Plans for section of the Robert Moses Parkway in downtown Niagara Falls would turn the highway into a two-lane road and reconnect the waterfront with downtown. Image: Frank Report

Most members of Congress are excited to cut the ribbon for a new stretch of freeway, but it’s a smaller set indeed that will stand up for the removal of a highway, no matter how neighborhood-blighting. As of yesterday, count New York Senator Chuck Schumer among their number.

“Right now, the Robert Moses Parkway stands as a Berlin Wall, with the state park on one side and the city on the other,” Schumer said at a press conference yesterday. “Our message to the transportation secretary is clear: Tear down this road.”

The highway in question is a short stretch of the Robert Moses Parkway in downtown Niagara Falls (the name adds a certain historical sweetness to its removal). The highway, which sits on an elevated berm, would be replaced with a lower and slower two lane “park road” and bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Taking down one mile of highway, said Schumer’s office, would open up 40 acres of the waterfront.

U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer announcing his support for tearing down a section of the Robert Moses Parkway, seen in the background. Image: Niagara Gazette

Schumer promised to secure $10 million in federal funds needed to complete the design work for the highway removal and urged Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to fast-track the project through federal review. “For years, this project that would help transform downtown Niagara Falls has been stuck in the mud. Enough is enough; we must tear down this road,” said Schumer in a press release. “Lowering the Parkway would connect downtown with the majestic views of the waterfront park, pumping new life into Niagara Falls. We absolutely have to get this done.”

The Congress for the New Urbanism, the leading advocates of highway teardowns nationally, celebrated Schumer’s support. “CNU’s John Norquist has long argued that freeways like the Robert Moses Parkway are monoliths from a disastrous planning era have no place in cities,” said CNU program director Caitlin Ghoshal. “But federal, state, and local governments are just now better understanding the financial and transportation implications that make teardowns a good decision for taxpayers.”

CNU lists three New York highways above the Robert Moses Parkway on its list of “Freeways Without Futures” — the Bronx’s Sheridan Expressway, Buffalo’s Skyway and Route 5, and Syracuse’s I-81. Though Schumer forcefully articulated the damage that highways can do to the urban fabric yesterday, don’t expect him to get out in front when it comes to the removal of those three highways.

While there is a local push underway to remove a much longer stretch of the Robert Moses connecting Niagara Falls to Lewiston, New York, Schumer said he’s staying out of that fight. “I’ll leave that up to the local folks. When the local folks determine that’s something is good and needed, and the facts bear that out, my job is to bring federal dollars,” Schumer said at a press conference, according to belowthefalls.com.

Schumer decided to support the downtown Niagara Falls highway teardown, his office said, due to a solid consensus behind removing the downtown stretch of the Robert Moses and the project’s particularly strong economic development benefit, given Niagara Falls’ 8 million annual tourists.

Still, it’s an exclusive club of United States senators willing to support a reduction in automobile capacity at all. Connecticut’s Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman each voiced support for New Haven’s plans to replace the Route 34 highway stub with a boulevard and development, and Maryland’s Barbara Mikulski — who got her start in politics fighting a freeway — cheered the teardown of Baltimore’s Route 40. Dianne Feinstein supported but didn’t succeed in removing San Francisco’s Embarcadero Freeway while mayor.

Of course, Schumer could really set himself apart by pushing for more than one highway teardown.

Peter and Lillian Sabados were killed by a driver who had racked up 29 license suspensions. The calls for stricter licensing procedures following their deaths were far less numerous than the calls for reforming the tour bus industry following last week's fatal casino bus crash in the Bronx.

Much of the attention has centered around whether Ophadell Williams, the bus’s driver, should have been licensed to operate the bus in the first place. Governor Andrew Cuomo took a break from high-stakes budget negotiations to order an investigation of Williams’ driving and criminal records and Senator Chuck Schumer has called for the state DMV to audit every driver’s license held by a tour bus driver. Said Schumer in a WNYC report, “Looking after a crash, or a spot check while the driver is behind the wheel, that’s good, but what would be better is preventing these people who shouldn’t be driving, from getting behind the wheel in the first place.”

Schumer’s focus on prevention must be cold comfort to the family of Peter and Lillian Sabados. The elderly couple were killed in a hit-and-run crash while walking to Thanksgiving Mass in 2009. Their killer, Allmir Lekperic, had amassed at least 29 license suspensions in the three years beforehand. Any attempt to prevent Lekperic from getting behind the wheel in the first place was clearly ineffective.

You’d never know it from watching the news this week, but there are far more Allmir Lekperics in the world than deadly bus drivers. Each year, around 375 people are killed in bus crashes nationwide, according to a 2009 report by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration [PDF]. The bulk of those deaths come from crashes involving school buses and transit buses; charter and tour buses were involved in only 396 out of 2,629 fatalities between 1999 and 2005, around 57 a year.

Compare that to the number of people killed in crashes with improperly licensed drivers. One in five fatal traffic crashes nationwide involves at least one driver without a valid license, according to research by the AAA Foundation [PDF]. Those crashes killed an average of 8,801 people each year.

Crashes involving unlicensed drivers, therefore, killed more than 154 times as many people as all crashes involving charter buses.

Here in New York, the problem is just as acute. According to Transportation Alternatives, unlicensed drivers are four times as likely to be involved in traffic crashes as properly licensed drivers, but 75 percent of motorists with suspended licenses continue to drive.

Attempts to ensure that private automobiles are driven by people with proper licenses never seem to get the traction that the current push to regulate tour bus operators has managed to generate. A bill introduced in the state legislature last session, which would have increased the penalties for drivers with suspended licenses who cause serious injuries, went nowhere. A 2009 City Council resolution on the issue was ignored at its hearing and died in committee. And of course, one important reform proposed by Governor Eliot Spitzer — allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for a driver’s license — was abandoned after two months of intense political opposition.

Over the last week and a half we’ve seen an extraordinary focus on the importance of licensing to ensuring traffic safety. If the goal is to save lives, however, rather than score political points in the wake of a high-profile tragedy, the focus needs to include private cars, not just tour buses.

Here’s the piece about the Prospect Park West bike lane that ran on the Channel 11 News last night.

While it would have been great to see more of the data showing the success of the redesign, WPIX Long Island reporter Rob Hoell gets a lot of the good political details into the segment: The role of former DOT commissioner Iris Weinshall and involvement of Weinshall’s husband, Senator Chuck Schumer; the fact that Weinshall and Schumer live on the street that has been redesigned; the connections between Schumer and Jim Walden, the attorney at the white-shoe law firm Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher who is working “pro bono” on behalf of bike lane opponents.

It would have been a cinch to connect all these dots a week ago, before CBS2′s chief political correspondent, Marcia Kramer, filed her latest hatchet job on the PPW redesign. But not one shred of information about the political machinations behind this high-profile bike lane fight has ever made it into a Marcia Kramer segment. Why is that?

U.S. Senator and Prospect Park West resident Chuck Schumer. Photo: Noah Kazis

Streetsblog has contacted Senator Chuck Schumer’s press office twice asking for comment on the Prospect Park West bike lane and received no reply.

Reports have recently surfaced personally tying Schumer to efforts to reverse the Prospect Park West redesign, which enjoys broad popular support according to a web survey of nearly 3,000 Brooklynites.

Schumer’s wife, Iris Weinshall, is a former DOT commissioner and prominent ally of a group looking to remove the bike lane.

David Seifman at the Post reported earlier this month that Schumer has spoken to City Council members about his displeasure with the bike lane.

Jim Walden, an attorney with the high-powered law firm Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher, has given his services free of charge to bike lane opponents, who have been threatening to sue the city to remove the lane. Walden is a top Schumer contributor and was on the Senator’s shortlist for a U.S. Attorney nomination in 2009. The anti-bike lane group he’s representing pro bono is based out of 9 Prospect Park West, one of the most exclusive properties in Brooklyn and the same building where Schumer and Weinshall reside.

Schumer, however, has not taken any public position on the redesign and his office has remained silent on the issue.

Prospect Park West resident Chuck Schumer and CBS2 political correspondent Marcia Kramer. Photo: CityFile

Hey, have you seen Marcia Kramer’s latest segment about Prospect Park West? It’s at least her third piece on a single Brooklyn bike lane in the last year. You can tell she’s had some practice — take a look (sorry about the minivan ad you’ll have to sit through first):

If you only got your news from CBS2, after watching this piece you’d think the people who bike on PPW are against this new street design. You’d never know that most of the neighborhood wants the bike lane to stay. You’d be in the dark about the data collected that shows no discernible difference in travel times. You’d have no idea that injuries are down on Prospect Park West, and so is speeding.

But you would know that Brooklyn Borough President and noted defender of pedestrians and cyclists Marty Markowitz thinks the lane is “putting lives in jeopardy.”

Marcia Kramer is CBS2’s “chief political correspondent,” so maybe she’s just too busy with her other stories to find sources who know what they’re talking about when it comes to street safety. When she’s not waging campaigns of misinformation against pedestrian refuges, public plazas, bike lanes, and congestion pricing, she has state budget battles and congressional scandals to cover. She’s important and her resume shows it. She’s gone on junkets to Israel with Senator Chuck Schumer and she did one of the most memorable interviews from Bill Clinton’s days as a presidential candidate.

So here’s a hot tip for Marcia Kramer — the Prospect Park West bike lane is a great political story! You know the group mentioned at the end of the segment — the one that’s suing the city because they don’t like a popular and effective street redesign? They call themselves “Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes,” but they actually just want to remove this bike lane. Interesting, no?

What really makes the story pop, though, is that this group has some first-rate political connections.

The most active members of the group include a former deputy mayor and the previous DOT commissioner, who happens to be married to Senator Schumer. The law firm that’s suing the city for them? They’re one of the top firms in the nation — Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher. The head of their litigation arm, Randy Mastro, was deputy mayor under Giuliani, and it’s been reported that he brokered the whole arrangement with the anti-bike lane group. Oh, and the “pro bono” lawyer who’ll be suing the city over the bike lane made the maximum contribution to Chuck Schumer’s re-election campaign in 2010.

The New York Post reported the other day that the Senator himself has told members of the City Council that he’s not happy with the bike lane and “asked legislators what they’re going to do about [this and other] bike lanes.” A U.S. Senator throwing his weight around because he doesn’t like the bike lane in front of his house — what a story!

Why don’t we see CBS2′s chief political correspondent ask some tough questions about that?

U.S. Senator and Prospect Park West resident Chuck Schumer. Photo: Noah Kazis

The Seifman report is the first news account to provide details of the Senator’s involvement in efforts to eradicate the popular PPW redesign and have the street revert to its old form, with three traffic lanes, two parking lanes, zero bike lanes, and rampant speeding. Other members of Schumer’s family, including his wife Iris Weinshall, the former DOT commissioner, were already known to oppose the project.

The news about Schumer’s opposition came the same weekend that WNYC’s Andrea Bernstein reported that PPW opponents including Weinshall and former deputy mayor Norman Steisel have arranged for the white-shoe law firm Gibson Dunn to represent their interests. Randy Mastro, head of the firm’s litigation arm and a former deputy mayor under Rudolph Giuliani, referred the anti-bike lane group to attorney Jim Walden, who took it as a pro bono case. (Walden made the maximum contribution to Schumer’s re-election campaign in 2010.) A lawsuit is expected as soon as this week.

So what happens when a traffic-calming street redesign, which originated from community-based planning workshops and enjoys broad public support, encounters opposition from the most powerful politician in the state? Here’s a timeline of the highlights.

2006

Community groups including the Park Slope Civic Council and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition convene a series of public workshops to discuss traffic, street safety, and public space issues in Grand Army Plaza and the vicinity. The need to redesign Prospect Park West to reduce speeding and improve the neighborhood’s bikeability emerges as a high priority.

2007

In June, as part of its resolution approving the 9th Street bike lane, Brooklyn Community Board 6 asks DOT to study the implementation of a two-way protected bike lane on Prospect Park West.

2009

Park Slope Neighbors collect 1,300 signatures requesting traffic calming and a two-way protected bike lane on Prospect Park West.

April: DOT presents the concept for a two-way protected bike lane on PPW to the transportation committee of CB6. The committee supports the concept in a unanimous vote.

May: The full community board votes in favor of the project, 18-9, then votes 16-14 to request that construction be delayed until September.

2010

April: With the PPW project not built yet, DOT holds an open house explaining the redesign and showing radar data that measured more than 70 percent of motorists speeding on the street, as a result of excess road capacity for traffic.

April: A segment on NY1 reports that anonymous flyers have been distributed on PPW, claiming that the project is proceeding without public notification.

June: The Prospect Park West bike lane is striped.

June: Opponents of the lane, including Chuck Schumer’s daughter Jessica, begin to organize. They form a Facebook group called “No Bike Lane on Prospect Park West Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes.” Membership in the group is quickly eclipsed by membership in a pro-bike lane Facebook group.

July: The Daily News reports that Iris Weinshall is opposed to the bike lane.

Sometime after the lane has been installed, Senator Chuck Schumer speaks privately with City Council members to share his displeasure, asking what the legislators are “going to do about [this and other] bike lanes,” the Post reports.

October 21: Supporters of the redesign and opponents hold simultaneous rallies on PPW. Most estimates have the pro side at about 250 participants, and the antis at about 50.

October 22: DOT releases the first batch of preliminary data on the PPW redesign, showing that speeding has declined by a factor of five and that cycling has substantially increased.

December 7: Results from a survey conducted by City Council members Brad Lander and Steve Levin and CB6 show 78 percent of Brooklynites and more than 70 percent of Park Slope residents want to keep the bike lane.

The Times reports that Schumer’s wife Iris Weinshall and former Deputy Mayor Norman Steisel met with Lander and Levin to lobby for the PPW redesign to be undone.

December 8: DOT releases a second batch of preliminary PPW data, showing that traffic travel time has not been discernibly affected by the redesign.

December 9: The City Council transportation committee holds a hearing on the city’s bike policy. Committee chair James Vacca devotes a disproportionate amount of attention to one bike lane – Prospect Park West – describing a personal visit to PPW and allowing project opponents Marty Markowitz and Norman Steisel to testify at length, before anyone else.

December 31: DOT’s six-month PPW study period ends.

2011

The year begins with a barrage of negative press and opinion pieces about NYC DOT’s bike program. A common claim is that the city is installing bike lanes without public input.

January 21: With the PPW study period over, DOT releases its final data on traffic, cycling, and crashes and injuries on the re-designed street. The injury rate is down significantly and no bike-ped injuries have been reported by NYPD. Bike lane opponents say they do not believe DOT’s data.

City Council Member James Oddo sends a letter to City Hall asking that all bike lanes be subject to environmental review. Experts on environmental review say the proposal holds no water.

With assistance from politically connected white-shoe law firm Gibson Dunn, bike lane opponents file a freedom of information request for DOT’s data on PPW. “Legal action” is expected soon, potentially using environment review law as the basis for suing the city.

Photo: NYT

A Times investigation revealed that LIRR workers -- even white-collar managers who had little active role in running trains -- had won approval for approximately $250 million in taxpayer-funded disability payments since 2000.

In fact, the GAO found that LIRR employees have filed Retirement Board claims at a rate 12 times higher than the other seven railroads covered by the agency (a list is available after the jump). Meanwhile, LIRR riders are facing yet more fare increases amid a massive budget gap at New York's transit authority.

How could the Retirement Board get away with sending disability payments to rail workers who the Times found well enough to spend most days golfing? By setting the bar for claims much lower than the Social Security system, which administers disability requests for most American employees.

The Retirement Board requires rail workers claiming a disability to have 20 years of work experience at any age level or 10 years, for those who have already turned 60. Social Security, by contrast, requires 20 quarters of participation in the system during the 10 years prior to the claim.

Once that standard is met, the Retirement Board asks workers to prove that they are prevented from working in their regular railroad position due to a permanent mental or physical condition. Most LIRR claimants provided their medical evidence of disability from one of three doctors, which the GAO deemed "an indicator of fraud or abuse."

Social Security, on the other hand, asks workers to prove that a permanent ailment prevents them from taking on any gainful employment in the national economy. While 99.6 percent of LIRR employees won Retirement Board payments, only 39.1 percent were approved for Social Security disability checks. Employees of other commuter railroads, who won 100 percent approval from the Retirement Board, were cleared by Social Security at a 79.4 rate.

After the Times story prompted New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo to open a formal probe of the LIRR disability system, the Retirement Board implemented a five-point reform plan to apply greater scrutiny to rail workers' claims. But the GAO audit cast doubt on the plan's effectiveness, noting that a nearly universal rate of claims approvals has remained the norm. The Retirement Board defended the five-point plan and reiterated its commitment to better quality control.

Rep. John Mica (FL), the senior Republican on the House transportation committee, said in a statement that he had taken over supervision of the GAO request after an initial inquiry by Sen. Charles Schumer was withdrawn. "We should not assume that there is widespread abuse of the program by railroad workers, but we need to determine whether improvements to the system are necessary," Mica said in a statement.

In addition to the LIRR, the following railroads are covered by the federal Retirement Board: the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad, Metro-North Railroad, New Jersey Transit, Northeast Illinois Commuter Railroad, Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation, and Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.

Photo: bondidwhat/Flickr

According to the Times, the Schumer-Israel bill -- the Accelerated Retirement of Inefficient Vehicles Act (ARIVA) -- is superior to an alternative proposal from Rep. Betty Sutton of Ohio, whose Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act (CARS) would authorize up to $5,000 in vouchers to drivers who swap their old cars for "new ones that are assembled in the United States and carry a minimum fuel-efficiency rating of 27 m.p.g." Beginning in 2010, Sutton's bill would offer $7,500 toward domestic hybrid models averaging 100 mpg or more.

The Obama administration likes the "cash for clunkers" concept. CARS has the backing of the UAW and, not surprisingly, is favored by Detroit. "But because more than half the cars in showrooms today already meet the 27 m.p.g. standard set by the bill," write the editors of the Times, "the measure would provide fewer environmental benefits than the more ambitious Schumer-Israel proposal." ARIVA, on the other hand, would "guarantee considerable oil savings and significant reductions in carbon dioxide."

Or not. In a recent New Yorker article, David Owen sums up the argument against a CAFE-based cure-all.

If doubling the cost of gas gives drivers an environmentally valuable incentive to drive less -- the recent oil-price spike pushed down consumption and vehicle miles travelled, stimulated investment in renewable energy, increased public transit ridership, and killed the Hummer -- then doubling the efficiency of cars makes that incentive disappear. Getting more miles to the gallon is of no benefit to the environment if it leads to an increase in driving -- and the response of drivers to decreases in the cost of driving is to drive more. Increases in fuel efficiency could be bad for the environment unless they’re accompanied by powerful disincentives that force drivers to find alternatives to hundred-mile commutes.

It isn't mentioned in the Times editorial, but each "cash for clunkers" bill does in fact offer incentives for drivers to leave their cars behind -- sort of. Both CARS and ARIVA would give drivers the option of trading their personal wheels for transit vouchers, but the payout is limited to $3,000.

While such measures could conceivably entice urbanites in transit-rich environments, despite being shortchanged, to give up their cars altogether, what impact might a popular federal "cash for clunkers" program have on the rest of the country? And if the goal is to reduce fossil fuel consumption, why on earth would the transit benefit be $2,000 less than that granted to the new car buyer?

Schumer and Nadler said the capital pot must grow to reflect out-of-control capital costs for transit systems, “rail mod” is important for aging rail systems, of which New York has many and more money for New Starts is important to projects like East Side Access and 2nd Ave subway, as well as NJ ARC.

This amendment would be a significant improvement over the current bill; we'll keep you posted on how you can support it. And it's good to see Schumer, whose standing in his party has grown considerably thanks to his years helming the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, make transit funding an issue in the stimulus debate.

One thing that's missing here is operating assistance, which got shot down in the House when an amendment proposed by Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio stalled before reaching committee. The additional funding from Schumer's amendment would ease some pressure on strained transit agencies, but with service cuts looming in dozens of cities across the country, straphangers need more direct assistance to stave of fare hikes and keep their buses and trains running.

Chuck, what about keeping transit affordable?

Now it's up to the Senate to get this provision into the stimulus bill. Bus and subway riders all over the country need Chuck Schumer and rookie Kirsten Gillibrand to earn their keep on this one. New York's Senate delegation has to come out strong for transit operations if American cities are going to stave off a wave of fare hikes and service cuts.

And wouldn't it be nice to see MTA chief Lee Sander ride the train down to Washington and make the case for transit operations? This seems like a golden opportunity for the MTA CEO to campaign on behalf of straphangers and save the fare.

Meanwhile, as Sarah mentioned last night, the focus in the House now shifts to Jerrold Nadler's proposal to add $3 billion for transit capital investments. The people to call today are Nancy Pelosi (202-225-0100) and Appropriations Chair David Obey (202-225-3365). The Speaker, especially, should be trying as hard as she can to make more room for transit investment if she wants to do right by her San Francisco district.

With state primary campaigns ramping up, Observer political reporter Azi Paybarah seems to be everywhere with his video camera. In this clip from a debate held by Democracy for New York City, he captures State Senator Martin Connor, who represents lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, in an unprompted admission of legislative cowardice.

While fielding a question about protecting marine life, Connor launches into a defense of his environmental record. Slightly after the four-minute mark, he serves up this gem: "Congestion pricing -- I supported it. I didn't tell anybody; I didn't take a position on it. I supported it." Ah, so that's how lawmakers "support" bills tailor-made to benefit the vast majority of their constituents -- by keeping their thoughts to themselves until it's too late to actually influence the course of events.

Immediately after that confession, Connor falls back on the talking points we heard yesterday from his Albany colleague Dick Gottfried: "I was very disappointed -- and frankly it's the mayor's fault... He did a terrible job of selling it, not to the public, but selling it to the people who had to vote on it." I get it. The job of a state senator is to wait for the mayor to throw you and your friends a bone. After 30 years in office, I guess the term "public servant" tends to lose its luster.

For his part, Connor's challenger, Dan Squadron, appears more at ease explaining his positions and calls out the state legislature for letting pricing "die in a back room." Squadron, a former aide to Chuck Schumer who campaigned to pass the New York State Transportation Bond Act, says the pricing bill wasn't perfect, but that "it had to be passed."

Connor's stab at reform-minded talk is a little less convincing. "My preference would have been, so put it out, and have an up-or-down vote," he says, before trailing off and ending his turn at the mic. Was that a secret too?

We'll say this for Connor: At least he showed up to debate, which is more than we've seen from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver this election season. 

A tipster sends these photos of more storefront bike-ped advocacy, this time at Paragon Sports on Broadway, north of Union Square.

Meanwhile, further uptown, Patagonia on Columbus Ave. has a Bike Month display encouraging customers to sign a letter to New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary CIinton in support of S.858, the Bicycle Commuters Benefits Act, which would give a federal tax break to those who bike to work, similar to that which motorists receive.



Streetsbloggers may remember North Carolina Congressman Patrick McHenry ridiculing the cyclist benefit during debate over an energy bill last summer. Maybe Senators Schumer and Clinton can differentiate themselves on this issue, provided they can take time away from shilling for additional tax cuts for driving.

Patagonia photo: Brad Aaron

Desperate to look as if they're responding to motorists complaints and prayers, state and federal electeds continue to scramble for a quick fix to ever-rising gas prices.

In Albany, Senate Republicans have adopted the state gas tax "holiday" as their issue of the moment. Since the largely-ridiculed measure is going nowhere in the Assembly, Joe Bruno and colleagues can circulate petitions and distribute mailers like the one above with impunity, scoring cheap political points while accomplishing nothing.

But the diddling in Albany seems innocuous when compared to doings in D.C. Yesterday, with George W. Bush enroute to the Middle East, both the House and Senate overwhelmingly voted to divert oil supplies from the national reserve, even as many lawmakers acknowledged that doing so would at best result in a small, short-term drop in prices at the pump.

Democrats basically portrayed the vote as a stall tactic offered in lieu of an actual energy policy. Here's a preview from New York's senior senator, as quoted in the Times:

A group of Democratic senators ... sought to put pressure on Saudi Arabia, where Mr. Bush will be visiting this week, as they called on the Saudis to increase their oil production or face the possibility of Congress blocking a pending arms deal.

"We are saying to the Saudis that if you don't help us, why should we be helping you?" said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. "We are saying that the relationship has to be a two-way street. We are saying that we need real relief and we need it quickly."

Image via Albany Times Union

High pay coupled with low crime rates make a coveted Long Island job "like winning the lottery in law enforcement," said Eugene O'Donnell, a professor of law and police studies at John Jay College. Nassau [County] has the lowest crime rate in the nation of any place with more than one million people, and Suffolk is not far behind.

Long Island is dangerous. So dangerous that "After a deadly day on Long Island roads," Newsday reported last Wednesday:

Sen. Charles Schumer is calling for a safety audit of roadways in Nassau and Suffolk, which have more fatal accidents than any other county in the state.

A decade ago, Northwest Environment Watch (now the Sightline Institute) published a memorable report showing that violent deaths were less common in Seattle than in the surrounding suburbs. The author of this myth-buster, Alan Durning, took the novel but logical step of combining traffic fatalities with homicides and found fewer violent deaths (per million people) in the central city. It wasn't that city drivers were saner. Rather, city dwellers spent less time driving than suburbanites, giving them fewer opportunities to kill themselves or other Seattle residents on the roads, which more than offset the city's higher homicide rate.

A similar calculation for New York City and Long Island, using 2005 data, likewise upends the conventional wisdom. Per million people, Long Island had 51 fewer homicides (16 vs. 67), but 50 more traffic fatalities (89 vs. 39), than New York City. In terms of total violent deaths, the difference between the Big Apple and Long Island - 105 deaths per million people in the City, 104 on the Island - is statistical noise.

What this means for our police, I'm not exactly sure. But perhaps it can lay to rest, once and for all, the myth that violent deaths stop at the city line. Indeed, if recent trends continue, the risk-averse may start pulling up stakes from Lindenhurst and hunting for a house in Lefferts Gardens.

Download the spreadsheet Komanoff created to derive this data.  

Photo: klauskinski/Flickr 

Further review of photos from Senator Charles Schumer's Saturday bike ride in Brooklyn, which included an entourage of about 20 cyclists and a police escort, has turned up what appears to be two more U.S. senators, both from the fine state of Vermont. Snapped outside of Schumer's Prospect Park West apartment building, that looks like Bernie Sanders in the blue and gray sweater and Patrick Leahy getting a little help with his helmet. And how about the guy in the white shirt back there? He looks vaguely senatorial. North Dakota's Byron Dorgan?

Photo: Dave Kenny

Senator Charles Schumer hit the road this Saturday with an entourage of about 20 other cyclists and a police escort. As he led the group down Prospect Park West our tipster heard him telling the assembled, "Jennifer Connolly lives here…" Does anyone know what the bike tour was all about?

Photo: Dave Kenny

This week's New Yorker has a Jeffrey Goldberg Talk of the Town piece about Senator Charles Schumer's new book, Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time. Schumer's protagonist is an imaginary, average middle-class American family called "The Baileys" who accompany the Senator wherever he goes and advise him "on all manner of middle-class concerns."

Schumer tells Goldberg that his imaginary constituents live in Massapequa, Long Island and are both forty-five years old. Joe works for an insurance company, Eileen is a part-time employee at a doctor's office. The Bailey's wouldn't be the types to order chicken and steamed vegetables at Hunan Delight, Schumer says. They'd get the kung pao chicken.

And how would the Bailey's get to Hunan Delight? Not in a Toyota Prius, that's for sure...

Liberal élitism, [Schumer] said, as he stirred Sweet 'N Low into his tea with a chopstick, alienates middle-income families from the Party. "Middle-class people don't think everybody should have to drive a tiny little car to achieve improvement in global warming," he said. Invoking opponents of expanding the tuition tax credit to the middle class, he went on, "If we listened to the New York Times editorial board, we'd have twenty-one votes in the Senate."

Photo: New York Social Diary

Newsday reports:

A high-voltage transmission line running through Central New York could spur the creation of environmentally friendly wind farms across the state, according to Bill May, project manager for the Albany-based New York Regional Interconnect Inc., who hopes to build the line.

However, there is intense opposition coming from many upstate residents. Perhaps that is why Sen. Charles Schumer and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton have expressed doubts about the project:

Schumer has criticized NYRI for having what he calls a "my way or the highway" approach, while Clinton has criticized the proposed route. May warned that "without making some decisions now we will begin to see, you know, significant reliability shortfalls" in New York's supply of electricity.

While it is a shame that New York City's Transportation Commissioner will not have the opportunity to enjoy Amsterdam's phenomenal urban bicycling facilities, in London she has the chance to see how Trafalgar Square has been vastly improved as a public space by closing half of it to automobiles. Perhaps this will inspire some ideas for Times Square. In Paris, of course, Weinshall and family will have the opportunity to ride Le Mobilien, the city's new Bus Rapid Transit system, and visit a riverfront expressway that has been ridden of cars and transformed into a public beach. Just remember, as the New York Times reported a couple of weeks ago, no topless bathing or thongs allowed at Paris-Plage (that's right, the only recent coverage the Times has given to Paris's transpo reforms focused on... thongs).

Finally, a tip of the hat to Chuck Schumer who managed to use his airport layover to drum up some national press attention for himself -- while on vacation, no less. The old joke is that the most dangerous place in Washington is the space between Senator Schumer and a microphone. They're going to have to change it to the "most dangerous place in the airport during a terrorist threat..."

Bring us back one of these, Iris: Many Parisian avenues now have two lanes
set aside with low curb barriers for the exclusive use of buses and bicycles.