Sarah Goodyear

From the newsletter of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign comes an inspiring summation of the effects of congestion pricing in London since the program's inception in 2003, gleaned from Transport for London's annual report:

A rendering of a mural proposed for Butler St. and Third Ave., one block from the Brooklyn intersection where a 4-year-old boy was killed by the driver of a Hummer in February.

Supporters of congestion pricing rallied yesterday in Times Square, urging state lawmakers to act by July 16 on Mayor Bloomberg's initiative or risk losing $500 million in federal funds. "The time is now," said the mayor, according to the New York Post. "We cannot walk away from this opportunity." 

The New York Times published an editorial today about "an unpleasant and inescapable truth: any serious effort to fight [global] warming will require everyone to pay more for energy."

Mayor Leads Times Square Rally for Congestion Plan (NYT, Post, Daily News) RELATED: Congestion Pricing Campaign Steps Up (NY Sun) Straphangers on 7 Get Chance to Rate the Ride (Daily News) Second Ave. Subway Plan Adjusted for Food Emporium (NY Sun) McDonald’s in UK to Use Frying Oil for Fuel (Greenbiz) China Rejects Binding Emissions … Continued

The debate is over, and as of today the Ninth St. bike lanes are swiftly becoming a reality.

A bike-share station in Lyon, France

Back in April, Marcelo Ebrad, the mayor of Mexico City, announced he wanted those who worked in his administration to ride bicycles to work one day a month (at right, Ebrard, center, kicks off the program). Many were shocked at the idea, or simply laughed it off. But this excellent article in the San Diego Union details how the mayor's decree to his employees has meshed with several other initiatives to raise the profile of bicycling as a legitimate form of transportation in the traffic-clogged city:

The Village Voice took a trip down lower Broadway earlier this week to see how smoothly the new bus lanes were flowing. The answer? Despite reports of stepped-up enforcement, change is not coming quickly to the traffic culture of Lower Manhattan -- as you can see from the picture at right, which shows a bus trying to lay claim to a spot in the "buses-only" lane.

Over on the New York Times's City Room blog, Sewell Chan reports on opposition to the July 8 closing of the West 72nd St. exit ramp from the West Side Highway, a move that has been fought in court for years by neighborhood activists. The off-ramp is being demolished at the request of the Extell Development Company, which is constructing the massive Riverside South residential complex, to enable the extension of Riverside Boulevard, the complex's main street. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has tried to make the case that poses a security risk, issuing a statement that said, in part: