Pedestrian safety

The much-hyped and much-criticized Tata Nano, a car that will hit the Indian market retailing for a mere 100,000 rupees -- the equivalent of $2,500 -- got a perplexing nod of approval from the Economist newsmagazine last week:

Filed by April Greene

Community activists in Jackson Heights have been complaining about congestion at the corner at 73rd St. and 37th Ave. (right) for years. A major traffic study of the area is underway, but according to a DOT spokesman, the department didn't want to wait to implement "short-term initiatives" that could ease the problem. Problem is, some of the activists--including Will Sweeney of the Western Jackson Heights Alliance--aren't necessarily thrilled with the department's solution.

The interim redesign of Ninth Avenue and 14th Street is done. Tables, chairs, planters and some of those giant granite blocks from DOT's Bridges Division have been set out as multipurpose bollard-bench-tables atop a gravelly, earth-tone pavement surface. 

Driving (carefully) with Dutch "shared space" guru and traffic engineer Hans Monderman.

DOT plans to build a physically-separated two-way bike lane on this one block stretch of Canal Street at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge. The project also includes pedestrian safety fixes.

An article in today's New York Times looks at the city's most prominent -- and profitable -- form of street furniture, the pay telephone:

A rendering of a mural proposed for Butler St. and Third Ave., one block from the Brooklyn intersection where a 4-year-old boy was killed by the driver of a Hummer in February.

Over on the New York Times's City Room blog, Sewell Chan reports on opposition to the July 8 closing of the West 72nd St. exit ramp from the West Side Highway, a move that has been fought in court for years by neighborhood activists. The off-ramp is being demolished at the request of the Extell Development Company, which is constructing the massive Riverside South residential complex, to enable the extension of Riverside Boulevard, the complex's main street. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has tried to make the case that poses a security risk, issuing a statement that said, in part: