Photograph by Eye Captain on Flickr The Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission has recommended a slightly different congestion pricing plan than the one the mayor made last year. Streetsblog got a look at the recommendation and toplines some of the details:An $8 fee to drive into Manhattan south of 60th Street on weekdays between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. (the mayor's plan had a cut-off of 86th Street Trucks pay $21, except for low-emission trucks......

Like many, whenever we traverse any streets along Grand Army Plaza, we basically run (or bike) for our lives. So we were relieved when we read the Department of Transportation's announcement that construction has begun on the $400,000 project to remake the oval plaza constructed in 1870 by Olmsted and Vaux. It was originally called Prospect Park Plaza, but it was renamed in 1926 to pay homage to the Union Army, according to the......

This Sunday, the Mayor will formally unveil more PlaNYC details (though the website has been up for a while now). He'll give the speech at the American Museum of Natural History, to which New York Mag says, "while we're excited to see the plan, we confess the museum's symbolism is making us nervous: dinosaurs … carcasses … oy." MUSIC: Celebrate the earth with some tunes this weekend at the Green Apple Music Festival. Musicians will......

Last night's Department of Transportation presentation to Park Slope's Community Board 6 brought out hundreds of residents. Streetsblog has excellent coverage, noting that CB6 rejected the plan to turn Sixth and Seventh Avenues into one-way streets and residents want comprehensive planning, versus "secretive, top-down, traffic engineer-driven planning." Streetsblog also has a bootlegged copy of the presentation that lacks many details. In this plan you will find nothing about traffic calming, pedestrian counts the numerous......

Newsday reports that NYPD Assistant Chief Bruce Smolka is retiring. While many officers Newsday spoke to love Smolka, he leaves behind an interesting legacy. Let's paraphrase Aaron Naparstek's 2005 piece about Smolka for the NY Press' 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers issue:...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......