Last Friday the NYPD smashed yet another Critical Mass bike ride seizing 50 bikes and arresting 37 people for the crime of assembling in Union Square Park on two wheels. It was a continuation of the crackdown that started during last summer's epic 5,000-rider Republican National Convention event. Despite a federal court order declaring the NYPD’s actions illegal, it doesn’t look like the cops are going to let up. As the weather gets nicer and the rides grow in size, the confrontations are likely to get worse.

Architect of the Critical Mass crackdown is NYPD Assistant Chief Bruce Smolka. A little background: Before turning his attention to cyclists, Smolka was the commanding officer of the NYPD’s infamous Street Crimes Unit. It was his officers who, in February 1999, pumped 41 bullets into Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant guilty of nothing more than standing in the hallway of his own apartment building. Though the incident nearly sparked race riots and ultimately led to the disbanding of the Street Crimes Unit, it earned Smolka a promotion. Today he runs Patrol Borough Manhattan South and is chief for all of Manhattan below 59th Street.

The new job combined with the exigencies of the post-9/11 era has given the 30-year NYPD veteran the opportunity to practice his doctrine of overwhelming force and disregard of First Amendment rights on a bigger, more public stage. In February 2003, Smolka illegally ordered horseback-mounted police to charge into a group of peaceful anti-war demonstrators. In April, he confronted a group of about 100 demonstrators in front of the midtown headquarters of Carlyle Group with three times as many officers outfitted in full riot gear. “We were swept off the street like fleas,” Ben Maurer, an activist arrested that day, told a journalist on the scene. “I was illegally arrested, just for yelling at a building.”

But it wasn't until 2004 wwhen Smolka was appointed co-chair of site security at the Republican National Convention that he really hit his stride. Responsible for securing midtown and everything moving in and out of Madison Square Garden, the Chief could often be found standing on “his perimeter,” head clean-shaven, blue eyes squinting, chin jutting, arms folded across his chest like an urban Patton. A hands-on kind of guy, never afraid to dive into a crowd of demonstrators, Smolka personally oversaw the illegal arrest and detention of hundreds during the convention.

Smolka's civil liberties violations didn’t stop once the Republicans left town. Perhaps humiliated by his inability to predict or control the humongous Critical Mass ride of August, the chief seems to have made it his mission to completely destroy the ride. He continues to unleash his wrath and the full force of the NYPD on cyclists the last Friday of every month. Internet bulletin boards that post his photo inevitably fill up with messages or recognition like, "Hey, Smolka is the asshole who very deliberately threw me in the street then told me to get out of the street."

Justice may be catching up to Smolka. At a December 8, 2004 federal court hearing on Critical Mass, civil liberties lawyer Steven Hyman skewered the chief before federal judge, William Pauley. The day’s highlight was Smolka’s attempt to argue that seven bikes lined up on a New York City street are a “procession” requiring a permit while seven motor vehicles clogging the very same street are simply traffic. In fact, bikes have just as much right to be traffic as cars. Judge Pauley didn't buy it. He ruled that the NYPD acted improperly by arresting and seizing the bicycles of Critical Mass riders and he denied the NYPD's request for a federal injunction preventing people with bikes from assembling at Union Square Park on the last Friday of the month.

For anyone who has followed Bruce Smolka’s career, Judge Pauley’s ruling was not a surprise. The upside of being arrested in a Smolka street sweep is that you have about a 100% chance of being exonerated when your case finally comes before a judge.

Further reading: Charlie Komanoff has a great editorial in Newsday on the issue.

11:26 PM | Link | (0) comments   

It was a rough week for New York City pedestrians. Last Thursday, after a four month investigation, the Queens District Attorney announced that state law prevented him from seeking felony charges against John Wirta, the drunk driver who mowed down two boys in Flushing last October.

The 56-year-old boiler repairman was driving eastbound on 73rd Avenue at 150th Street when his van barreled into Vasean Alleyne, 11, and Angel Reyes, 12, as they stepped into the street from between two parked cars. Vasean was killed and Angel seriously injured. When the police got to the scene they found Wirta with bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, breath stinking, and blood alcohol content of .13 percent. The legal limit in New York is .08 percent. Wirta told the cops that had had "a couple of beers." It must have been a couple of big ones. A 200-pound man would have to knock back eight in about two hours to pump that much alcohol into his bloodstream.

Wirta's lawyer says, and the D.A.'s investigation appears to confirm, that Wirta had the green light and was driving under 30 when the boys stepped out into the darkened street. Because he wasn't breaking traffic laws when he hit them, Wirta can only be charged with a misdemeanor, driving while intoxicated. At most, he faces a year in prison and a $1,000 fine. In other words, if you ever need to kill someone in New York, do it with a car.

The boys' mothers are now up in Albany trying to get the Legislature to pass "Vasean’s Law" for harsher penalties on killer drivers. Vasean's mother, Monique Dixon, told the Times that she isn't coming home until legislators "can tell me to my face why there is no law to cover the death of my son."

She might consider renting an apartment. Activists have been trying to compel state lawmakers to stiffen penalties for killer drivers for decades. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a former defense attorney and expert foot-dragger, is deeply skeptical of any law favoring prosecution and is likely to continue to stall any such legislation.

Yet, even if Vasean's Law is passed, toughening up penalties for drivers who kill is only the tip of the iceberg. What New York City really needs are measures that prevent and reduce reckless driving in the first place, things like red light cameras, traffic calming, congestion pricing, and stricter licensing and inspection regimens.

The legislature refuses to take action on these items as well. Silver has for years allowed David Gantt, a libertarian-leaning upstate Assembly member who runs the transportation committee to stop New York City from getting more red light cameras at dangerous intersections. Gantt believes the life-saving, revenue-generating cameras are a slippery slope to Big Brother government.

Donald Hennessy’s family and friends could tell Gantt something about how far we’ve slipped down the slope of allowing automobiles rule the city. Hennessy, 74, stepped out into the street in front of his building in Woodside, Queens last Sunday morning only to be mowed down by a speeding red Mitsubishi sports car driven by Royce Quigua. When Quigua was caught by police the next day, he claimed to be unaware that he had hit anyone. Quigua wasn’t drunk. Neighbors say that he regularly careens around the neighborhood like an asshole.

****

If government won’t do anything to make city streets safer, it looks like Mother Nature may be in the process of getting the job done herself. This week gas prices in California made their first foray past the $3 mark. A gallon of self-serve regular unleaded at the Malibu 76 Union on the Pacific Coast Highway costs $3.05. President Bush’s inner circle has begun quietly mulling the economic and political implications of a $4 gallon “nightmare scenario.”

Perhaps the White House team will conclude that it is finally time to level with the American people: There is much evidence to suggest that we are approaching a global oil production peak, an era in which demand for fossil fuels begins to outpace supply. No matter how you slice it, this is the start of a long, painful and permanent upswing in energy costs. The implications for the United States, a suburban nation built on the assumption of an endless supply of cheap oil, are significant. Fortunately, we still have time to make a choice. We can scale back our sprawling, guzzling, oil-addicted way of life. Or we can ensure that our oil supply continues to grow by waging resource war against China and other competitors, sending Marines to places like Venezuela and Nigeria, and drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

There is no doubt that Karl Rove has already figured out exactly how to pin rising gas prices on congressional Democrats' refusal to open up A.N.W.R. to exploration and production. Of course, the Democrats could seize this opportunity. They could be the leaders who level with the American people and begin to build the progressive, economic-environmental-foreign policy vision necessary to deal with the impending global energy crunch. But then again, that would require leadership and vision. Oil industry: Sharpen your drill bits. Polar bears: Watch out.

****

The good news is that by the time the Peak Oil crisis really starts hitting home, it may finally be a bit easier to commute by bike in New York City. A mere two weeks after I reported on the issue in the New York Press, the Department of Transportation has grudgingly acknowledged that the bone-breaking steel bumps on the Williamsburg Bridge were, perhaps, a mistake. DOT is in the process of hiring a consultant to study the matter. New Yorkers can rest assured. If nothing else comes of their work, in the future we can heat our homes by burning DOT’s vast reserve of useless, ignored consultant studies.

3:44 PM | Link | (0) comments   

New York City mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer says he's leading Democrats to the Promised Land. At a rubber-chicken dinner at a local Brooklyn Democratic club last week, he announced, "This is the year we send the message coast to coast: It starts here in New York City. Then we go to Albany, and then we take back the White House for Democrats."

How is Freddy going to make it happen? Simple. He is going to give churchgoing New York City motorists free parking on Sunday. Ferrer essentially kicked off his mayoral campaign at an East Harlem church a couple of weeks ago, with an attack on Republican mayor Michael Bloomberg's 2002 decision to eliminate free Sunday parking meters. "I believe that there shouldn't be a tax on worshipping," Ferrer told the crowd of mostly European tourists, baffled that they were being treated to a political speech rather than gospel music. "People shouldn't have to pay to pray. People shouldn't have to feed the meter to worship." The snappy soundbites combined with the fact that the church was called the Greater Highway Deliverance Temple ensured massive media coverage, and Ferrer's first major policy proposal of the 2005 election was thus launched.

It raises intriguing questions. If churchgoers shouldn't have to feed parking meters on Sunday, what about Jews on Saturday? Perhaps they should have to pay for parking as a form of punishment. Jews aren't supposed to drive on the Sabbath. Then you've got Muslims praying five times with a Sabbath on Friday to boot. If they got a deal on meters New Yorkers might start converting to Islam just for the parking benefits. New York City's alternate-side parking calendar already gives breaks for holidays as obscure as Idul-Adha, Orthodox Holy Thursday and Shemini Atzereth. Once you reinstate free Sunday meters in front of churches, what's going to stop the city's Zoroastrians and Hare Krishna from asking for their own special breaks? More important, since the majority of New Yorkers don't own a car at all, what kind of break do they get? If, say, yoga is your spiritual practice, why should you have to pay subway fare on your way to class?

Mayor Bloomberg, still much more the rational manager than pandering politician, quickly noted that parking meters actually serve a vital role. On busy commercial streets, meters help ensure a turnover of parking spots. They prevent people from monopolizing parking spaces for an entire weekend. Mom-and-pop businesses depend on this. In fact, since Sunday is now much more a day of commerce than a day of rest, meters make it much more likely that motorized churchgoers will be able to find a parking space at all.

Most important, parking fees deliver much-needed cash to city coffers. In 2004 the city collected $91 million from single-space meters, according to the Times. Of that, $7 million came from Sunday meters and another $5 million from Sunday parking tickets. These parking fees are a fair and well-deserved tax on the city's costly, privileged, motoring minority. Space is one of New York City's most valuable and limited resources. Just because someone chose to buy a Chevy Avalanche doesn't give that citizen the right to freely annex and occupy the city's street space for its storage. If anything, the city should award Mr. Avalanche's pathologically selfish consumer choice by making his motoring and parking as inconvenient and expensive as possible.

New York City economist and activist Charlie Komanoff is an advocate of developing a congestion-pricing tolling system for New York City. This type of urban tolling has been enormously successful in London. In addition to delivering environmental and quality-of-life benefits, congestion pricing, according to Komanoff's calculations, could raise as much as $700 million annually. He is disappointed in the opening salvo of the Ferrer campaign. "If Freddy Ferrer won't stand up for civic and constitutional principles, let alone a driver's self-interest in finding a parking space, what hope is there that he'll stand up for the public good on an issue like East River bridge tolls?"

If Freddy Ferrer really thinks the future of New York City is all about free Sunday parking, then he needs to take a closer look at last year's presidential election. John Kerry and the Democrats blew it in 2004, in part, because they chose to pander to Americans' most selfish, fearful, and small-minded instincts rather than putting forward a progressive vision and a collective call to action addressing the big challenges ahead.

The big challenges that face New York City in the coming mayoral term are pretty clear: The MTA is on the verge of unprecedented financial collapse, energy prices have begun a permanent upswing, housing prices are massively inflated (and, perhaps even scarier, the housing bubble may very well burst), the governor isn't funding the city's school system, and, of course, this is all happening against a backdrop of growing environmental-health crises and the threat of Jihadist lunacy. You'll note that free Sunday parking isn't on that list.

Putting a few quarters back in the pockets of churchgoing motorists might win Ferrer the job he seeks. But it definitely isn't going to help the city.

Photo by Lisa Whiteman

5:19 PM | Link | (14) comments   

Before: Drive-thru, Taco Bell-style plastic sign on steel pole
and Main Street-destroying architecture...

So, we won. We fended off the UFO from Planet Sprawl before it landed on our neighborhood.

Back in December I wrote that Commerce Bank, one of the most aggressive and fastest growing banks in the nation, was planning to build a suburban-style, drive-thru "little box" building in Park Slope. In less than three months we organized, fought and convinced the bank to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new building.

The suburbanization of New York City has accelerated rapidly in the last few years. As the rest of the country has become saturated with big-box sprawl crap, New York is one of the last places these businesses can go to continue their metastatic growth. Arriving in the city with business models that were developed and honed in the vast wastelands of strip-mall America, companies like Target, IKEA and Wal-Mart promise jobs and low prices, yet impose huge costs that go unaccounted for.

The way we fought and then worked with Commerce Bank provides good lessons for future battles against these guys. We got organized and were very specific in what we wanted from the bank. We first tried working under the auspices of the existing neighborhood association, but when they proved to be too passive and slow we formed our own group, Park Slope Neighbors. We hit the street and the Internet with petitions and flyers and quickly built our own mailing list and active corps of volunteers. We didn't count on our elected officials to do anything. We dragged them along by building our own vocal constituency.

We spoke rationally and built a strong argument using the same tools and language that a big corporation uses (e.g. we used PowerPoint and said "win-win" a lot). We combined conservative neighborhood populism with progressive urban environmentalism to craft a tune that elected officials and community leaders could easily sing along to. We hammered the bank in the press and showed that we weren't going away. This compelled them to come to the table and meet with the neighborhood stakeholders.

Most important, we didn't sell the neighborhood short. We kept in mind that Brooklyn is no longer a place the people want to flee. People want to live, work and raise families here. We don't need to beg a big bank to set up shop here.

Our strategy and tactics worked. On March 3 Commerce Bank unveiled a new design for Park Slope. It's an honorable, red-brick building with tall ceilings and big windows. It's not going to win any architectural awards, but it is essentially welcoming and respectful to the neighborhood. Most important, the dangerous drive-thru and ugly Taco Bell-style signage are gone. We couldn't convince them to build apartments above the bank, but we did win some smaller concessions, like bike parking.

Commerce Bank deserves a big pat on the back for listening and responding. As a for-profit business oriented towards serving customers, they were so much easier to deal with than, say, the New York City Department of Transportation. If Commerce Bank were in charge of the Williamsburg Bridge, you can bet those hazardous steel bumps would be long gone.

But the real heroes of this story are the volunteer corps of about 20 neighborhood people who went out in the cold during their winter vacations, posted flyers, collected signatures, talked to their negighbors, and forced the bank and the local elected officials to act. It's worth taking a moment to appreciate and enjoy their small achievement. It's not all that often that an unfunded grassroots community initiative compels a billion dollar steamroller of a corporation to sit down, listen and change its plans. But we did it.

After: A drive-thru-less, pedestrian-friendly, urban building that makes an
effort to fit the character and context of the neighborhood.

11:29 AM | Link | (6) comments   

Natalie Tyler with an extreme make-over courtesy of NYC DOT's bridge engineers

In December 2002, the New York City Department of Transportation opened up a new pedestrian and bike path on the Williamsburg Bridge after a four-year, $50 million renovation. While the new path could easily have been a huge feather in DOT's cap, it has instead become a source of injuries, embarrassment and lawsuits.

The problem is that on the Manhattan side of the bridge, the 18-foot-wide path is crossed by a series of two-inch-high steel expansion joints. They are sharp, jolting, cyclist speed bumps: 26 in all. Complaints about the bumps came fast and loud, and a few weeks after the path's opening, Noah Budnick, Transportation Alternatives' projects director, sent a letter to DOT warning that they would "cause cyclists to lose control of their bikes and crash" and should be removed. DOT responded by painting the bumps yellow.

Budnick's grim prediction quickly materialized, the steel plates wreaking havoc on bodies and bikes. Natalie Tyler, a 29-year-old sculptor, broke her nose and shattered her eye socket. Carsten Fleck, a 34-year-old photographer, broke his pelvis. Lisa Whiteman, a 30-year-old web designer, shattered her elbow in three places and had it put back together with screws. The casualty list goes on—broken jaws, collar bones, teeth. Five cyclists have filed suits against the city totaling $10 million.

While the Manhattan Bridge's new bike path uses smooth expansion joints, DOT claims the steel bumps on the Williamsburg Bridge are the only possible solution. Using smooth joints, DOT spokeswoman Kay Sarlin says, "would cause the subway to be shut down every time the joints needed to be replaced or repaired."

The Metropolitan Transit Authority, the agency that runs the JMZ line over the bridge, suspects DOT is trying to "lay the blame" on them. MTA spokesman Paul Fleuranges says his agency was never consulted in the design and construction process and had "no role in the selection of the joint covers."

Replacing or repairing the expansion joints, he says, "would not to our knowledge require any interruptions in subway service over the bridge."

I tracked down a bridge engineer with extensive knowledge of expansion joint systems. He saw no reason why smooth joints couldn't have been used. In fact, he thought they could have been cheaper to install and no harder to repair than the steel plates. He didn't want to be identified because his company does business with the city.

Contrast New York City's bridge engineers with Chicago's. When cyclists there were crashing on the slippery metal grate surfaces of the drawbridges over the Chicago River, Chicago's DOT responded with creativity, not defensiveness. They began methodically testing new surfaces, aiming to reduce slipperiness while maintaining the lightness necessary for a drawbridge to function, seemingly a much more difficult problem than the one on the Williamsburg Bridge. Last spring the engineers settled on a new design and quickly implemented it. Meanwhile, come springtime in New York City, it looks like the broken bones will still be piling up on the Willy-B.

Unsafe at any speed.

6:04 PM | Link | (4) comments