Cars: Just Say No

 

By Frank Filocomo

My war against cars continues...

The coldness of the city, which every New Yorker can feel, is compounded by its prioritization of cars over people. 

In the Big Apple, pedestrians take a backseat - no pun intended - to these four-wheel death contraptions. 

In Streetsblog NYC, Nolan Hicks reported on a pedestrian that was struck and killed by a van making an illegal maneuver:

According to the NYPD, the driver, whose name was not released, pulled out of a parking garage on Morton Street just east of Seventh Avenue at around 8:30 a.m. But instead of turning right to drive eastbound on one-way Morton, he made the illegal left, and then struck and killed the 27-year-old woman. 

This, regrettably, is all too common.  

Too many drivers are indifferent to the welfare of pedestrians, and think that the world revolves around them and their vehicles. 

Thus, following the rules of the road become secondary:

Residents of the area said that many drivers make the illegal left turn to head the wrong way on Morton from the garage because it eliminates the need to circle around the block with a right on Bleecker Street and then a second right onto Carmine Street before making the left onto Seventh Avenue.

So, this young woman, who had her whole life ahead of her, is dead because some self-centered ass wanted to shave a few minutes off of his commute. 

This is, in many ways, emblematic of our me-centric culture. 

A few days ago, I was crossing the street in front of my building. Our municipal government, which is profoundly incompetent, somehow managed to make the crosswalk more dangerous by placing these ambiguous stop signs, and then subsequently removing them. 

See below:

New crosswalk sign.

These signs, aside from being ambiguous in intent, are inconspicuously placed outside of my building. Many drivers disregard them and plough through the crosswalks without yielding to pedestrians. 

So, when I went to cross the other day, a vehicle saw me, but didn't stop until the last second. I put my hand up, gesturing for him to break. He rolled down his window and shouted, "Hey, s****head!"

Again, what a total ass. 

Pedestrians must be made to feel safe when crossing the street. 

Please also see Streetsblog NYC's blueprint for how our new mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, can make our city more livable. 

As Kevin Duggan writes, it is incumbent on the city to "reduce the dominance of cars."