Charles Komanoff
Recent Posts
What We Don’t Know About the Crash That Killed Aileen Chen
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Here are a dozen questions pertaining to the crash that took the life of 16-year-old Stuyvesant H.S. student Aileen Chen as she rode her bicycle last Saturday a block from her home in Borough Park at around 6 p.m. How fast was the BMW traveling when Aileen and her bicycle first came into view? How […]
Response to NYC Traffic Violence Rooted in Ignorance
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Even with New York City pedestrian deaths dropping in recent years, there’s no end in sight to the horror from driver-caused deaths, and little letup in police fecklessness and politicians’ and media grandstanding on traffic dangers. This morning brought news of the death of Laurence Renard yesterday evening on the Upper East Side. The 35-year-old […]
In Memoriam: Ted Kheel, Transit Advocate and Visionary
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The New York Times called Ted Kheel, who died Friday at the age of 96, New York City’s pre-eminent labor peacemaker from the 1950s through the 1980s. And he was. Ted was also a steadfast advocate for civil rights, a fierce champion of mass transit, a stalwart defender of labor, an urbanist, a philanthropist, and […]
Post Reader to Cuozzo: Why Not Acknowledge That Streets Are Getting Safer?
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Streetsblog contributor Charles Komanoff wrote this letter to New York Post columnist Steve Cuozzo yesterday morning. At the time we posted it, he had yet to receive a reply. Hi Steve — I wrote you two years ago, contrasting your column in the Post disparaging the Grand Street bike lane, with my son’s and my […]
Framing the New Broadway: “Green Ribbon” or “Narrow Passageway”?
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Recession or depression? Estate taxes or death taxes? How events or policies are named, or “framed,” has become crucial to their viability. Indeed, the ascendancy of the right wing in the U.S. in recent decades is attributed in part to the Right’s mastery of political phraseology to demonize leftist and even centrist policies. Framing affects […]
This Week in NYC Transportation: More Pollution, Less Efficiency
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The federal appeals court verdict this week barring New York City from mandating that new taxicabs be fuel-efficient hybrids has left the mayor fuming and other New Yorkers scratching their heads. Why should Washington pre-empt the city from tripling the fuel-efficiency of our nearly 13,000 yellow cabs, a step that would materially reduce petroleum use, […]
See a Pattern of Deadly Dump Trucks? Don’t Bother Federal Safety Officials
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The driver of a private garbage truck ignored a bicyclist riding alongside and crushed him as the truck rounded the corner of Varick Avenue and Meserole Street in Bushwick last Wednesday evening, BushwickBK.com has reported, citing a preliminary NYPD investigation. According to police, the victim was Eling Rivera, 51, of East New York (a conflicting […]
“Black Box” Standard for New Cars Could Be Big Gain for Street Safety
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While Albany dithers over bus lane cameras, there’s encouraging movement in Washington on a different automated-enforcement front: a rule to equip new cars with "black boxes" capable of recording up to 60 seconds worth of pre-crash data. The NYPD investigation into the 2008 crash that killed cyclist Rasha Shamoon relied heavily on interviews with the […]
Transit Check: Most New Yorkers Take Green Modes to Work
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Everyone knows that public transit, not auto travel, is New York City’s transportation workhorse. Thus it was a little unsettling to get halfway through the ostensibly transit-friendly story in today’s Times, "Take a Taxicab to Work? More New Yorkers Walk," and read that mass transit doesn’t even account for half of the city’s commuting. The […]
The Public Square After Times Square
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As a New Yorker, I’m no stranger to terrorist attacks, but I’ve probably had closer contact than most. I was in historic Fraunces Tavern in the financial district, having lunch, on the winter’s day in 1975 when a bomb ripped through it, killing four people and injuring 44. On 9/11, I was minding my two […]
Biking in NYC Is Up… But How Much?
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The first time I counted bicycles in traffic was in 1988. There were rumors that Mayor Ed Koch was going to reinstate the Midtown bike ban that a judge had set aside the previous summer. As president of Transportation Alternatives, I dispatched a team of volunteers to Midtown avenues with clipboards and stopwatches. Our finding […]
Security Overkill Strikes Again
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Maybe it was the NYPD’s revenge for the disgracing of rookie cop (and detective’s son) Patrick Pogan, now on trial for his brutal takedown two years ago of Critical Mass cyclist Christopher Long. Or perhaps it was just the latest manifestation of the post-9/11 security state, in which everything — parked bikes, basic mobility, even […]