wave the car through the crosswalk, directly into the path of at least one person on foot. All in a day's work for New York's finest.

Here's another installment in what could ideally become a series on how police departments are doing right by pedestrians and cyclists. We posted the Chicago bike video a couple of weeks back. We now present the Sacramento crosswalk sting. (Warning: Insufferable Geico commercial may precede video.)

Back in April, TV station KCRA filmed a plainclothes Sacramento officer busting motorists who couldn't be bothered to yield the right of way. Notice how, though they cite the potential amount of the fine, neither the anchor nor the reporter ever intimate that the operation is a money-making scheme? Instead of sticking a mic in a driver's face for a quick-and-dirty accusation of extortion -- a near-must in most any mainstream media story about traffic enforcement -- the reporter is completely sympathetic to the pedestrians in harm's way, and rightly credits the officer for putting his life on the line.

Ben wrote earlier this year how similar measures could be effective here in New York. Wouldn't it be great if we could all point to a law-breaking vehicle and have NYPD swoop in?

Central Park erupted into a scene of chaos early Saturday afternoon after witnesses say a taxi heading west from 60th Street toward Fifth Avenue hit an empty horse and buggy carriage before slamming into a brick wall.

"Actually he was coming very high speed, too, cause you see the big hole he made in the wall, he was coming very, very fast," said one witness.

"All of a sudden I heard this loud thump and I saw a horse going over toward Fifth Avenue, loose, before I saw a couple of drivers, the carriage drivers, stop the horse and there was a cab driver I assume it was now laying in the street," said another witness.

The cab driver and the carriage operator were injured, while horse Blackie, miraculously, was unharmed. No word that we could find on what charges, if any, were issued (the Post says the driver "was reportedly suffering from a seizure," but gives no source).

Though animal advocates were quick to paint Saturday's crash as further evidence that horse carriages have no place in traffic (an argument with which I personally agree), it was in fact only the latest example of cabbie-induced carnage.

The Times on Sunday ran a brief editorial reiterating the paper's recent coverage of cab drivers and cell phones. Cab-riding New Yorkers may recognize the dangers of driving on city streets while distracted, the Times says, but few do much about it: the TLC reports just 175 complaints regarding yakking drivers through July of this year. Despite the ubiquity of the offense -- when was the last time you got in a cab where the driver wasn't on the phone? -- NYPD is virtually no help, issuing under 1,000 tickets to cabbies in all of 2008, and just 232 through the first half of 2009.

Given the bleak state of enforcement, the Times advises readers to either buckle up or withhold gratuities. While option two might work on a case-by-case basis, this got us wondering: What should the protocol be for a safe streets advocate sitting behind a reckless cab driver? Confront the cabbie? Complain to TLC? Both? Or are you a conscientious objector, avoiding cabs altogether?

Photo: Staten Island Advance.

Staten Island's newest speed trap is snaring unsuspecting drivers who must drop from a highway speed of 50 mph to 30 mph on the off-ramp, to a 20-mph crawl outside a school zone off the South Avenue exit of the Staten Island Expressway.

Police have been issuing summonses to lead-footed drivers who missed or ignored the new diamond-shaped yellow signs alongside Goethals Road North in Graniteville, where the new Staten Island School of Civic Leadership for grades K-8 opened earlier this month.

The tickets were given out as part of a targeted enforcement initiative, police said. While officers won't be outside the school every day, it will be on their rotating list of "hot spots," because of the nature of the school zone, and because a pedestrian was hit on the street in the past.

So, enforcing the speed limit near an area swarming with kids -- everyone can get behind that, right? Not if you identify with those "unsuspecting drivers" more than the K-8 students who have to navigate the streets near their school. Proving that no form of traffic enforcement can avoid scorn from a certain subset of motorists, many Advance commenters take the speed trap as evidence of a city campaign to "milk the taxpayer."

As irresponsible as it may be to call speed enforcement a revenue-generating exercise, some of the complainers kind of have a point. This stretch of Goethals Road North is definitely sending some mixed signals. Those 20 mph school zone signs compete for drivers' attention with huge green highway signs on a street that looks designed for maximal vehicular flow. The stepped-up enforcement is great, and let's hope the cops keep it up, because the students at the School of Civic Leadership need it. They also need a street designed to put drivers on notice that doing 40 is totally wrong and unacceptable.

Cy Vance, at left, with Richard Aborn at a Chelsea pedestrian memorial march in June. Photo: Brad Aaron

At TA's candidate forum, and again at a Hell's Kitchen pedestrian memorial march, Vance heard personally the heart-rending stories of victims of vehicular violence. In response, he issued a detailed plan to ramp up the vehicular crimes bureau, improve crash site investigation techniques and lobby lawmakers for legislation to clamp down on dangerous driving -- including graduated penalties for repeat offenders, so that today's speeding red light-runner isn't tomorrow's hit-and-run killer.

Vance has promised to work with NYPD to target high-casualty areas and, for drivers whose actions result in death, to forgo the arbitrary "Rule of Two" in seeking punishment more suited to the crime.

"After years of watching dangerous drivers who kill put back behind the wheel, we are confident the next DA is going to utilize the robust and varied resources of the office to implement comprehensive pedestrian safety initiatives," TA Executive Director Paul Steely White said Wednesday. Time will tell how quickly, and to what extent, these initiatives come to fruition -- and continued vigilance will no doubt be required. But after this campaign street safety will surely be a hot topic in many contests to come. For that, livable streets advos can give themselves credit.

L-r: Manhattan DA candidates Richard Aborn, Cy Vance and Leslie Crocker Snyder

Earlier in the day, 9-year-old Joshua Ganzfried was walking to temple in Williamsburg when, at Bedford Avenue and Wallabout Street, he was struck by Novella Bilkerdyk, a habitual traffic offender with a suspended license. While she stands to receive a slap on the wrist for being behind the wheel, Bilkerdyk, like Fred Wilson's killer -- like hundreds of other city drivers before them -- reportedly faces no punishment for taking a life.

These deaths didn't take place in Manhattan, but there is little if any doubt that if they had the legal ramifications for each driver -- none whatsoever -- would have been the same. As proven time and time and time and time again, Manhattan motorists involved in deadly pedestrian and cyclist collisions -- as long as they're sober and don't flee the scene -- are as a matter of course found not guilty on the spot, their victims condemned to death and, conveniently for the driver, police and prosecutors, eternal silence.

Tomorrow, for the first time since 1974 and only the second time since 1941, Manhattan voters will choose a new district attorney. The candidates hoping to succeed Robert Morgenthau -- Richard Aborn, Leslie Crocker Snyder and Cy Vance -- have all promised to approach traffic crime as a serious public threat, worthy of investigation and prosecution. The deterrent effect of such a turnaround, as drivers learn that serious "accidents" come with commensurate consequences, should be augmented by measures each candidate has promised to enlist the aid of NYPD and toughen penalties for gateway crimes like speeding. With overall road deaths and pedestrian fatalities on the rise (292 and 147 in 2008 citywide, respectively), and the notorious "Rule of Two" still the guiding principle of traffic law enforcement, a reinvigorated DA's office with a progressive traffic justice agenda will be critical to making Manhattan streets safer.

We kicked off our coverage of the DA's race with a March interview with Leslie Crocker Snyder. At the time Snyder admitted that she was no expert on traffic issues, but promised to learn more. Since then, following a debate organized by Transportation Alternatives (which Snyder did not attend), she has followed Aborn and Vance in releasing a transportation safety platform plank. Aborn was the first to take that step, and by most accounts his performance at the June forum, and his subsequent statements, have shown him to have the most nuanced understanding of the unique perniciousness of traffic violence.

Make no mistake, however: As Streetsblog readers have noted, the mere fact that traffic justice has emerged as an issue in this race is a milestone. The battle is far from won, but safe streets advocates at the very least have Manhattan's next district attorney on the record pledging to hold motorists accountable for their actions on city streets.