Streetsblog New York City

A pedestrian was killed at the intersection of Northern Boulevard and 212th Street this morning. The intersection has no crosswalk across Northern Boulevard. Image: Google Street View.

Another senior citizen walking the streets of New York has been killed in traffic. This morning at 6:00 a.m., a driver heading eastbound on Northern Boulevard struck a 72-year-old man crossing at the intersection of 212th Street, according to NYPD. The victim was taken to New York Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The driver stayed at the scene and was not intoxicated, said the police. Hence, as usual, no summonses were issued. But NYPD’s public information office could not say yet whether the pedestrian was crossing 212th Street, which has a crosswalk, or Northern Boulevard, which does not.

Northern Boulevard is a heavily trafficked feeder onto the un-tolled Queensboro Bridge and has long been a particularly dangerous street for pedestrians. In fact, back during his first campaign for mayor, Michael Bloomberg singled it out as in need of tougher speeding enforcement.

The site of this morning's crash: 53rd Avenue in front of Bayside's PS 162. Photo: Google Street View

The mother of a student at PS 162 in Queens is in critical condition after a driver struck her in front of the school this morning. The crash occurred as the parent was crossing 53rd Avenue between 201st and 202nd Streets at around 9:10 this morning, in view of students and teachers, according to a press release from Council Member Mark Weprin.

The driver, who remained at the scene, has been charged with failure to yield and driving with a suspended license, according to the NYPD. Eyewitnesses cited in Weprin's release said the driver was speeding.  

Weprin called on the Department of Transportation to install speed humps, traffic lights, or other measures to calm traffic in front of the school. Whatever the right solution is for PS 162, New York City sorely needs better enforcement to prevent reckless drivers from injuring people on city streets. The crash this morning is also a reminder that the city's commitment to Safe Routes to School must still be strengthened significantly to ensure that it's safe for children and families to walk to every one of its thousands of public, private, and parochial schools.

From the New York Times' new City Room blog comes a post entitled "Congestion Pricing: Has David Bested Goliath?"

Hint: "The answer might depend on who you think is the giant."

Which coalition has been winning so far in the congestion pricing wars? So far, at least, the pro-congestion pricing forces have been on the defensive, even though they appear to be much better organized and financed and have the support of three bedrock organizations of municipal influence: the Partnership for New York City, the Regional Plan Association and the Citizens Budget Commission.

But it is not clear that supporters of congestion pricing have won enough public support, despite having achieved broad support among organized interests. Meanwhile, opponents of congestion pricing, like the Queens Civic Congress, have had a lower test to meet; their goal is to defeat the traffic fees by raising just enough doubt and skepticism -- with a public that is already doubtful and skeptical.

No matter that the overwhelming majority of commuters to Manhattan do not need to drive, or that the money raised from traffic fees would be used to improve mass transit across the city. The point is that the opponents of congestion pricing, like the Queens Civic Congress, have so far managed to create enough doubt around the idea -- a doubt that has swayed many Assembly members.

Of course it's easy to raise doubt and skepticism about a complex issue when one's arguments are largely unburdened by facts. Take this passage on Council Member David Weprin from today's Metro, in which the paper itself -- as does the City Room passage above -- refutes a rote, yet mostly baseless, objection to congestion pricing.

"I represent a district in eastern Queens that for most people is four or five miles from the nearest subway,” he said. "It is also not accessible to buses. You can’t tell me that they’re going to start building subways and changing bus lines in time if they’re going to adopt this congestion tax now."

Yet that is the stated intention of the Bloomberg administration, which hopes to first increase bus service to areas that lack subway access before implementing congestion pricing. More than half of the projected $500 million federal grant would supposedly go for transportation improvements. For example, one neighborhood in Weprin’s district -- Bayside -- is already slated to get new and expanded bus service under the mayor’s long-term sustainability plan, dubbed PlaNYC.

Weprin, though, remains unconvinced.

"The mayor is asking Albany to act now on the congestion tax and to worry about the public transportation improvements later," he said. "That’s backwards."

So Weprin wants to kill the plan to finance the improvements he says are needed before the plan he wants to kill can be implemented.

David and Goliath? Sure, if this version has a looking glass...