We’re launching our spring pledge drive here on Streetsblog today, and we have some exciting prizes to give away to contributors. Before I get to that, I thought I’d share a few points about the importance of reader donations to Streetsblog and the impact your gift will have…

• Thanks to support from our readers, we’ve produced in-depth coverage of NYPD’s traffic fatality investigations, exposing the shoddy underpinnings of the department’s victim-blaming crash reports. Your gift will help us sustain this reporting and hold elected officials to their promises to get NYPD to reform its ways.
• Your contribution will also help Streetsblog stay on top of the region’s most important infrastructure story: The Cuomo administration’s headlong rush to build a new Tappan Zee Bridge that only Robert Moses could love — tons of asphalt, and no room for transit. No one is tracking the ins and outs of the Tappan Zee saga and exposing Cuomo’s hypocrisy like Streetsblog.
• And with bike-share around the corner, we need your support to cover what promises to be the biggest livable streets story of the year. Maybe you’ve heard: 10,000 bikes at 600 stations will be on the streets in July. Help us thoroughly report on the preparation, launch, and day-to-day use of North America’s largest public bike system. We won’t let Andrea Peyser get the last word.

We’ve got some great prizes to give away to lucky supporters. First, anyone who contributes $50 or more to Streetsblog NYC or Streetfilms by June 1 will be eligible to win a new Schwinn city bike courtesy of the excellent, family-run Ride Brooklyn bike shop on Bergen Street, just off of Flatbush. You can also enter the drawing by signing up to make a recurring monthly gift of just $4 or more — think of it as a subscription to the fine reporting and commentary you read on Streetsblog.

Here’s what the winner will take home thanks to the Ride Brooklyn folks: a Schwinn Jenny 7 or Schwinn Willy 7 — your choice.

There’s more. Anyone who gives by April 30 will also be eligible to win a one-year subscription to Yes! magazine, which happens to be Pete Seeger’s favorite publication.

Thanks to all our readers for sustaining the work we do here at Streetsblog. Your support keeps us going. Please give and contribute to the high-impact reporting our team cranks out every day.

— Ben