Today’s Headlines

Gore Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for Global Warming Work (CNN)
MTA Forms Panel to Look at Soaring Capital Costs (AMNY)
Gabe Pressman and Everyone Else on Robert Moses (Gothamist, NY Sun)
Debate Over Road Privatization to Heat Up in Washington (Mother Jones)
States Take Action to Curb Dangerous Driving (USA Today)
Children Driving Green Revolution in UK (Guardian)
Study Shows Air Pollution Increases Risk of Heart Disease in Older Women (NYT)
Downtown Residents Battle "Cookie Cutter" Street Fairs (NY Sun)
Fighting to Cross the Street in Fort Greene (Brooklyn Paper)
MetroCard Makes Transfer to Bee-Line Bronx Service (Daily News)

ddartley

I remember an interesting bit of video from the wars in the Balkans–pedestrians were going about their business, some of them even smiling, and as they reached one particular spot on the street, they’d sprint, because it was where a sniper was shooting that day.

The photo in the Fort Greene story looks almost identical!
Doc Barnett

Aggressive driving story: “Delaware’s increase in deaths stemmed from a rise in pedestrian fatalities, which increased from 10 to 27. … The biggest problem was pedestrians jaywalking and walking at night without a flashlight or reflective clothing, as required by law.”

Damn fools think they can just walk around their homes without being run down and killed! But just think Delaware, the more of them you kill the less of a “problem” they will be.
ABG

Hm, Al Gore, eh? I’ve got a story about him that I think Streetsblog readers would be interested in.

Here’s an excerpt from Gore’s acceptance speech at the 1992 Democratic Convention:

“Three years ago, my son Albert was struck by a car crossing the street after watching a baseball game in Baltimore. Tipper and I watched as he was thrown thirty feet through the air and scraped another twenty feet on the pavement after he hit the ground. I ran to his side and held him and called his name. But he was limp and still, without breath or pulse. His eyes were open with the empty stare of death and we prayed, the two of us, there in the gutter, with only my voice. His injuries inside and out were massive and for terrible days he lingered between life and death. Tipper and I spent the next thirty days and nights there at his bedside.

[…]

But ladies and gentlemen, I want to tell you this straight from my heart, that experience changed me forever. When you’ve seen your six year old son fighting for his life, you realize that some things matter a lot more than winning. You loose patience with the lazy assumption of so many in politics that we can always just muddle through. When you’ve seen your reflection in the empty stare of a boy waiting for his second breath of life, you realize that we were not put here on earth to look out for our needs alone. We are part of something much larger than ourselves.”

http://www.al-gore-2004.org/gorespeeches/1992convention.htm

Was he inspired to work for greater pedestrian safety? Well, no, just for cars with greater fuel efficiency and lower emissions.

Ten years later, Al Gore III was arrested for drunk driving in Virginia Beach. Sounds like Gore, Jr. passed those lessons on to him, right? This website reproduces a news article about it.

http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2001/cyb20010601.asp

To balance the right-wing viewpoint of the previous article, here’s Snopes on how Laura Bush killed a friend drunk driving when she was 17:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
Steve

Cookie-cutter street fairs are annoying, but at least they give a respite from traffic. We need more street fairs, but I fear the public hearing requirement reported on may result in fewer.