The Week’s Links

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I’m not going to be "bullied" by a bunch of over-heated penguins (NYT)
PBS’s Penguins of the Antarctic is slow, visually opulent and it makes New York Times television critic Virginia Heffernan feel bad about global climate change. So she pans it.

The Final Environmental Impact Statement for Atlantic Yards is Released (AYR)
Norman Oder reports: DDDB legal chair Candace Carponter said yesterday that the FEIS fails to adequately explore alternatives to the project or crucial issues like emergency response times for police and fire service. "The part about the traffic is almost a joke," she added, speaking at a community forum held at the Hanson Place United Methodist Church in Fort Greene. "We believe there are major flaws, because they worked so fast."

The Accident Externality From Driving
According to a study by Berkeley economist Aaron Edlin: "On balance, accident externalities are so large that a correcting Pigouvian tax could raise $45 billion annually in California alone, and over $140 billion nationally."

Is Peak Oil a Myth? (Oil Drum)
The Oil Drum responds to "Why the ‘Peak Oil’ Theory Falls Down," the heavily-publicized report from Daniel Yergin’s Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

General Motors Presents: Give Yourself the Green Light (GM)
An awesome 1954 industrial propaganda film starring Robert Moses and "the American dream of freedom on wheels, an automotive age traveling on time-saving superhighways, futurama’s free-flowing channels of concrete and steel…" Pop open a beer and watch this.

Photo: Ben Osborne/BBC

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Times Square: Too Many People, or Just Too Many Cars?

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Why is Times Square so crowded? An article in yesterday’s New York Times considered that question, asking real estate brokers if businesses might be shying away from the area due to packed streets and sidewalks. According to a survey cited in the article, 68 percent of Times Square office workers say congestion is the top […]

New York Times Under-Reports Cyclist Fatalities

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The New York Times printed an error in the news brief reporting the death of Darren Lewis, the 20-year-old bike messenger killed by a truck in Midtown on Thursday. The Times reported that twelve cyclists were killed in New York City last year. According to the NYPD, 24 cyclists were killed on the city’s streets in 2005, twice […]

Times Building Continues to Discourage Bike Commuting

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In the latest episode of the New York Times Building vs. bike commuters saga, building management is tagging chained bikes with notes threatening to clip and "remove" them. After being promised space in the new, 1.5 million square foot building, cyclists were barred from bringing their bikes in for months. Management finally opened a small […]

Does Times Real Estate VP’s “Joke” Betray Anti-Bike Bias?

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In December, Streetsblog reported on the lack of bicycle parking in the new New York Times Building, despite promises to bike-commuting staff that there would be space inside. We talked to several Times employees who said that after initially being allowed to bring their bikes in, they were suddenly denied entry. A months-long standoff of […]