The U.S. DOT's distracted driving summit, now in its second day, is getting some major nationwide media play. As well it should. New York's own CBS2 reports that distracted driving claimed the lives of 6,000 people last year.

But in an otherwise fine story, reporter Don Dahler unwittingly demonstrates how easy it is to fall prey to the mindset of drivers who believe everyone else is the problem.

Watch as Dahler films part of his report while driving. By our count, he looks toward the camera seven times as he explains that motorists are six times more likely to be involved in a crash while using a cell phone -- i.e. driving distracted.

Sorry to pick on Dahler, but didn't it occur to anyone at CBS2 that this might not be the best treatment for this particular story?

It's a busy Thursday for AYR.

Comparing the AY site plan from June to September: where's Fifth Avenue?

There are a few subtle but notable differences between the Atlantic Yards site plan as distributed for public comment by the Empire State Development Corporation in June as part of a Technical Memorandum and the site plan shared with board members at the September 17 board meeting.
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This plan, though containing most of Gehry's building layout, does not mention retail (surely a street-level factor). Nor does it mention a hotel (now unlikely) or a bicycle station (likely part of the plan, though it may have been moved). There's no name or date on the plan.

The ownership map is finally clarified

So, the deceptive ownership map of the Atlantic Yards footprint finally has been clarified, showing that a reasonable chunk of Block 1129, the southeast block, is not under the developer's ownership or control.

(Note the dark colors--indicating properly privately owned--in the northwest corner of that block, and compare it to the map at bottom, where dark colors indicate property under the developer's control. Click on graphics to enlarge.)
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The map above was distributed to ESDC board members at their September 17 meeting. I finally got a copy yesterday.

In City Hall: James's victory, Markowitz's salute, and the BP's embrace (again) of Bloomberg

City Hall (published by Manhattan Media, which, in surely a low point, produced Forest City Ratner's Brooklyn Standard "publication"), in its CHatter column, takes note of Atlantic Yards opponent Letitia James's victory over AY supporter Delia Hunley-Adossa.
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Surely Hunley-Adossa's Atlantic Yards stance didn't help her cause. There's clearly not a motivated electorate in the district ready to vote against James for her position on AY. But it's more than that: Hunley-Adossa was unwilling to appear frequently at public events or answer questions, and performed poorly in two debates.
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The next segment in the column shows James getting praised by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz for the largest margin of victory of any Council incumbent in the entire city.

And this morning City Hall reports that Markowitz is again endorsing Mayor Mike Bloomberg, despite grumbling that the mayor had shrunken the borough presidents' budgets. However, Markowitz has gotten lots of Bloomberg money for his concert series.

Markowitz likes to go with a winner, and surely he has read the polls that show Democratic candidate Bill Thompson way behind.

NoLandGrab: Brooklyn's Democratic standard-bearer has once again abandoned his party for Bloombucks. Of course, Bloomberg's orchestration of the term limits override handed Marty four more years.

Wrestling With Moses: a look at the work and legacy of Jane Jacobs fills in (and goes beyond) the gaps in The Power Broker

Anthony Flint’s new book, Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City, is well worth reading, as it fills in (and goes beyond) the missing chapter of Robert Caro’s epic biography of Moses, The Power Broker.

It contains two lively mini-biographies, coupled with accounts of major fights over a road through Washington Square Park. urban renewal in Greenwich Village, and the proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway (aka LoMex). The first fight helped shape Jacobs's thinking about urban renewal, published before her landmark 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities; the latter two she led, the second after she’d become a national figure.

My main quibble is simply with the scope of the book. Anyone wrestling with the legacies of Moses and Jacobs, especially after major retrospectives on both at museums in New York in 2007, must tackle the latter-day conflicts between their legacies: could Jacobs’s un-slumming--a version of gentrification--truly produce the low-income and affordable housing that cities like New York need, or was the wholesale clearance embraced by Moses the answer?

Or, in a different era, is there a different set of solutions? Author (and former Boston Globe reporter) Flint, to his credit, recognizes these issues, but, as I describe below, could’ve spent more time grappling with them.

Atlantic Yards Report

Norman Oder is on the roster for Saturday's Dreamland Pavilion conference, and he'll be talking about the marketing of the Atlantic Yards project. He's also got some news about admissions.

Some people have asked me about attending the Atlantic Yards panel at the Dreamland Pavilion conference, held at 1:30 pm Saturday at Kingsborough Community College.

While admission to the day-long conference is $25 (plus $5 for on-site registrants), including lunch, I'm told that people who wish to attend a single panel will not be charged.

The Atlantic Yards session will be held in M-146/47, in the MAC Building.

link

Following up on something we wrote about a couple of weeks ago -- the absurd lack of public transportation options for fans heading to the flashy new Dallas Cowboys Stadium -- we have a post from Streetsblog Network member Extraordinary Observations:

Photo by K. Muncie via Flickr.

The parking situation disaster at Cowboys Stadium that I wrote about last week is actually teaching some valuable real-world lessons about design and transportation. Here's the thing.. it's become such an expectation in Texas that parking be "free" everywhere (by free, of course I mean subsidized by someone else) that charging drivers directly for the privilege is seen as some sort of earth-shattering outrage. Take a look at this whiny and obnoxious piece from Drew Magary of NBC-DFW: Parking. It’s one of those secret, forgot-you-were-going-to-have-to-pay-it-until-you-have-to-pay-it expenses that slowly drains your will to live and often keeps you from venturing outside of your house and into the greater world at large. I particularly despise parking because it comes at the end of your journey, when you have, in theory, arrived at your destination. Only you haven’t. You gotta find a spot, and you gotta pay dearly for it. And if you’re going to see the Cowboys this fall, you’re really going to pay dearly for it.

[There are] 115,000 potential people in place, at a stadium that has precisely 12,000 spaces on site, all of which cost up to $75 each. There are an additional 18,000 spots within a mile of the new digs, also costing between $50 and $75... You could carpool, but that’s for dirty treehuggers.

I imagine that this author might balk at the idea of public transit providing service to the new stadium. It's hard for anyone who would never use it to see any value. But there is value, potentially incredible value, both to those who would use the service and those who still prefer to drive and park. If a fraction of the Cowboy's fans took transit from Dallas to Cowboys games, that could shift the demand curve for parking spaces to the left (by how much I'm not positive), making life better (read: cheaper) for those who wish to drive and park. But they can't -- Dallas cannot provide any transit options thanks to local politics.

Atlantic Yards Report

Norman Oder is on the roster for Saturday's Dreamland Pavilion conference, and he'll be talking about the marketing of the Atlantic Yards project. He's also got some news about admissions.

Some people have asked me about attending the Atlantic Yards panel at the Dreamland Pavilion conference, held at 1:30 pm Saturday at Kingsborough Community College.

While admission to the day-long conference is $25 (plus $5 for on-site registrants), including lunch, I'm told that people who wish to attend a single panel will not be charged.

The Atlantic Yards session will be held in M-146/47, in the MAC Building.

link

• Distracted Drivers: My Job Is More Valuable Than Your Life (NYT)
• NYPD Ped Killing: Mayor Pledges Resolution; Brace Yourself for Defense Tack (NYT, Post, Post)
• Weekend DWI Crash Claims Washington Heights Pedestrian (Post)
  
• News: Thanks to Albany, Killer Drunk Drivers Have More Rights Than Their Victims
  
• Vincent Gentile Makes Parking Enforcement Sound Like History's Greatest Injustice (News)
• Work Continues on Sands Street Bike Path, as Does Illegal Parking (B'stoner)
• Brian Ketcham: Redeveloped Kingsbridge Armory Would Be a Traffic Magnet (News)
• Nassau County's "Lighthouse" Project: TOD Without the T (WNYC) 
  
• NYC DOT to Swap Vehicle Fleet for Car-Share (NYT)
• Cops Target Unlicensed Central Park Bike Rentals (City Room)
  
• News of the Weird: Stickballers Play in Park Slope Traffic (News)
  

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

The Manhattan Institute's E.J. McMahon can't wait for the state budget cuts that will downgrade our kids' education and decimate health care for the poor. The big problems with New York's most recent state budget, he suggests, is that we just didn't slash the services poor and middle-class families rely on enough. Apparently, if David Paterson makes big cutbacks quickly he'll be "acting like a governor" - a sure path to reelection. As I've argued before New York actually passed a reasonable budget for hard times. Instead of job-killing cuts in public services, he raised taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers - not a bad decision given the recent census data once again indicating that New York is the most unequal state in the country. It's also worth remembering that one reason New York was able to avoid devastating budget cuts was the availability of federal stimulus funding, which worked, at least to some extent, as intended, to preserve our state safety net. Since most of us aren't quite as eager as the Manhattan Institute to see school funding and health coverage slashed, it's valuable to keep considering what we could gain from another round of fiscal stimulus, preserving state and city services as the poor economy persists.

I got this forward and it has taken me months to put it up but here its is: a new infoshop A-raamatukogu (A-library)www.araamat.org opened in Estonia this past summer. They are looking for donations for their library. They accept texts in English, Russian, Finnish and German. Below I have pasted their full announcement:

Pittsburgh is breathing a little easier since the G20 Summit has come and gone, but I think we'll be feeling the repercussions for quite a while. (all images from twin cities indymedia) Many protesters pointed to the diversion of resources from the Pittsburgh and its residents to G20 security measures---$18 million at last count, not to mention all the time and $ towards 'reddin' up' Pittsburgh to look nice for the important world leaders The best place, in my opinion, to find grassroots reports from the protests is the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's G-Infinity Media Project,at www.indypgh.org , with a steady stream of breaking news tweets and videos throughout the weekend and beyond..

Here's another reminder that New York has priorities and where they lay.

Crain's NY Business, Kosciuszko, Gowanus top list of bad bridges, roads

When it comes to ailing bridges and elevated roadways in New York City, they just don't come any worse than the Kosciuszko Bridge and Gowanus Expressway according to The General Contractors Association of New York.

The Kosciuszko, which links the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens across Newtown Creek; and the expressway, which connects the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, ranked No. 1 and 2, respectively, on the Top 10 list of troubled New York state-owned elevated roadways and bridges in the city in terms of their structural condition. All but one of the remaining eight bridges and roadways on the list, which was released Wednesday, are in the Bronx.
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“While the New York state capital program in New York City averages between $300 and $350 million per year, given the enormous needs, this funding is insufficient to meet the existing number of projects which have been red flagged by New York state engineers,” said Denise Richardson, GCA's managing director, in a statement. “Without an increase in funding, bridge and elevated road conditions will continue to decline.”

NoLandGrab: On the other hand, NYC added another $105M cash subsidy to Atlantic Yards since the project was first announced, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority just re-negotiated a better deal for developer Bruce Ratner and the Federal Government gave Ratner until the end of the year to complete the bond financing for the arena before closing the loophold on the triple-tax-free bond financing program.