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A group of cyclists in Los Angeles continues its guerrilla rides on city freeways. In this video, via Streetsblog LA, riders are joined by rollerbladers as they cut through idling traffic on the 405. The "Crimanimal Mass" movement has gotten more sophisticated since the previous video installment, what with the narrative-style editing, helpful graphics and what seems to be an original score (which I could only tolerate for about four minutes before muting).

Read all about the "If You Rode a Bike You'd Be Home By Now" rides here.

Video: richtothele/YouTube

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A tipster sends this shot from earlier today of a newly-painted bike lane on Prince Street.

After the jump, DOT bike program coordinator Josh Benson answers a question from a City Room reader about painted lanes.

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From Transportation Alternatives' Spring 2008 magazine:

The biggest hurdle congestion pricing faced was the simple fact that the people required to enact the legislation were the ones who stood to pay the most because of it.

On Monday, April 7, Sheldon Silver walked out of a closed door meeting of State Assembly Democrats and announced congestion pricing was dead. Never mind that New York City's mayor and City Council supported the plan along with the governor, the State Senate and an unprecedented coalition of business, labor, environmental and civic groups. Like so much else in Albany, the decision was made in secret, without a debate, a vote or even a record of the proceedings.

Until congestion pricing came around, I never paid all that much attention to Albany. Sure, I knew about the sex and graft scandals, the "three men in a room," and the Brennan Center reports showing New York's government has more in common with the old Soviet Politburo than America's 49 other state legislatures. I knew "dysfunctional" was the official adjective to describe Albany. But the dysfunction never seemed to impinge on my own life in any immediate, tangible way. Until congestion pricing.

I was really looking forward to seeing motorists pay to drive into Lower Manhattan. While I understood the importance of $354 million in federal aid, $491 million per year in revenue for transit and fewer kids growing up with asthma, this wasn't what pumped me up. What I liked most about congestion pricing was the fact that the people who make life in New York City most miserable -- the armada of horn-honking, exhaust-spewing, space-hogging, oil-guzzling, climate change-inducing motorheads that rolls through my neighborhood every day, to and from the free East River bridges, were finally going to have to pay for the privilege.

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Un-Shoupian parking policy on display on Brooklyn's Fourth Avenue

The Toronto Star gave parking policy maven Donald Shoup some major play earlier this week, running a profile of the UCLA professor excerpted from journalist Tim Falconer's new book, "Drive." In the piece, we learn why Shoup believes planners are apt to make bad judgments when it comes to the optimum supply of off-street parking:

...planning departments always insist that developers include a minimum number of parking spots. Shoup doesn't have much respect for the ability of urban planners to determine how many spots are necessary. Since planners don't learn anything about parking in school, they learn it on the job, but because parking is so political -- NIMBY neighbours constantly squawk at the thought of anyone parking on their street -- what they really learn is the politics of parking.

Hardly surprising, perhaps, but certainly applicable to New York, where parking minimums have facilitated pedestrian-hostile development, as on Brooklyn's Fourth Avenue. It also raises the question: Even if the city were to muster the political will to adopt Shoupian pricing for on-street parking (following the lead of San Francisco and Washington), would it have the fortitude to address another big part of the equation by reforming zoning regs that require parking in certain residential buildings?

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Granted, I always secretly hoped that Tom Hanks would play the Aaron Naparstek role in "Honku: The Movie" but Tim Robbins' new film "Noise" is, without question, the early runner-up for Streetsblog's 2008 Movie of the Year:

David (Oscar-winner and New York City resident Tim Robbins) is a successful lawyer who can’t stand the fact that Manhattan is a place where it’s too noisy to get a good night’s sleep, listen to classical music, or even make love to his wife without disturbance. Every time David hears a car alarm going off, he swings into action. Adopting the guise of “The Rectifier,” he engages in acts of vandalism that satisfy him immensely but which generate no end of grief from his wife (Bridget Moynahan). They also make him politically controversial when he provokes the ire of the city’s arrogant mayor (Oscar-winner William Hurt).

Best of all, "Noise" offers up the most concise and accurate summary of NYPD traffic enforcement policy I've ever seen:

"You don't come when the car is attacking us, only when we're attacking the car."

-- Tim Robbins to New York City police officer.

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For what it's worth, a Quinnipiac poll released today again shows that Americans aren't buying into the Clinton-McCain gas tax "holiday" gimmick.

By a 49 - 41 percent margin, American voters say eliminating the federal gas tax for the summer is a bad idea... Republicans split 45 - 46 percent on the gas tax 'holiday,' while Democrats say 49 - 42 percent it's a bad idea and independent voter turn thumbs down 56 -38 percent.

The proposed gas tax cut is a loser in red states, 48 - 42 percent, blue states, 49 - 43 percent and purple - or swing - states, 51 - 39 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh- pe-ack) University poll finds.

"Rising gas prices are more than just an abstract worry. Americans say they've cut back on their household spending and on how much they drive," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

"But the political quick fix - a gasoline tax holiday for the summer - has more opposition than support. Imagine that: American voters opposed to a tax cut."

Sounds encouraging, except that those polled apparently don't see their own consumption as part of the problem: 

"Who's to blame? Oil companies and President Bush get more blame even than the oil producing countries. And almost nobody is blaming gas guzzlers," Carroll said.

On that point, the Q-polled public and its Congress agree.

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• Paterson, Bloomberg Split Over Who Should Build Moynihan Station (Post, NY1)
• Bush Admin: Threat to Polar Bear No Reason to Curb Emissions (Dot Earth)
• EPA Wants to Know What Makes You Bike to Work -- Or Not (Greenversations)
• Expensive Gas Leads High School Seniors to Bike to Class (Journal News)
• DOT Bike Honcho Josh Benson Answers NYT Reader Questions 
• Alternate-Side Parking Suspended 'Indefinitely' in Park Slope (NYT)
• City Room Explains Select Bus Service, Dissects Its Aesthetics
• What It Will Take to Plug the MTA Budget Hole (Gotham Gazette)
  
• Bx Developer Wants to Add Parking to Make Project Profitable (R'dale Press)
• Plans to Widen NJ Turnpike Advance as Traffic Declines (MTR)

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With higher gas prices pushing drivers onto the city's trains and buses, the Daily News today blasted Speaker Sheldon Silver and Assembly Dems for passing up the billions of dollars that congestion pricing would have brought to MTA coffers. 

The trends prove that the theory of congestion pricing was valid: When the cost of driving rises, people actually do switch to mass transit.

Had Silver and the Assembly passed congestion pricing, as the City Council did, the MTA would already be using that $354 million in federal aid (which has now been disbursed about the country) to make more bus and subway seats available.

Then, the congestion fee would have given the MTA a half-billion dollars a year to pay for big projects like completing the Second Ave. subway and extending LIRR service to Grand Central Terminal. When that money vanished, the MTA's building plan was eviscerated.

The agency does not have the money it needs to keep the transit system in good repair, let alone to expand. Gov. Paterson has asked the estimable Richard Ravitch, a former MTA chairman, to hunt up cash.

He'll find no easy fixes. Option 1: Raise taxes. Option 2: Raise fares. Option 3: Congestion pricing.

Pricing foes must be waiting for Ravitch to make the next move, because we've heard virtually nothing from them since the plan was smothered behind closed doors over a month ago -- other than demands for improved transit service.

But what of Brodsky, Glick, and Weiner? Or Bearak and McCaffrey? Where are they now that their storied working class drivers, priced out of their cars, must rely on a beleaguered transit system that doesn't have the fiscal boost promised by congestion pricing?

Oh, right. They're stuck in traffic.

Graphic: New York Daily News 

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From Transportation Alternatives: 

Tonight the DOT will be presenting their plans for improved Manhattan Bridge bike access via the Chrystie Street bike lane to Community Board 3. This plan is going to involve the removal of parking along Chrystie Street, so it is anticipated that there will be resistance at the Community Board level.

It would be great to have supportive cyclists in the room. The details are as follows:

What: CB 3 Transportation Committee Meeting on Chrystie Street Bike Lane

When: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 6:30 PM

Where: Confucius Plaza, Community Room - 33 Bowery (at Bayard Street)

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A tipster who attended last night's MAS event about Moynihan Station sent us this delicious tidbit, in which some small measure of justice is served for Westchester Assemblyman Richard Brodsky's contribution to the killing of congestion pricing:

Scheduled to appear at a panel discussion on the fate of Moynihan Station beginning at 6:30 pm Tuesday at the Municipal Art Society headquarters, congestion pricing foe Assemblyman Richard Brodsky arrived at 7:20 pm, more than halfway through the event. His empty seat prompted more than a few raised eyebrows. At one point, someone observed that Brodsky was "stuck in transit." Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for NYC, a congestion pricing advocate, riposted: "Stuck in traffic."

When Brodsky arrived, he was contrite. "There was an accident," he said. "This unintentional disrespect I deeply apologize for."

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Yesterday, a 9-year-old Brooklyn boy was run down in the street while on his way home from school. The 16-year-old driver, Shyquan Burns, was behind the wheel of a souped-up Dodge Charger. Witnesses say Burns, who fled the scene but later turned himself into police, was speeding. The victim, Akeem Suluki, was in critical condition as of this morning and had not regained consciousness since being hit.

Above is the unfortunate product placement accompanying the New York Times write-up of the collision. After the jump is the Post's, whose software might be smart enough to link a Chrysler ad with an article that mentions a Dodge, but isn't so advanced as to recognize words like "hit" or "thrown," or phrases like "collapsed lung" and "bleeding on the brain." 

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How cynical is this? Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries is calling on the MTA to increase service on the G train. His office just sent out an invitation to a "Save the G Train" rally on Wednesday, March 21 at 6:30 pm at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene.

Hakeem Jeffries was, of course, in the perfect position to negotiate G train service enhancements during the congestion pricing debate a couple of months back. Instead, the Assemblyman who oversees Flatbush Avenue, the traffic-choked on-ramp to the free Manhattan Bridge, aligned himself with legislators from Westchester, south Brooklyn and eastern Queens against congestion pricing:

Speaking on behalf of a district where 70 percent of households do not own a car, where only 2.2 percent of daily commuters drive alone to work in the pricing zone, where the households that do own a vehicle earn nearly twice as much as the ones that don't, Jeffries said that he opposes congestion pricing because, among other reasons, "it's unfair to working families."

Thanks to Jeffries and his State Assembly colleagues' refusal to hold a debate or take a vote on New York City's congestion pricing plan, the MTA is staring at a $17.5 billion deficit in its $29 billion capital plan and service increases are about as unlikely as ever. "Save the G" advocates need to hold Jeffries accountable.

Here, by the way, are some of the other improvements that working families (and everyone else) in Jeffries' district lost when he and his colleagues shot down congestion pricing:

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Funding shortfalls and logistical hurdles may be delaying plans to replace Penn Station, but the Municipal Art Society's campaign for Moynihan Station is not letting up. The MAS has been on a roll this spring, hosting a series of events related to the West Side project. This video, posted yesterday, features former Washington Post reporter Don Phillips and Metro-North lawyer Walter Zullig, Jr. discussing the project within the context of the regional rail network.

Rail enthusiasts jonesing for pictures of gorgeous new stations will get their fix in the first part of the video, which shows some recently completed projects -- in Europe, of course. If the Port Authority takes over the Moynihan Station project, might New York finally get a palatial new station of its own?

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Desperate to look as if they're responding to motorists complaints and prayers, state and federal electeds continue to scramble for a quick fix to ever-rising gas prices.

In Albany, Senate Republicans have adopted the state gas tax "holiday" as their issue of the moment. Since the largely-ridiculed measure is going nowhere in the Assembly, Joe Bruno and colleagues can circulate petitions and distribute mailers like the one above with impunity, scoring cheap political points while accomplishing nothing.

But the diddling in Albany seems innocuous when compared to doings in D.C. Yesterday, with George W. Bush enroute to the Middle East, both the House and Senate overwhelmingly voted to divert oil supplies from the federal reserve, even as many lawmakers acknowledged that doing so would at best result in a small, short-term drop in prices at the pump.

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