Two passengers, including a pregnant teenager, were killed when a driver crashed into a concrete pillar on the Major Deegan Expressway. The driver also died and two others passengers were seriously injured. Photo: Daily News

Fatal Crashes (5 killed this week, 16 this year, 3 drivers charged*)

• Grant City: Colleen Mallon Dizeo, 48, Dies From Injuries After Truck Driver Runs Her Down; Police: Death Appears Accidental (Advance)
• Major Deegan Expressway: Daniela Abreu, 16; Jose Henriquez, 22; Eduardo Nunez, 30, Killed, Two Others Critically Injured in High-Speed Crash (News, Post)
• UES: 31-Year-Old Passenger Killed By Hit-and-Run Driver on FDR Drive (DNA)

Injuries, Arrests and Property Damage

• Sunset Park: Hit-and-Run Driver Critically Injures Pedestrian; Driver Later Turns Self In (News 1, 2)
• Jamaica: Pedestrian in Serious Condition After Driver Hits Him (DNA)
• Hudson Square: Cyclist Seriously Injured After Hitting Lane Divider Near Holland Tunnel (DNA)
• Forest Hills: Several Injured in Two-Car Crash on Jackie Robinson Parkway (Times Ledger)
• Williamsbridge: Pedestrian Struck Near Bronx River Parkway (DNA)
• Bulls Head: Driver Hospitalized With Life-Threatening Injuries After Crashing Into Pole (Advance)
• Greenpoint: Photos: Another Crash on McGuinness Blvd. (NY Shitty)
• SI: Police Arrest Four for DWI, One After She Crashed Into Fence, Parked Car (Advance)
• Lower Manhattan: Van Catchs Fire in Foley Square (DNA)

A 47-year-old pedestrian was seriously by a hit-and-run driver in Sunset Park and fled. The driver later surrendered to police and is charged with leaving the scene. Photo: Daily News

In the Region, Out of Town

• Mahwah, NJ: Rockland County Man Dies From Injuries in Head-On Collision (AP)
• Yonkers, NY: 89-Year-Old Pedestrian Hospitalized After Being Struck By Driver (LoHud)
• Highland, NY: Driver Killed After Hitting Embankment, Overturning Car (Poughkeepsire Journal)
• New Haven, CT: Police Chase Ends With Car Crashing Through House, Critically Injuring Resident (Hartford Courant)
• Gainesville, FL: Ten Injured, 18 Killed in Multi-Vehicle Highway Crash Blamed on Fog, Smoke (News)

Following Up

• Security Video of Fatal Hit-and-Run Doesn’t Match NYPD Descriptions (Streetsblog)
• Crossing Time Where 12-Year-Old Dashane Santana Was Run Down One of the City’s Shortest (DNA)
• Accused Drunk Driver Who Killed 6-Year-Old Queens Girl Sentenced to Probation, Avoids Prison Time (News, Streetsblog)
• Wrong-Way Driver Pleads Guilty to Driving Drunk in Fatal Westchester Crash; Faces Three to Nine Years in Prison (Post)
• Boxer Who Survived Cross-Bronx Expressway Crash Recovers from Coma, Returns Home (News)
• Man Killed on SI Expressway Apparently Left There by NYPD After Car Breakdown (Advance)

* Based on latest available reports

The slug for the story on the metro section homepage reads: “New York often resorts to revenue-raising expedients like a lucrative new campaign to keep drivers on Broadway below Houston Street from venturing into the bus lane.”

Dwyer’s piece then uses the enforcement of the Broadway bus lane in lower Manhattan as a kind of poster child for what he sees as an excessive reliance on fines and fees in the city budget. He writes: “Whatever the virtues of bus lanes, and there are many, this one is a trap — a lucrative one.”

Dwyer’s source for claiming that the Broadway bus lane is a “trap”? Well, he doesn’t quote any transit planners with the MTA or NYC DOT, which implemented bus improvements on Broadway in 2007. He doesn’t quote any bus drivers familiar with the route. He doesn’t turn to any of the 41,000 or so passengers who ride the New York City Transit buses that ply Broadway every weekday. Instead he cites a cop who “concedes that traffic would be backed up to 14th Street if some drivers did not make their way into that Broadway bus lane.”

The other expert who turns up at the tail end of Dwyer’s piece is an anonymous state official who, “as it happens,” was pulled over for driving in the bus lane and “managed to wiggle out of the ticket.” A member of the placarded class who got busted but didn’t have to pay. Exactly the type of credible source Times readers should trust to render judgment on transportation policy. The official says of the Broadway lane: “It goes against the intent of bus lanes because it causes congestion.”

And here I thought the intent of bus lanes was to help bus passengers reach their destinations quicker. But who needs transit planners, bus drivers, and bus riders to weigh in on a bus lane when cops and anonymous state officials who drive in the bus lane are so generous with their expertise?

Go back a few years in the Times’ archive, and there’s a great explanation for why Broadway needs bus lane enforcement. From a Willie Neuman story in 2007:

As the bus continued south on Broadway, the driver pointed to the lane next to the curb, which was marked on the pavement as a bus lane. Despite that, the lane was mostly full of parked cars, most of them with city-issued placards on the dash, showing they were used by law enforcement personnel.

More than one bus stop was blocked with parked cars as well, some with placards, others with drivers sitting at the wheel. While the cars with placards are allowed to use the bus lane under the current rules, parking in a bus stop is prohibited.

“This is always like this,” the bus driver said. “And you know what’s missing? There are no ticket agents down here.”

Last week, Streetsblog reported that NYPD had released a detailed description of how the crash unfolded, supposedly based on security video from a business located at 157 Morgan Avenue. But the footage NYPD gave the Lefevre family does not convey the same details as the descriptions of video in the police investigative file.

Here is the description of a security video from 157 Morgan submitted by Detective Gerard Sheehan. It delves into specific detail about the crash:

Here are two videos captured from 157 Morgan that NYPD gave to the Lefevres and their attorney, Steve Vaccaro, showing footage at the intersection immediately before Leonardo Degianni, who fatally struck Lefevre and then left the scene, turned on to Meserole Street. In the first clip, the crane truck operated by Degianni enters the frame at about the 4:50 mark, and a cyclist is briefly visible at about the 5:02 mark. In the second clip, the truck enters the frame slightly after the 6:50 mark. In neither video is the moment Degianni struck Lefevre plainly visible.

Adding to the discrepancies, a second police description of security video does not match Sheehan’s description or the videos in the investigative file. The description from Detective Sheehan says that Lefevre was initially struck by the “passenger right side” of Degianni’s truck, which threw him “into the roadway” before Degianni struck him again. A second description, from officer Armand Tasca, says Lefevre “rode directly into the side of the truck as it made the right turn” (note that both Sheehan and Tasca wrote that Degianni and Lefevre were traveling north on Morgan, when they were in fact traveling south — see crash diagram at the end of this post):

“The FOIL documents raise more questions than they answer,” said Vaccaro. Even with a close viewing of the videos posted here — two of the four released by NYPD — it’s impossible to corroborate NYPD’s version of how the collision unfolded. (The third video shows the truck traveling on Meserole Street, leaving behind what appears to be Lefevre’s bike mid-block, and the fourth video shows Degianni parking the crane truck, then driving away in another vehicle.)

NYPD’s public information office has not responded to Streetsblog’s request to speak with Detective Sheehan about the discrepancy between the videos and the descriptions of the videos in the investigative file.

On January 27, Vaccaro demanded that NYPD certify that he and the Lefevres have received accurate copies of all videos in the department’s possession. He has not yet received a response. “The NYPD’s account of the crash doesn’t hold water, unless there is video or other evidence they are withholding,” Vaccaro says.

Diagram of the crash from NYPD’s investigative file:

Videos from 157 Morgan Avenue as NYPD submitted to the Lefevres and Vaccaro:

“The NACTO Guide is a really important step for cities to say it is okay to be different than a rural area. We are not better… we are just different and we would like to apply these different principles,” says Chicago Commissioner of Transportation Gabe Klein.

Streetfilms brings you these highlights of the Chicago stop on the tour, where representatives from the transportation departments of NYC, Portland and San Francisco shared lessons from developing bike infrastructure in their hometowns.

Introducing the newest member of the Streetsblog family… Luna Blue Evans-Snyder was born the afternoon of January 13. She weighed in at 6 pounds, 12 ounces.

As you might imagine, Tanya’s byline is going to be a little scarce over the next several weeks. If you’d like to send her well-wishes and recommendations for a good balance bike, you can reach her at tanya.c.snyder@gmail.com.

Police retrieved a video recording of the moment Leonardo Degianni struck Mathieu Lefevre with his truck only after the Lefevre family held a demonstration in front of NYPD headquarters and sent a letter protesting the department's handling of the case.

The hit-and-run truck driver who killed cyclist Mathieu Lefevre last October struck the victim with his front driver’s side tire, according to a description in NYPD’s investigative file shared by Lefevre’s family. The description, based largely on video evidence police obtained in December, raises serious questions about the driver’s claim that he was not aware he had struck Lefevre when he left the scene of the fatal collision.

Police released the investigative file on Friday, three weeks after Lefevre’s family filed a suit under the Freedom of Information Law to obtain materials related to the investigation.

In a statement released today [PDF], Erika Lefevre, the victim’s mother, revealed that NYPD has now issued traffic summonses to the crane truck driver, Leonardo Degianni, for failure to exercise due care and failing to signal, but no criminal charges. The statement criticizes NYPD for not charging Degianni with fleeing the scene and criminal negligence, given evidence that Degianni’s front bumper and driver’s side front wheel struck Mathieu Lefevre. The Lefevres are appealing to Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes to review the case.

The Lefevre case has shed light on an aspect of policing that NYPD is loath to conduct transparently. Police and press accounts of traffic fatalities tend to be riddled with gaps, and witness accounts from crash scenes often depict police failing to pursue potential lines of inquiry. Thanks to the Lefevres’ determined pursuit of the truth, the public not only has a better sense of what caused Mathieu Lefevre’s death, but how NYPD conducts crash investigations.

Evidence in the Lefevre file summarized by their attorney, Steve Vaccaro, directly contradicts at least one NYPD account of the crash, in which a police source said the victim ran a red light. The NYPD file indicates that Lefevre and Degianni were passing through the intersection of Meserole Street and Morgan Avenue simultaneously, with a green light, when Degianni turned across Lefevre’s path, without signaling, as the cyclist continued straight.

The new evidence is only coming to light after the victim’s family relentlessly pressed the NYPD to disclose information related to the crash.

NYPD records, as summarized by Vaccaro, show that in October police thought they had all the video evidence available. They had one video that did not capture the moment of impact, but showed Lefevre’s body being “ejected” by the truck, Vaccaro said. In early December, NYPD told the Lefevres that the video evidence was inconclusive.

Only after a rally at NYPD headquarters and the Lefevres’ much-reported search for information did police obtain the video showing the initial impact, collected from a Morgan Avenue shopkeeper on December 18. Vaccaro did his own canvassing and found several other businesses that had video. The day after the shopkeeper on Morgan Avenue provided his tape to NYPD, he told Vaccaro’s firm that he’d watched the video and found it disturbing.

The substantial time lag before NYPD obtained crucial video evidence is one misstep in a general pattern of carelessness on the part of police investigators. According to the NYPD file, police did not have functioning cameras to record critical blood evidence at the scene of the crash. While Vaccaro says the officer assigned to the case, Detective Gerard Sheehan, told him that blood and paint were found on the front bumper of Degianni’s truck, the investigative file omits that specific evidence, making only a general reference to blood found on the truck.

A document from the NYPD investigative file indicates that the camera used to record blood evidence at the scene of Mathieu Lefevre's death was not working properly. While a detective told the Lefevre family's lawyer that blood was found on the truck's front bumper, the investigative file does not include such specific information about blood evidence.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

As part of the grand bargain struck between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Andrew Cuomo that will create a new class of hail-able livery cabs, NYC will auction off 2,000 new yellow taxi medallions. The city is expected to haul in a billion dollars from the auction, but Komanoff calculates that in the bargain, central Manhattan streets will be overrun with even more traffic:

No one mentioned traffic when the taxi deal was rolled out last month at City Hall and in Albany. After all, with 800,000 motor vehicles already entering the Manhattan Central Business District (CBD) each weekday, what difference could a mere 2,000 additional yellow cabs possibly make?

Plenty, it turns out. Yellow cabs spend three-fourths of each shift, around seven hours, plying CBD streets and avenues. (And of course some are active for two shifts a day.) Most private cars driven in Manhattan don’t do so for long. Even at the CBD’s notoriously labored traffic pace — now averaging 9.5 mph, up from 8 mph before the recession — the two to three miles per day logged by the average car below 60th Street occupy 15 to 20 minutes.

Adding one new medallion is thus equivalent to adding 40 private cars. Adding 2,000 of them — as the City now intends to do during the next three years — would be the traffic equivalent of adding 80,000 cars, a 10% increase in volume.

Some form of congestion pricing would be just about the only way to mitigate the impact of all this additional traffic, Komanoff writes. You can see the analysis underlying his conclusions in this PDF.

Neighborhood residents who've fought for a safer intersection at Parkside and Ocean cheered DOT's plan when the agency unveiled it in December.

We have a late breaking addition to the Streetsblog calendar. Tonight the transportation committee of Brooklyn Community Board 14 will be discussing DOT’s plan to add more pedestrian space and realign the intersection of Parkside Avenue and Ocean Avenue at the southeast entrance to Prospect Park [PDF]. The redesign will be made possible by relocating a park loop entrance for cars from this intersection to Lincoln Road. An average of 20 people are injured in traffic at this location every year, and the project is expected to cut that number in half.

Neighborhood residents campaigned long and hard for safety improvements here, but Community Board 14 has a spotty record on livable streets. If you live in the area and want to see this project move forward, tonight’s meeting gets underway at 7:00 at 810 East 16th Street, by Avenue H.

Photo: @daniela_oneL via Gothamist

The Post is reporting that a Williamsburg man was killed this morning as he crossed Borinquen Place near Keap Street. The victim, 57-year-old Lepoldo Hernandez, was walking to meet a friend to carpool to work when he was struck by two drivers in succession. The first driver was traveling eastbound, and the second driver struck Hernandez as he lay in the street.

While police, as usual, are already telling the press that they “suspect no criminality,” Gothamist’s John del Signore cites a report from a local resident at the scene who was told that the first car was “going like 50″:

There was a crowd of onlookers and I saw the sheet over the body in the street. I did not see any vehicles around that looked damaged or anyone speaking with police, but witnesses said both drivers stayed at the scene. Motorists speed like crazy down this street to get on the Williamsburg Bridge. I watch them run the light, pass in the bike lane, and speed like it’s a free for all.

This fatal crash occurred in the 90th Precinct, which will hold its monthly precinct community council meeting tonight. To voice your concerns about neighborhood traffic safety directly to Deputy Inspector Michael M. Kemper, the commanding officer, head out to tonight’s meeting. The 90th precinct meetings happen at 7:30 p.m. on the second Wednesday of each month, at 30 Montrose Avenue. A detective at the precinct confirmed that tonight’s meeting is set to happen as scheduled.

In his confirmation hearings, Thruway Authority Executive Director Tom Madison noted that the financial plan for the Tappan Zee Bridge isn't complete yet.

While predicting that work on the new Tappan Zee Bridge could start as early as this summer, incoming Thruway Authority executive director Tom Madison revealed at confirmation hearings yesterday that financing for the new bridge is still very much a work in progress.

“At this moment, as we sit here, the complete financial plan has not been developed for the Tappan Zee Bridge,” said Madison.

One major complication is whether “alternative financing,” such as using union pension funds rather than traditional bonding, will be on the table for the Tappan Zee. Under current law, the state can’t engage in that type of arrangement.

“At this moment in time, we don’t have the legal statutory allowance in New York state to do public-private partnership as they are technically defined in transportation projects,” said Madison, as quoted by the Politics on the Hudson blog. “So right now, the plan is that the Tappan Zee Bridge will be a publicly financed project.”

However, in his State of the State address last week, Governor Cuomo reiterated his goal to finance the Tappan Zee with private sector investment. So it looks like the legislature will be called on to change the law, setting up a vote that could enable private financing for the project some time in the first half of this year.

So far, reader contributions this month have got us two-thirds of the way to our goal of raising $25,000. Can you make a tax-deductible donation and help put us over the top?

We have one more prize to give away to a lucky donor who contributes before the end of the year. Reader Glenn Moyer of Tucson, Arizona won last week’s sweepstakes and will soon be biking around in a snappy new Levi’s Commuter denim jacket and jeans. Readers who give this week will be entered to win a class with REI’s Outdoor School, courtesy of the new REI Soho. The winner can select any one of REI’s wilderness outings in the Tri-State area, except Overnight Backpacking and Wilderness First Aid.

Thanks for reading and thanks to everyone who’s given this year. Stay tuned for the last two installments of the Streetsies.

Before I get to that, congratulations to the winner of last week’s prize: Long-time Streetsblog reader Marc Agger will be taking home a Zero Tweed bag from Rickshaw Bags.

This week’s prize comes courtesy of Levi’s. Make a one-time or monthly gift by Friday at midnight and you could win a jacket and jeans from Levi’s new Commuter line, designed specifically for cyclists.

The jeans

The jacket

I have the Commuter jacket and it’s great for riding in the spring or fall, even in the rain.

Thanks again to all our dedicated supporters. If you haven’t donated yet, please pitch in and help make 2012 a great year for livable streets coverage.

Under Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York's transit policy is being eclipsed by states like Utah.

Responding to near-unanimous support for transit on the Tappan Zee Bridge from the Hudson Valley’s elected officials, including the county executives on both sides of the river, Cuomo spokesperson Matt Wing had this to say last week:

If the county executives are each willing to write the state a check for $1 billion for construction and over $100 million for operating costs, we will move forward with BRT. If not, the governor is committed to building a new Tappan Zee Bridge that ends a decade of delay and puts tens of thousands New Yorkers back to work now.

In other words, the state will keep picking up the tab for highways — in the FY 2012 budget, Cuomo transferred $593 million to the highway and bridge trust fund while stealing $100 million from MTA dedicated funds — but anyone who wants to build transit is on their own.

Wing’s statement reflects a governor who fundamentally thinks about transit as something that costs the state money, not something that brings economic and fiscal benefits in return.

In this case, the state’s most recent cost estimate for the BRT system is $900 million. Some back-of-the-envelope calculations by Streetsblog showed that the BRT service would save New Yorkers at least $100 million a year in weekday gas costs and time savings alone. Add in the costs of pollution, traffic crashes, and the extra infrastructure needed to sustain auto-oriented sprawl and the savings from transit are even higher.

Andrew Cuomo doesn’t see those savings, but several of his political peers do.

One of the best explanations of the fiscal sense of transit investment came from Envision Utah, a public-private campaign that helped shape growth in and around Salt Lake City. Envision Utah put forward four scenarios for the region; transit-oriented growth turned out to save $15 billion in direct infrastructure costs compared to sprawl-as-usual. Utahns got on board and the region is moving forward at rapid speed with new transit lines and transit-oriented development. The private sector chair of Envision Utah at the time was current and possibly future presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, Jr.

Many of Cuomo’s fellow Democratic governors are also perfectly capable of discussing transit spending as a sound investment.

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, who’s already being described as a competitor for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, made his support for light rail on the Purple Line project through the D.C. suburbs a major plank of his 2010 campaign against former governor Bob Ehrlich. “Ehrlich contends that Maryland can’t afford to build two new light rail lines; O’Malley says the state can’t afford not to,” the Baltimore Sun reported at the time. “We can’t build enough roads to ease the congestion that’s coming,” O’Malley said.

In contrast, the politician calling for the local counties to assume the cost of the transit project — Andrew Cuomo’s position on the Tappan Zee — was Maryland’s leading rural Republican.

California Governor Jerry Brown is the only Democrat running a larger state than Cuomo. Despite major cost overruns on his state’s high-speed rail plans, Brown has continued to support the proposal, arguing that the cost has to be compared against the $82 billion pricetag of expanding the state’s highways and airports. “California’s high-speed rail project will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, linking California’s population centers and avoiding the huge problems of massive airport and highway expansion,” Brown told the New York Times.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who unsuccessfully fought for a gas tax hike in 2009, is again investigating ways to increase funding for the state’s debt-wracked transit system. Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy has celebrated the state’s investment in a Hartford to New Britain busway project.

Meanwhile, Cuomo is ridiculing the cost of Tappan Zee transit, cutting dedicated transit funds and stealing from the MTA. With his refusal to acknowledge the benefits of transit investment, he’s lining up not with his fellow Democrats, and not even with the state of Utah, but with Tea Party transit-haters like Ohio Governor John Kasich, who cut all state funding for the Cincinnati Streetcar project in addition to rejecting federal rail dollars. That should go over well in 2016.

Just a reminder: Give to Streetsblog and Streetfilms before midnight and you’ll enter to win a handsome, made-in-America Zero Tweed Bag from Rickshaw. Thanks for supporting us, and enjoy the weekend.

Andrew Cuomo, who governs the state with more transit riders than any other, basks in the glow of cutting $320 million in dedicated transit funding. Photo: Governor's Office

Cuomo spokesperson Matt Wing sent this response to Komanoff:

Your facts, assumptions and analysis are wrong. The reduction in the payroll tax will not cost the MTA one dollar and to suggest otherwise ignores the law.

Cuomo is trying to define the terms of the debate like so: If Albany makes up for the hundreds of millions in payroll tax revenue he just cut, then he did no harm to transit riders and the regional economy.

But the damage is all but inevitable.

The governor may very well scrounge up $320 million for the MTA this year, but make no mistake — straphangers will feel the pain of his transit funding cut. Albany commitments to fund transit never hold up over time. Consider:

• In 2001, Albany contributed $144 million in general taxes to MTA operations [PDF]. Now it contributes $7 million.
• When Governor Hugh Carey left office in 1982, Albany contributed $1.5 billion to the MTA’s five-year capital program. By 1992, under Governor Mario Cuomo, Albany wasn’t putting in a penny.
• Until 2009, Albany was contributing $45 million a year to fund student Metrocards. Then legislators threatened to cut the contribution down to $7 million. Eventually they consented to $25 million.

When Cuomo signed the MTA payroll tax cut into law, surrounded by Long Island politicians, he made it out to be a boon for job creation. But Cuomo’s appeasement of suburban political interests will hit straphangers hard. A weaker transit system means job-seekers will have less access to employment, employers will have less talent to draw from, and New Yorkers will have to deal with higher transportation costs.

The governor may find a way to restore the money this year, and even the next. Maybe Cuomo will patch up the hole he gouged in the MTA budget until 2016. The patches won’t last forever, though. Transit riders will pay for this funding cut eventually, just like they’ll pay for Cuomo’s decision to fund the MTA capital plan by borrowing. Sooner or later, the Cuomo fare hike is coming.

Among likely Democratic voters in New York City, 64 percent support bike lanes.

Despite the millions of New Yorkers who ride subways and buses and the thousands of life-altering traffic injuries suffered by residents of the five boroughs every year, transit and safe streets are typically second- or third-tier issues in the city’s big-time political campaigns. The 2013 mayoral election could be different: NYC DOT’s program to re-orient city streets for transit, biking and walking has raised the profile of transportation and public space issues. And that’s before any bike-share stations have hit the streets.

A new poll commissioned by Transportation Alternatives [PDF] indicates that New York’s most dedicated voters — the ones who’ll head out to the polls in September and pull the lever in primaries — support livable streets policies, including some that politicians tend to shy away from. Mayoral candidates, take note.

The telephone survey of 603 likely voters conducted by Penn Schoen Berland found high approval levels for bike lanes — 60 percent of respondents support them — similar to the results of recent polls by Quinnipiac and Marist.

When framed in terms of public safety, increased traffic enforcement also appeals to voters. Three quarters of respondents said it’s very important to “crack down on reckless driving to improve safety.”

Transportation and livable streets issues still have an uphill battle for mindshare. When asked to name the single most important issue facing the city, 68 percent of voters placed “growing the economy and creating jobs” higher than priorities like fostering walkable neighborhoods and maintaining a quality transit system. The poll suggests that it’s extremely important for advocates to make the connection between bus improvements and job access, for instance, or between pedestrian safety and retail performance.

In addition to surveying attitudes about transportation and street safety policies, the poll reveals a wealth of information about how New York City voters get around. Among transit aficionados, it’s a well-known fact that most New York households don’t own cars and an even larger majority don’t drive to work. But the travel habits of NYC voters are less well-understood.

The TA poll indicates that while 55 percent of voters own cars, the vast majority rely on trains, buses, and their own two feet to get around. Windshield perspective, it seems, is more deeply ingrained in the people who hold office than those who elect them.

Here are some of the poll results that stood out:

• 55 percent of voters own cars, but just 34 percent say driving is their primary way to get around New York, and only 24 percent say they drive four or more times per week.
• 53 percent use transit as their primary mode, eight percent mainly walk, and one percent mainly bike.
• 64 percent expect more people to be riding bikes five years from now.
• A plurality of voters — 35 percent — hold the mayor most responsible for the recent MTA service cuts. The state legislature, which wasted golden opportunities to increase transit funding via congestion pricing or bridge tolls, was named by only 23 percent. Just seven percent named the governor, and while Andrew Cuomo wasn’t in office when the last round of cuts took effect, it’s the governor who selects the MTA chair, appoints most MTA board members, and sets the agenda on MTA funding to a much greater extent than the mayor.
• Driving while talking on a handheld phone was the most commonly noticed traffic violation (46 percent see it “almost every day”), followed by speeding (35 percent).
• Among car owners, overall support for bike lanes was the same as among voters without cars (60 percent), although support among car owners is somewhat less intense (22 percent strongly support bike lanes, compared to 33 percent among car-free voters).

If you haven’t contributed yet, here’s a little extra incentive. Give between now and the end of the week, and you could win a lovely, sturdy, functional Zero Tweed Bag courtesy of the fine San Francisco-based manufacturers at Rickshaw Bags. Feast your eyes on the prize:

Donate between now and Friday at midnight and you’ll be entered to win one of these puppies. We’ll announce the winner next week.

Whether you claim the prize or it goes to someone else, you’ll come away with a warm feeling after making a contribution to your online voice for livable streets.

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming…

Katherine Yun was killed by a Department of Sanitation truck driver while crossing Broadway in Williamsburg. Photo: Daily News

Fatal Crashes (5 killed this week, 146 this year, 20 drivers charged*)

• Sheepshead Bay: Aron Dudkin, 80, Killed Crossing the Street; No Charges (Streetsblog, Flatbush Scoop)
• Williamsburg: Katherine Yun, 25, Hit By Garbage Truck Driver; No Criminality Suspected (News, NYT)
• North Riverdale: Milo Montivilla, 57, Struck, Dragged By School Bus Driver; No Charges Expected (News, Streetsblog)
• St. Albans: Drunk Driver Crashes Into Two Cars, Killing a Passenger; Two Others Injured (Post)
• Prospect Lefferts Gardens: Motorcyclist Kills Unidentified Pedestrian at Flatbush and Parkside (Streetsblog)

Injuries, Arrests and Property Damage

• Prospect Heights: Driver Injures Cyclist at Intersection Where Protected Bike Lane Was Supposed to Go (Bklynian)
• Prospect Park: Cyclist Seriously Injured By Van Driver (Bklynian)
• Greenpoint: Off-Duty Cop Survives Rear-End Plunge Off BQE (News, Post)
• Midwood: Motorcyclist Critically Injured in Head-On Collision Fleeing From Police (Post)
• Flatbush: One Hospitalized After SUV Driver Crashes Into Supermarket (Gothamist)
• Soho: City’s Office of Emergency Management Spokesperson Arrested for DWI (DNAinfo, Post)
• Little Neck: Driver Crashes Through Glass Storefront of Day Care Center (Times Ledger)
• Brooklyn Heights: Driver Leads Cops on Chase Before Slamming Into Light Pole (Post)
• Port Richmond: Unlicensed Driver Flees DWI Checkpoint, Leaving 7-Year-Old Son (Post Blotter)
• St. Albans: Driver Checked for Injuries Following Crash (Times Ledger)

A driver survived a plunge off the BQE following a rear-end crash. Photo: Daily News

In the Region, Out of Town

• Suffolk County, NY: 15-Month-Old Girl Killed After Grandmother “Loses Control” of SUV (Post)
• Woodbridge, NJ: Armored Truck Driver Killed in NJ Turnpike Crash (AP)
• North Bay Shore, NY: Off-Duty NYPD Officer Drives Drunk Eight Miles in the Wrong Direction; Receives 30-Day Suspension (Post)
• Newark, NJ: SUV Driver Jumps Sidewalk, Crashes Car Into Second Floor of House (Star-Ledger)
• Massapequa, NY: School Bus Carrying Kids Involved in Three-Vehicle Crash (Post)
• Portland, OR: Brooklyn DJ Critically Injured By Cab Driver Who Crashed Into Hotel Room (Oregon Live)

Following Up

• Driver Listed on Lefevre Crash Report Claims There’s No Proof He Was Driving (Gothamist)
• Queens Civic Leader Pat Dolan, Killed Walking to CB Meeting, Rememberd as Tireless Advocate (Times Ledger)
• NYPL President Pleads Guilty to DWI in East Harlem Crash (DNAinfo)
• Pedestrian Fatally Struck By Motorcyclist in Hell’s Kitchen Identified (DNAinfo)

* Based on latest available reports

If only NYPD targeted the most dangerous intersections with similar vigor. Streetfilms’ Clarence Eckerson and Streetsblog publisher Mark Gorton went out to Canal and Lafayette, which saw 13 crashes in the month of August alone, to see how traffic is being policed. Here’s what they found.