The 144,160 parking placards registered in the city inventory have been reduced by over 25,000, Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler announced yesterday. The cutbacks are targeted at what many frustrated drivers see as an abuse of a system that lets police, teachers and civil servants park for free at meters and many off-limits areas. Initial cuts have focused on the 80,770 placards issued to 68 city agencies, exempting the 63,390 placards used by the Education Department.......

How do people leave their homes in the morning? Since Thursday, three people have been killed by vehicles in Brooklyn. Early this morning, the Post reports that "one person was killed and two others were injured" when a van hit them at Avenue U and East 33rd Street in Marine Park. A witness said, "I was in my basement when I heard a big bang. First I heard the hand on the horn and......

Turns out the number parking placards sloshing around New York is over 142,000, twice the number guesstimated by Mayor Bloomberg’s office when he announced a 20% cutback on the placards, which allow police, teachers and civil servants to park for free at meters and many off-limits areas. The new total does not take into consideration the number of counterfeit and expired placards, and the city is still not done counting, so this preliminary total is......

Demonstrating just how valuable free parking in New York City is, a rash of smash and grab thefts has struck areas in Washington Heights and the Bronx, where firefighters have had their car windows broken and parking placards stolen. Most of the thefts have occurred right outside of firehouses, usually when members are called out to a fire, according to the New York Post. The recent increase in placard jacking began shortly after Mayor Bloomberg......

Late Wednesday night, an 82-year-old woman crossing Delancey Street at Allen was fatally hit by an SUV driver. The driver, who was traveling west on Delancey, stayed on the scene was not charged with a crime. The Daily News says the woman, Josephine LaPlaca, was known as the "Queen of Delancey Street," because, as one person put it, "She knew everybody and everything about the neighborhood. It's going to be weird without her." Relatives said......

Eugenio Cidron, the man who killed bicyclist Eric Ng in 2006 after driving drunk down the West Side bike path instead of the West Side Highway following a holiday party at Chelsea Piers, was sentenced yesterday to three to 10 years in prison. Cidron had driven over a plastic pylon to enter the path from Chelsea Piers and had been driving south for a mile before hitting Ng, who was traveling north. Cidron, who pleaded......

Mayor Bloomberg has announced that the city will crackdown on the abuse of parking permits issued to civil servants, reducing the overall number by 20%. The change comes after the Post revealed in November that “149 separate government entities had qualified for the coveted placards last year, ranging from the state lottery to the US Navy recruiting office, which was allocated an astonishing 110 permits.” In fact, so many agencies produce and distribute the parking......

Two sisters were hit by an SUV that "barreled down Richards Street" in Brooklyn yesterday evening. The girls had been grocery shopping with their mother, who had been pushing the grocery cart and was not hurt. The family was apparently steps away from their building door. The SUV, driven by a 48-year-old man, jumped the curb, hit the girls, then, per the Daily News, "continued on for some 200 feet, striking two parked cars" and......

A 65-year-old man was killed during his bicycle ride to work when he was struck by an open car door in the bike lane at 6th Avenue and 36th Street. David Smith was then pushed off his bike and into the path of a box truck, which hit him. Smith lived on West 9th Street and worked as an engineer at Town Hall in midtown. His partner of 36 years John Moody said that he......

The pedestrian, bicyclist and sensible transportation advocacy group Transportation Alternatives has just launched a new website, Crash Maps: CrashStat 2.0, which maps intersections and streets where pedestrians and bicyclists have been hit by vehicles. It's an updated version of their previous map, and when the information is presented different depending on how closely you zoom into the map. For instance, at one level, it shows crashes (those with injuries as well as the fatal......

The intersection of Liberty Avenue and Crescent Street in Brooklyn was the scene of two separate incidents of pedestrians being hit by vehicles. According ot the Daily News, the first incident occurred by 12:30PM, when an elderly woman was hit at the East New York intersection. Then at around 2PM, a girl was hit by a cement truck. What are the odds of two people being hit at the same place within 90 minutes? A......

The bicyclist who died while riding on the Manhattan Bridge Friday night was identified as 27-year-old Brooklyn resident Sam Hindy. Hindy's father Stephen, a former Middle East correspondent for the AP and Newsday reporter who later co-founded the Brooklyn Brewery, said, "We're just devastated. This is the worst thing that could happen to any parent. It's any parent's worst nightmare." Sam Hindy and a friend were riding back from Manhattan to Brooklyn on the upper......

Trying to walk in certain city neighborhoods is fast becoming an extreme sport. Between the new, bigger newsstands and bus shelters, the perpetually metastasizing newspaper boxes on every corner, the increasing popularity of alfresco dining, the delivery guys on their bikes and – let’s not forget – tourists, wending your way down the sidewalk without reaching for your Taser demands a degree of patience not often found in your average New Yorker. A month after......

Yesterday morning, two men riding bicycles were killed in separate accidents. Both occurred in Brooklyn. Around 4AM, the a 26-year-old at Union Avenue and Ten Eyck Street in East Williamsburg was hit by an oil truck. WABC reported that he was cycling in the wrong direction. The cyclist, identified as Craig Murphy [sic] who is a member of RightRides, died at the scene. The truck driver was not charged. Then, in Bedford Stuyvesant, around 6AM,......

Today, all over the city, ordinary parking spaces will be transformed into temporary public "parks." The Trust for Public Land has organized a nationwide Park(ing) Day, and there are a number of these Park(ing) projects all over the city - Open Plans has the details on the NYC locations. For instance, Colin Beaven, "No Impact Man," will be sponsoring a Park(ing) Lot at 7th Ave, between 24th and 26th Sts.; Times Up & Green......

Early this morning, a pedestrian was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver. WABC 7 reports that the police received "several 911 calls for a motor vehicle accident involving a pedestrian lying in the roadway" after 1:10AM. The victim, a man in his 30s who officials believe may be homeless (he had no ID), was pronounced dead at St. Vincent's Hospital. A 51-year-old man, who was driving a 2006 red Chevy Avalanche, has been arrested......

In recent years, Third Avenue in Brooklyn has seen three children killed by vehicular traffic. Last year, 4-year-old James Rice was fatally struck by a Hummer at Third Avenue and Baltic Avenue, and in 2004, PS 124 Juan Estrada and Victor Flores were fatally struck by a vehicle as they crossed Third Avenue at Ninth Street, just blocks away. On Tuesday, arts organization Groundswell Community Mural Project unveiled a mural at Third and Butler:......

Yesterday morning, a 77-year-old Queens man walking in Chinatown was injured when he seemingly fell into the path of a police cruiser. Tong Hong had been walking with his adult daughter at Canal and Broadway and tripped on his flip-flops, sending him into the windshield of the cruiser. Hong was bleeding profusely, and the Daily News says there was a "basketball-sized, spider-web crack on the driver's side windshield." However, one witness thought that the cruiser......

The Department of Transportation announced that Central Park's West Drive will be car free until 8AM starting on Monday, August 6. Per the DOT's press release, via Streetsblog: Beginning Monday, August 6th, the West Drive of Central Park between Lenox Avenue and the 7th Avenue Exit will be closed to motor vehicles for an additional hour (7-8am) during the morning peak period. Currently, the West Drive is open to motor vehicles between the hours......

The Daily News has an exclusive with Jan Gehl, the Danish architect the Department of Transportation would like to hire to help reduce congestion in the city. It's a nice introduction to Gehl, who has worked on congestion-reducing projects in London and Copenhagen, but it also seems like the perfect article to fire up passions. Gehl said, "...we can do is to reduce the number of parking spots. I would raise the price for......

As the clock is counting down the time Albany has to approve Mayor Bloomberg's ambitious - and controversial - congestion pricing plan in order to qualify for $500 million in federal funding, Westchester Assemblyman Richard Brodsky is getting ready to explain why Albany shouldn't. He is releasing a report that calls congestion pricing "un-enactable". He suggests that the Mayor's plan is very different from what's before the Legislature. From the NY Sun:While Mr. Bloomberg......

Doug Gordon (former Ask Gothamist contributor) put almost 10 minutes worth of footage of cars entering Prospect Park after 7PM, when it's supposed to be closed to traffic, on YouTube. StreetFilms' Clarence Eckerson Jr. edited it down and added a counter of how many cars actually enter over a 15 minute period - you can see that video above. We can't decide what makes us more crazed: The cars that try to squeeze through......

Let's paraphrase what we wrote yesterday: How is it again, with Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan riding their bikes, that NYC remains a bike-unfriendly city? Yesterday, two bicyclists died in separate incidents in Brooklyn and the Bronx. At 9AM, 18-year-old Luis Ramos was biking to his job at George's Spanish and American Restaurant when a woman opened her car door in his path on Flushing Avenue near Beaver Street. The Post......

The new commissioner of the Department of Transportation won the hearts of not just bicyclists but other people who love Central Park the other day: Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan told Streetsblog that she was considering a car-free Central Park trial this summer. (It sounds like transverse traffic will remain.) The Sun calls this a departure from "predecessor, Iris Weinshall, who had vetoed a similar plan arguing that closing the park's roadway loop to motorists would worsen......

Today was Transportation Alternatives' Battle for the Fastest Commute! where a bike rider, subway rider, and cab rider are pitted against each other to see who can get to a destination fastest. This year, the race started at 8:25AM at Fix Cafe on North 11th Street and Bedford in Williamsburg and ended at Bellevue Hospital at East 26th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan. And results? Lucie Olewinski, the bicyclist, was the fastest, making......

Anyone who has attempted to walk or bike from one side of Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza to another knows that it can be a difficult journey, through which a constantly swiveling head is required to keep an eye on traffic coming from seemingly every direction. The above overhead image shows just a portion of the plaza where five different roads converge in an inner traffic loop, including Eastern Parkway and Prospect Park West, and......

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......

After the Sun mentioned the Mayor's upcoming Earth Day PlaNYC speech may include mention of a congestion tax, even more details about what the speech will include have come out. The NY Times says the Mayor is "expected to advocate more than 100 proposals," from cleaning up polluted sites to making buildings more energy efficient. The most controversial part of the plan is the congestion pricing idea. The NY Times says Bloomberg administration staffers......

April 20-21: Wine Rave NYC Wine Rave NYC is an event designed to take away the stuffiness from wine events. There will be tastings galore, plus "Sips of Wisdom," brief presentations from experts, and the "Hip Sips Lounge," where you can talk to wine industry insiders. Friday, April 20 from 6 to 10 pm and Saturday, April 21 from 5 to 10 pm. $65 general admission, $100 VIP tickets, available online, by calling 212-352-9900 or......

Tomorrow night, Brooklyn's Community Board 6 will discuss the future of 9th Street between Third Avenue and Prospect Park West for a while. The Department of Transportation has proposed a plan that would improve pedestrian safety and create bike lanes along 9th Street; you can see the plan here. Streetsblog says it's "a great plan" "from a Livable Streets perspective," but notes opposition from residents who are worried they won't be able to double......