Streetsblog New York City

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.

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Last April, the federal government announced a $3.5 million grant to a consortium of New York and Connecticut governments to promote transit-oriented development. In New York City, planning is focused on commuter rail stations in the Bronx and East New York. Tonight, HUD Regional Director Adolfo Carrión hosts a town hall meeting to gather public input on how to shape growth in the Bronx. Later in the week, Governor Cuomo hosts what is sure to be a fascinating presentation on public-private partnerships — but it will be closed to the press.

• Tonight: Adolfo Carrión hosts a town hall meeting in the Bronx to discuss the ongoing efforts, funded by the federal government, to promote transit-oriented development around the borough’s Metro-North stations. 6:00 p.m.
• Wednesday: DOT brings its bike-share demonstration to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, showing commuters the new transit option they’ll have access to later this year. 3:00 p.m.
• Friday: Andrew Cuomo hosts his fellow Democratic governors for a conference promoting public-private partnerships in infrastructure construction. 8:00 a.m.
• Saturday: DOT’s bike-share demo moves down to the Lower East Side’s Essex Street Market. 12:00 p.m.

Keep an eye on the calendar for updated listings. Got an event we should know about? Drop us a line.

For the uninitiated, the economics of curbside parking can be a tough subject to wrap your head around. Putting a price on parking runs counter to the orthodoxy that has prevailed in many American cities for the better part of a century: more or less, that free or artificially low-priced parking is a good thing.

San Francisco's new dynamic parking system adjusts prices to reflect demand in certain locations. Photo: Parking in Motion

A recent piece in the Boston Globe explored the concept of reforming curbside parking policy by aligning prices with demand. Globe writer Leon Neyfakh argued that higher parking prices (as much as $6 per hour) raised the question of equity. “The result, ultimately,” he wrote, “would be a city where the rich have access to whatever spots they want, while everybody else has to settle for what’s affordable.”

Paul Barter at Network blog Reinventing Parking says wait a second:

How does having the ‘legal right’ to park have anything to do with how parking should be priced? I have a ‘legal right’ to rent an apartment in the most prestigious street in my city. The fact that I, like most people, can’t afford to do so has nothing to do with whether apartments should be market-priced. Of course, if significant numbers of people can’t afford any decent shelter we must look for solutions. In market economies, those solutions are (usually) targeted and don’t abolish market pricing for real estate generally. In any case, surely parking in busy urban streets is much less of a basic need than housing.

This brings me to ‘compulsory car’ thinking, which is a culprit in many of these equity objections. Many people seem to assume that driving is the only (tolerable) way to move around or that most drivers have little or no choice. They assume that if you can’t afford to park in an area, then you can’t afford to go there. Many people seem to be thinking of parking and driving as a basic necessity, like water. The politics of pricing for basic needs is always tricky. Highly automobile dependent societies, like the USA, are naturally especially prone to compulsory car thinking. However, the places where parking is scarce enough for performance prices to be high by today’s standards also tend to be the kind of dense urban places that are richest in mobility alternatives. Cars are one option among many and are clearly not a basic need in order to reach such places, even when such a place is located within a generally auto-dependent metropolitan area.

Poor people, especially those who are car-free, may be the group that has suffered most from public subsidies to auto travel. Those who are truly concerned about equity issues should be enthusiastic supporters of dynamic parking.

Elsewhere on the Network today: M-Bike.org reports that in addition to hosting an auto show this year, Detroit is planning a a bicycle show and swap meet. Biking in LA says that despite the City of Angels’ reputation for being not as bike friendly, cycling fatality figures show that increasing cycling activity seems to have produced a safety-in-numbers effect. And Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space uses the Portland region to demonstrate that urban growth boundaries aren’t necessarily enough to prevent sprawl.

Transportation analyst and Streetsblog contributor Charles Komanoff is out with a piece in Reuters today that examines the traffic impacts of adding 2,000 new yellow taxis to Manhattan streets, and it’s not pretty.

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.

The Weekly Carnage is a Friday round-up of motor vehicle violence across the five boroughs and beyond. For more on the origins and purpose of this column, please read About the Weekly Carnage.

12-Year-Old Dashane Santana was fatally struck by a van driver while she was crossing Delancey Street at Clinton Street. The driver remained at the scene and is not expected to face charges. Photo:DNAinfo

Fatal Crashes (2 killed this week, 9 this year, 3 drivers charged*)

• LES: Dashane Santana, 12, Struck Twice by Van Driver While Crossing Delancey; No Charges Expected (Post, Gothamist)
• Kew Gardens Hills: Passenger Beatrice Perlitsh, 82, Killed in Two-Car Crash; “No Criminality Suspected” (DNAinfo, Times Ledger)

Injuries, Arrests and Property Damage

• Harlem: Crash That Injured Motorist Blamed on Icy Roads (DNAinfo)
• Bensonhurst: MTA Bus Driver Hits Two Pedestrians, Trapping One Underneath (DNAinfo)
• St. Albans: Driver Seriously Injured After Crashing and Flipping SUV; “No Criminality Suspected” (Post)
• Bayside: At Least One Injured in Two-Vehicle Crash (Times Ledger)
• Sheepshead Bay: Photo: Cyclist Struck On Ocean Ave, Shore Parkway (Sheepshead Bites)
• Clinton Hill: Garbage Truck Driver Crashes Into Vacant Storefront, Injuring Three (NY1)
• Washington Heights: Unlicensed Drunk Teen Driver Slams Into Car, Putting One Victim in a Coma (Post Blotter)
• Fordham Manor: Man Driving Stolen Car Arrested for Reckless Driving (Post Blotter)
• Corona: Off-Duty Sanitation Worker Arrested for DWI (Times Ledger)
• Grant City: Truck Driver Knocks Down Utility Pole, Fire Hydrant (Advance)

A driver was seriously injured after he crashed his SUV in Queens. Photo:Post

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A redesign of this Atlantic Avenue on-ramp to the BQE should make walking to Brooklyn Bridge Park easier and safer. Image: Google Maps

Just one of the many problems with running an interstate highway through the heart of an urban area is what to do with the on-ramps and off-ramps. Motorists accustomed to freeway speeds, or eager to reach them, can drive more aggressively than normal and without as much regard for pedestrians and cyclists. At one on-ramp to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, where increasing numbers of people are crossing to reach the new Brooklyn Bridge Park, DOT hopes to make things safer with a new intersection design and an end to right turns on red [PDF].

DOT proposes putting a new traffic island in the middle of the Atlantic Avenue/BQE on-ramp. The island cuts the crossing distance for pedestrians, previously 80 feet, into two pieces, creating a safer path for those headed to the park.

The redesign shortens crossing distances for pedestrians and prevents illegal turns across their right-of-way. Image: NYC DOT

Extending back from the island will be a line of bollards and striping to more clearly divide the right turn lane from the through lane: no more right turns from the left lane. The drivers waiting in the right turn lane will also have to wait for a proper green light to turn onto the highway. The intersection had been one of the few in the city where right turns on red were allowed, though only during the morning rush.

Last year, DOT reduced the right-turn-on-red hours at the on-ramp, but neighborhood leaders including City Council Member Brad Lander and State Senator Dan Squadron continued to push for additional safety upgrades.

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State troopers driving in Westchester County for Governor Andrew Cuomo’s security detail injured two pedestrians in separate crashes over the last two days, according to a report by the Associated Press. The AP report, via Capitol Tonight:

Authorities say a second pedestrian has been injured after being hit by an unmarked car driven by a state trooper from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s security detail near the governor’s Westchester County home over the past two days.

State police say 50-year-old Jeronimo Ardon Perez of Mount Kisco was hit on Route 117 in Mount Kisco about 7 p.m. Thursday by a car driven by Investigator Gregory Panzarella. Perez was taken to Westchester Medical Center. His condition wasn’t immediately available Friday.

The other pedestrian, 22-year-old Dolce Perez, was hit by an unmarked car driven by Sgt. Joseph Crispino on Wednesday morning on Route 133 in Mount Kisco.

According to the AP, the officers were on duty but not responding to an emergency and the police are investigating the crashes. Though the two victims were injured on Wednesday and Thursday, the news is only coming out now.

A spokesperson for the governor tells Capitol Tonight that Cuomo was not in either of the vehicles at the times of the crashes.

In case you had any doubt, urban design matters. A new study led by a research team at University of California at Irvine shows that people walk more when their neighborhood is close to Main Street.

Being close to a downtown shopping street is a big determinant of whether people will travel on foot. Photo: NRDC Switchboard

The study found that residents of “traditionally designed” areas, with a downtown-style shopping district, were three times more likely to travel on foot than those who live in newer, suburban-style neighborhoods with shops located along car-centric roadways. Residents of walkable, urban-style neighborhoods also used their cars less often, the study found.

Kaid Benfield at Network blog NRDC Switchboard elaborates:

Notably, the residents of the centered neighborhoods were found to take shorter trips, suggesting that walkable proximity – both closeness and a safe, direct walking route – to shops and services is also important. It may not do much to encourage walking, for example, if the dry cleaner’s is a quarter mile away as the crow flies but you have to travel two or three times that far navigating busy roads around the subdivision to get there.

This is true even when the data are controlled for individual and household economic and demographic characteristics.

Boarnet’s team studied travel and land-use data from eight neighborhoods in the South Bay area of Los Angeles County. Micro-variations in one study area were examined in particular detail to confirm that “self-selection” (for example, that people who innately like to walk were choosing the centered neighborhoods but would have walked just as much wherever they located) was not contaminating the findings.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Charlottesville Tomorrow reports that environmental groups are working hard to cancel the Western Bypass of US 29, central Virginia’s boondoggle sprawl project. Los Alamos Bikes writes that the city of Albuquerque is not living up to its “Bike Friendly Community” title. And Systemic Failure explains that the city of San Rafael’s idea of transit-oriented development looks an awful lot like auto-oriented development.