Streetsblog New York City

• NASCAR took what may have been its final "victory lap" around Midtown week, its top drivers speeding and spinning through Midtown Manhattan, backing up traffic and hogging bike lanes. In other words, behaving pretty much like the average New York City motorist. And like the typical driver, NASCAR stars had the blessing of the city, which has its hands full with sass-mouth bike commuters.
• Congestion pricing friends and foes had it out over what to make of the Congestion Mitigation Commission hearings. Environmental Defense found it encouraging that most who offered testimony supported some form of the mayor's plan, while the Village Voice saw "a disturbing lack of interest on the part of the general public when it comes to voicing their opinions on a plan that would radically change the urban landscape." Luckily, local TV news watchdogs are on the case -- and they won't rest until you're behind the wheel of a brand new 4Runner!
• With a DOT meeting turnout of about 30, one could say Harlem residents showed a disturbing lack of interest in the effects of congestion pricing on neighborhood parking. Speaking of parking (and many of you have), new Yankee Stadium cheerleader Adolfo Carrion got a hefty campaign contribution from property owners who collected a much heftier stadium-related air rights fee from the city. Wonder what The Ethicist would say about that one?

• Mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner and consultant Brian Ketcham floated yet another set of traffic mitigation alternatives to Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal. The Ketcham plan would move the boundaries of the pricing zone to 60th Street and the East River bridges in an effort to simplify and reduce costs. The Weiner plan calls for a Cross-Harbor Freight Tunnel, new ferry and transit services, and beefed up traffic enforcement in an effort to, well, kill congestion pricing. Weiner's plan wouldn't qualify for for the $354 million the feds have pledged for transit upgrades, so he would pay for it with increases in tolls, parking fees and the federal gas tax. Getting Congress to jack up U.S. gas taxes for new outer borough bus routes in New York City should be no problem.
  
• Say, won't all those drivers forced out of their cars by Weiner's taxes, fees and tolls need transit as well? And won't they need it before the increases go into effect, just like the poor schlumps who would be affected by congestion pricing? Just wondering...
  
• In other congestion pricing news, 30 firms responded to the city's call for pricing tech proposals. Also, congestion pricing will make you happy, unless you're a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald.
• Speaking of happiness, or lack thereof, Streetsblog commenters joined free-parking advocates in complaining about the green crosstown bike route going down on Prince Street. Wrote ln: "I think the DOT got that ugly colored slippery paint on sale. Now they can say they 'greened' a former street area without actually planting any plants." Ouch.
  
• Planned bike shelters received a somewhat more positive reaction, though several wondered why the structures shouldn't be installed in place of on-street car parking rather than on already cluttered sidewalks, where they could end up serving as another advertising-clad sight-line obstacle.
• On the other hand, new bike lanes in Fort Greene, where the DOT is putting down roots, got high marks -- as did Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, when a suggestion that former commish Iris Weinshall should be credited for the Carlton Avenue transformation brought a flurry of protest. Wrote Gary: "Come on: have you EVER seen a department do a 180 (for the better) like the transition from Iris to Janette? It's like someone waved a magic wand over the DOT and turned lead into gold." Sounds like a comment of the week to us.
  

Photo: Winner of the Municipal Art Society's "Nasty Newsrack" photo contest, by Laura Dodd. Writes the MAS: "The judges selected it not just because it depicts ugly and poorly maintained newsracks, but also because of the series of serious code violations shown. The newsracks are located in a bus-stop and less than fifteen feet from a fire hydrant - forcing the bus to discharge passengers by the hydrant, all of which is illegal."

GEHL YEAH! The week's top story in the livable streets universe was Jan Gehl's appearance at Tuesday's NYC Streets Renaissance event. The popular (and quite funny) Danish urbanist enthralled the crowd with his vision of New York as a world leader in pedestrian and cyclist mobility. With Gehl's talk supplemented by jaw-dropping renderings from Streets Renaissance's Carly Clark (set to a beat-dropping soundtrack by Clarence Eckerson), expectations are high. Alas, we'll have to wait a while longer to learn what Gehl has in store for us, probably after his proposals are filtered by the DOT and Mayor Bloomberg, with whom Gehl was reportedly meeting this week. But so long as the mayor digs techno, we're gold.

FIDLER ON THE LOOT. Speaking of gold, if you thought congestion pricing was pricey, Council Member Lew Fidler's alternative makes the Bloomberg plan look like a walk in the park (which is free, see). With a tax on businesses instead of motorists, Fidler's aptly acronymed "9 CARAT STONE" proposal would avoid congestion pricing by, among other measures, building $18 billion in tunnel infrastructure, moving city agencies out of the CBD (?), and somehow convincing the federal government and/or automakers to develop hydrogen cell vehicles (a.k.a. the car of the future). To his great credit, Fidler has engaged Streetsblog commenters on his plan, a product he says is the result of six months of research. However sincere the Fidler alternative may be, though, you can bet its insane price tag, indefinite timeline and insurmountable political hurdles are a huge draw to stall tacticians like Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, who, though he still pleads ignorance when it comes to the mayor's plan, is already romancing the STONE.

P.S. Blinded by the glow of Fidler's bling, it may have been easy to overlook Gridlock Sam's congestion compromise, also made public this week. If so, here it is.

DATA ERRATA. This week the City Council took a step toward changing the super-secretive treatment given by the city to pedestrian and cyclist injuries and fatalities. A bill introduced by Council Member Vincent Gentile would require information sharing between the PD, DOT, elected officials and community boards after any crash in which a pedestrian or cyclist is hurt or killed. But DOT is resisting part of the legislation that would require the investigation of all crash sites. At a council hearing Thursday, Deputy Commissioner David Woloch said such a mandate would be cost prohibitive and not all that useful. Further, Woloch said, DOT already studies every fatal crash site, "along with an additional 2,000 targeted locations." Yet back in April, Woloch and Director for Street Management and Safety Ryan Russo testified that DOT had no formal process for analyzing the site of a fatality, and said there is no set process for gauging input that might correct dangerous conditions before a collision occurs. So how are they studying these fatality sites, and how did they choose those 2,000 other locations? At the time, Woloch and Russo also said DOT was compiling a comprehensive study of pedestrian injuries and deaths, to be completed later in the year. Streetsblog has queried the agency to find out when this study, the first of its kind for DOT, will be ready. Stay tuned.

COMMENT OF THE WEEK: One of the week's hottest comment threads was on Alex Marshall's call to desegregate cyclists and pedestrians on the Brooklyn Bridge. Riffing on Fidler's congestion pricing alternative, (Not really) Lew from Brooklyn wrote: "How about building a cycle tunnel underneath the East River? It could have huge moving sidewalks in both directions, which would help move cyclists even faster on their commutes. Then we could leave the Bridge to pedestrians and cars. We could add this tunnel to my other three tunnels and pay for it with a trillion dollars that the Feds are dying to give New York."

Photo: Jonathan Barkey

A HIKE IN THE HAND... The MTA topped headlines for most of this week. Following Assemblyman Richard Brodsky's promise of aid from Albany to prevent a transit fare (and, presumably, motorist toll) hike, he and a passel of fellow lawmakers signed off on (another?) letter asking MTA to delay an expected decision until April. But MTA chief Lee Sander resisted, saying that even if state moneys could cover the shortfall (which he doubts), there is no guarantee legislators would deliver in the first place. Sander could be forgiven his skepticism, as Brodsky himself seemed to validate that last point. Tempering his initial overtures, Brodsky said on Wednesday: "We'll try. There are no guarantees ... But working cooperatively, I believe that additional monies can be found to save the fare." Now who wouldn't stake the future of a multi-billion dollar operation depended upon by a city of millions on a pledge like that?

IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAW SOMETHING. A handful of MTA's bike-to-train customers in Williamsburg exited the subway this week to find the two-wheeled half of their commute combo missing. For liability purposes, MTA doesn't allow bikes to be locked to subway stairwells, and decided to enforce this policy at the Bedford Avenue L station via saw and seizure (though one bike was mysteriously spared). Commenter Joe says such heavy-handedness is counterproductive: "Instead of being reflexively hostile, what they should be saying is 'Are these bikes from our riders? There must be a high demand for bike parking from our customers. Let's see if we can work out a solution and provide them with better service.'" Turns out that solution could be on its way, albeit from a different acronym.

LIKE "GROUNDHOG DAY," WITHOUT THE FUNNY. Whether it was from lack of lead time or lack of proximity to Manhattan, the first hearings of the NYC Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission were sparsely attended affairs dominated by familiar faces repeating familiar arguments. Not so here on the island, where scores turned out not to bury congestion pricing but to praise it. Commenter Pablo, however, observed that while the Hunter College event had the numbers, the crowd was heavily populated by "politicians and interest groups." "Both these groupings have platforms to speak about this issue. The regular public however does not have this platform and that is what the event should have been." Point well taken. Are the "official" hearings yet another forum for the same people to bark (or coo) at one another over and over? If so, what's to be done about it? More hearings? Seems like someone warned us about this whole public referendum thing.

COMMENT OF THE WEEK: Among the usual suspects at Hunter College was Congressman Anthony Weiner, whose anti-pricing remarks did not impress Joan Boyle: "The first part of his presentation had to do with finding a place to park his car on the street, a problem which he evidently shares with constituents. No idea who that could be and it is scary that he does not realize that no leader in modern New York should own a car here. He needs to lead if he wants my vote for mayor, and selling the car is step one ... His ideas about enforcing existing laws immediately seemed great to me, though of course congestion pricing and much more need to be implemented to deal with the crisis in traffic in East Midtown where I live. Bottom line for me, very disappointed in his stance on this."

Photo of bike on Columbia Street in Brooklyn by StreetFilms' Clarence Eckerson, who speculates that despite the officious verbiage, the sticker is probably homemade. Clarence also notes that there were, as usual, several un-ticketed and un-stickered double parked cars on the block along with a van parked in front of a fire hydrant. And no bike racks.

The Copenhagen SUV finds its way stateside

CONGESTION OBSESSION: What is congestion pricing? That's the questionable question at the crux of the debate between those who say New York must implement something like the Bloomberg plan in order to collect $354 million in federal funds, and those who don't. It seems "those who don't" would just as soon forfeit the federal windfall in favor of their version of parking reform, but pro-pricing advocates this week dissected recent parking suggestions put forth by the anti-pricing crowd and found them sorely lacking as a congestion cure-all. On the other hand, a pair of Lindsay Administration veterans who have been pushing for East River Bridge tolls for about as many years as Rohit Aggarwala has been alive argue that a time-consuming Environmental Impact Study should precede pricing implementation -- which Zipcar co-founder Robin Chase says will be outdated anyway once politicians catch up with technology. Meanwhile, just in time for upcoming public hearings, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign released what should be a blockbuster report, (again) confirming that (a) relatively few New Yorkers drive into the proposed congestion pricing zone to work; and (b) those who do drive into the CBD tend to have more money than those who don't have cars and rely on transit or other commuting methods. Someone should really pass this info on to Assemblyman Richard Brodsky. Look for him in the handicap zone.

WHICH PAPER? There was much discussion this week about the future of mobility in the city, congestion pricing aside. DOT received generally positive reviews for its new program to point pedestrians in the right direction, while opinions differed on whether cyclists should have to rely on signage -- or traffic laws -- to make their way. (This rhetorical quandry apparently also burdens at least one city cab driver.) Lawmakers finally devoted a couple of minutes to MTA's pending fare hike, calling on the agency to wait for help from Albany instead. Straphangers, though, may have more than future fares to make them anxious; when quizzed about the issues facing the city's transit provider, prospective MTA chief H. Dale Hemmerdinger was nonplussed, responding: "I only know what I read in the paper."

BROOKLYN'S SORROW: Brooklyn was devastated this week by two cyclist deaths in just over two hours on Thursday. One of the drivers, who police say was speeding, was charged with criminally negligent homicide, a rarity at a time when a sober motorist who doesn't flee the scene can expect a pass for killing a cyclist or pedestrian. It would be nice to think prosecutors and police are starting to recognize motor vehicles as an urban public safety hazard, but when you can back over an infant in your Escalade without legal repercussion, it's much too soon to make any judgments.

COMMENT OF THE WEEK: In a week of heavy-duty Richard Brodsky analysis, Streetsblog commenter JF points readers to a passage in the Riverdale Press in which the Westchester Assembly member tells a Bronx crowd that he "did not enter public life to enable essentially well meaning, very nice but wealthy people to decide that there are some places people cannot go," within a city. "The hypocrisy of this statement boggles my mind," JF writes. "Has Brodsky ever tried to get around Elmsford without a car? There are plenty of places in his district that wealthy people (well-meaning or not) have decided are not for pedestrians or cyclists. And the inconvenience is a lot greater than for the 'poor' people that Brodsky is defending to pay $8 a day."

Photo by bicyclesonly via the Streetsblog Flickr photo pool

Every Sunday, a network of streets throughout Bogotá, Colombia is closed to cars from 7am to 2pm for Ciclovía.Is it too late to begin planning a car-free Thanksgiving weekend on 34th Street?

IS THERE ANYTHING BEER CAN'T DO? It was a busy week for friends and foes of congestion pricing. Early on, the MTA released a report saying it would need $767 million in capital funds that are "not provided for" in order to handle the increase in ridership expected once the plan takes effect. Unfazed, Mayor Bloomberg spokesman John Gallagher responded, "The M.T.A.'s report shows that the transit improvements that would come with the mayor’s proposed congestion pricing pilot would expand options and improve service in virtually all parts of the city." (Oh, okay.) Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free issued a report suggesting measures it described as pricing alternatives, but which Transportation Alternatives promptly ripped as "part of a specific, continuing strategy by wealthy individuals and their hired guns to confuse middle class New Yorkers about the overwhelming, virtually cost-free benefits they will receive from congestion pricing." All told, particularly in light of last night's zero-sum Bronx forum, it appears the week's most meaningful discourse on the topic might have taken place in a bar.

NYPD WHO? Bike commuters aren't the only ones who love DOT's beta version of the Ninth Avenue "cycle track." The nice, wide bike lane is also a hit with truck drivers in search of a loading zone. While it is far too early to make judgments about how the "Street of the Future" will function once outfitted with medians, landscaping, permanent markings and signals, Streetsblog wondered how far the livable streets movement can go in a city where traffic law enforcement is virtually non-existent. For his part, commenter Steven M. sees the glass as half-full: "Every time I've politely pointed out to a traffic agent that there is a truck or car parked in the bike lane and asked them to write a ticket, I've received a positive response. I've watched them write the tickets. Let's also thank the DOT commissioner for her completely restructuring lower Ninth Avenue traffic, which only weeks ago was jam-packed with trucks. The 14th Street intersection is now a great place to hang out, and only two months ago was a scene of chaos and honking."

POOR SPORTS: Just hours after the Cleveland Indians handed the New York Yankees a ticket to the off-season, the NYC Industrial Agency forked over $225 million in tax-free bonds to build some 4,000 parking spaces at the new Yankee Stadium, at a cost to city and state taxpayers of approximately $8,000 per space. Was there outrage? You bet. City Council Member Hiram Monserrate, having driven from Queens to the Bronx for Sunday night's playoff game, was incensed that parking operators were using variable pricing to determine stadium parking rates. That won't happen at the Yankees' new parking garages, if Monserrate has his way. And what with all those new parking spaces in the asthma-ridden South Bronx, this time next year the Yanks won't be the only ones choking.

OTHER PRIORITIES: While politicians at the city and state level were busy issuing pledges to keep motorists from paying up -- via congestion pricing, stadium parking fees, or bridge tolls  -- the MTA was working up its fare hike proposal relatively free from lawmaker scrutiny. Never mind that eco-friendly, space-conserving, infrastructure-investing transit users are about to get slapped with a new fee system so complex you need an online calculator to decipher it -- or, for that matter, that neighborhood groups and a community board are begging them to take action to keep pedestrians from losing their lives on city streets -- our electeds have chosen to champion the city's driving population (including these poor schlumps). Maybe this will change once the MTA's scheduled hearings roll around, assuming they ever see (and can read) the notices.

COMMENT OF THE WEEK: From Steven Waters, via StreetFilms: "I live in Raleigh, NC and am working hard to promote walkability and the urban living revolution here. I want you to know that this video has provided a lot of inspiration for folks here. I tell people I would pay $100 to see it if it wasn't free. Thank you for your generosity in making it available at no cost. P.S.: Raleigh and Cary had an election yesterday that replaced several anti-downtown mayors and council members with civic leaders who support growth management. That was the defining issue in the elections here, and I am working hard to point out that walkability is the answer to the myriad problems concomitant with urban sprawl."

Photo: Aaron Naparstek

• Just two weeks after announcing the plan, DOT has installed a working version of the heralded Chelsea "cycle track." With markings and temporary barriers now separating bikes from auto traffic, the Ninth Ave lane is the kind of innovation that should add to the swelling ranks of the "urban biker" (as opposed to those commercial and "recreational" cyclists we hear so much about lately). NYC's "Street of the Future" is already a hit with cyclists, along with most Streetsblog commenters, including Anne, who exclaims: "Wow, it's like a dream!! Sadik-Khan for mayor!!"
• Moving right along, DOT Commissioner Sadik-Khan revealed measures her agency will employ to humanize Grand Army Plaza: namely, new crosswalks and 11,000 square feet of landscaped pedestrian islands. While it falls short of the community's long-term vision for a more people-friendly GAP, the plan was described as a "good first step," especially considering the previously unheard of level of engagement between the citizenry and the city.
• The "new DOT' isn't getting high marks all around, however. In Queens, some Jackson Heights residents are unhappy about the swapping of a bus stop for on-street parking. The change came following complaints about congestion at the corner at 73rd St. and 37th Ave., but Will Sweeney of the Western Jackson Heights Alliance says DOT's solution -- removing a bus stop and filling in the space with three metered parking spots -- isn't exactly what the neighborhood had in mind. And cyclist and pedestrian advocates slammed the DOT this week for conditions on Houston Street, where four people have died since 2005. The latest victim was Hope Miller, a 28-year-old aspiring actress who was hit by an allegedly impaired driver the morning of September 25. At a Times Up! memorial for Miller, volunteer Ellen Belcher called the Houston redesign "a Robert Moses wet dream that's more geared to cars than people." City Council Member Alan Gerson has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the project, citing, among other problems, "the DOT's refusal to include a protected bike lane." After stenciling the outline of a body on the street to mark the spot where Miller was killed, the group moved on to Bowery and E. 4th St., where 24-year-old Julia Thomson was fatally struck last weekend, to install another memorial. Thomson's killer, also allegedly under the influence, was charged with vehicular homicide.
• The week would not be complete without some congestion pricing news, and this week offered an especially intriguing development. It seems Walter "We have to do something about the pedestrians" McCaffrey's Committee to Keep New York City Congestion Tax Free recently tried to hire UCLA's Donald Shoup for a study of curbside parking policy. Shoup declined, but pricing advocate Carolyn Konheim says the city itself should try to enlist Shoup to analyze how parking and pricing might work hand-in-hand to reduce congestion. Writes Konheim: "New York is obviously way behind on parking management. In the core of Manhattan, there are ten times more off-street spaces than in London, and half the drivers into the CBD pay nothing for parking." Maybe Mayor Bloomberg could be persuaded after his recent trip to Europe. Spending time in London (where he has an apartment) and Paris, Bloomberg was fascinated but non-committal about the French capital's popular bike sharing program. Better hurry before Gavin Newsom beats us to it.
• For the second week in a row, congestion pricing is the subject of our quote of the week. From Charles Siegel: "During the depression, Will Rogers said that America is the only place where people drive to the poor house. Now that we have entered the age of global warming, we should update that to say: America is the only place where people claim that reducing driving is elitist. Haven't these Queens residents heard that 80% of the people in the world don't have cars at all? Have they heard that the shift to biofuels has already raised the price of corn enough to hard for people in Mexico to afford food? Have they heard that the emissions from their cars are already causing drought and starvation in east Africa? From a global perspective, anyone who has a car is part of a privileged elite. Anyone who works politically to keep driving as much as he always has is the worst sort of elitist -- willing to sacrifice the necessities of the poor to maintain the luxuries of the middle class."

New York City Director of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, Rohit Aggarwala, takes questions at the first meeting of the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, Tuesday.

• Back in June, a perplexed Richard Brodsky and Denny Farrell peppered Mayor Bloomberg and his top aides with a series of questions and comments aimed not so much at clarifying City Hall's congestion pricing plan but to build a case that the Mayor hasn't provided anywhere near enough information for serious-minded Assembly members possibly to consider such a plan. This scene, minus Mayor Bloomberg, repeated itself at the first meeting of the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, or -- as it's known by pretty much anyone who isn't a member of the New York State Assembly -- the Congestion Pricing Commission. Instead of devoting a little time over the past few months to study up on the plan -- or, heck, develop a concrete alternative or two -- Brodsky and Farrell were content to repeat their June performances. Brodsky, who seems intent on proving that the federal government's promise of $354.5 million in grant money is some sort of elaborate hoax, claimed he still just "don't get it." Meanwhile, Farrell, the 33-year member of the State Assembly, seemed unfamiliar with the concept of imposing a fee in order to discourage injurious behavior, asking: "Is it a tax or is it to lower the amount of vehicles coming in?" Responded Streetsblog commenter Budrick: "For anyone who has taken at least one high school or college class on Economics, this is an extremely frustrating question, and a scary one coming from a politician who's been in the business of making taxes and encouraging/discouraging behaviors through public policy for decades."
• Speaking of supply and demand, writer and latent urban planning guru Gregg Easterbrook took on Donald Shoup in his Thursday ESPN sports column. Having stumbled across "The High Cost of Free Parking," in which the author "has thrown a new idea into the topic," Easterbrook has decided Shoup's thoroughly researched theories and practices miss the mark. Parking, Easterbrook says, is all about motorist stress. And it's the government's job -- and everyone else's, apparently -- to reduce it by ceding as much space to the car as possible. Easterbrook counters Shoup's "expertise" with a little back-of-the-envelope math and undeniable common sense observations, such as: "I've done the equivalent of perhaps 100 miles of walking along Manhattan streets, and never once seen a fully legal, free, on-street parking space that was open." When you're done flailing in vain to poke holes in that penetrating analysis, check out Purdue University's effort to inventory parking spots across the nation, as profiled in the Christian Science Monitor. Interestingly, the Monitor called on Shoup, not Easterbrook, for comment on the Purdue study. Perhaps if Shoup starts choosing a Cheerleader of the Week he can get a gig at ESPN too.
  

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• The city launched its first ever cyclist/motorist safety campaign on Tuesday. Inspired by the 2005 death of cyclist Liz Byrne, ads will appear on bus shelters, buses and taxis encouraging cyclists to "Look" for one another while sharing the road. At the same time, Transportation Alternatives and the New York City Bicycle Coalition -- which helped develop the "Look" campaign -- called on the city to step up enforcement of driving laws and to implement more effective bike lane designs. Shortly thereafter, in the spirit of tougher enforcement, officers in Central Park began issuing warnings to commuters -- bike commuters, that is.
  

• Two days later, DOT unveiled plans for a new physically-separated bike lane, or "cycle track," to be installed along seven blocks in the Meatpacking District. This turned out to be the week's hottest thread, with some commenters weeping for joy -- including StreetFilms' Clarence Eckerson, who wrote: "Okay, look folks let's debate it, constructively criticize it, offer up suggestions but let's give it a shot. We have a DOT which is thinking outside the box and is finally willing to experiment ... If DOT is talking to Gehl, that means they'll be open to evaluating how it works when they (hopefully) try it out in some other places in the future." Red Hook got new bike lanes, and more are coming (though not of the cycle track variety), while citizen groups offered up a plan for improvements to Myrtle Ave.
  
• Streetsblog published an extensive conversation with Rohit Aggarwala, NYC's Director of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability and lead author of Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC. Aaron Naparstek posed to Aggarwala many of the questions that critics of congestion pricing keep asking, regardless of how many times those very same questions are addressed. Said Aggarwala: "I'm kind of used to it at this point." Find your favorite congestion pricing question and response in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 or Part 4 of our interview.
  

• An expected vote on the Yankee Stadium parking garage subsidy was not on the agenda of the Bronx Borough Board, which is legally required to vote on the item before the Industrial Development Agency can make a final decision on issuing that $225 million in tax exempt bonds. Also, in order to make money on the pollution-ridden South Bronx decks, operators plan to keep them open year-round, perhaps drawing traffic from a newly identified car-happy set of young suburban transplants.
  
• The week ended with National Park(ing) Day, a tradition whose roots can be traced to Oklahoma City in 1935, when motorists protested the installation of newfangled Park-o-Meters. Over two dozen public space reclamations were set to take place across the boroughs, though it is unclear if participants reached their ultimate goal, as articulated by @alex: "Ideally, Park(ing) Day should get enough overwrought press that people will decide not to drive in(to) the city at all, for fear that all the parking spaces will be occupied by a bunch of crazy eco-hippies." And in this corner, representing the overwrought contingent, will be Dude, via Curbed: "These stupid hipster stunts have got to stop! They don't prove anything and were a total inconvinence to drivers. NYPD needs to round these "artists" up and start to bust some heads."