Liberal Serving

White Woman Refuses To Give Up Seat On Bus... For No Damned Reason

I'm sure they spent hours looking, but the NY Times found some asshole who wouldn't acknowledge yesterday's Rosa Parks tribute:

Some riders on the same bus continued to sit in the front seat, even when they knew why it was supposed to remain empty.

Joanne Satalino, who is white and from Queens, said: “Oh, no, I ain’t giving mine up. There’s no place left to sit.”

When it was pointed out that there were empty seats nearby, Ms. Satalino said she would surrender the seat to a rider with a cane.

For non-NYer's, Queens has a bit of a history with race issues.  There's a reason Archie Bunker lived there... But Gawker's take was funner:

Which is actually the greatest tribute to Parks’s legacy: Why should an outerborough white ethnic be forced to give up her bus seat for a dead black woman’s memory? It’s unfair. It’s unjust. It’s un-American. Ms. Satalino will overcome!

NYC Transit Honors 50th Anniversary of Rosa Parks Protest

New York City transit (and others) will honor Rosa Parks today by keeping their bus headlights on and leaving the front-most seat empty for her.  It's a simple and beautiful tribute for one of our country's proudest moments.  More on her real story here.

Why Is New York City Paved With Traffic When New Yorkers Walk?

Nice interview with Paul Steely White, who heads up Transportation Alternatives in Gothamist today:

Today 86% of Manhattan-bound commuters manage to travel without a private car, yet in terms of everything from street design to traffic enforcement, our city is still catering to that 14% who drives. And it’s the drivers who take up all the street space, pollute our air, make our streets unsafe. It’s patently unfair.

Well, YEAH, that is unfair. And stupid.  Soooo annoying to me that the sidewalks are hardly big enough for three people abreast on Madison in the 50's, yet the 17-lane wide street only fills up with traffic during rush hour.  More than just complaining (thanks for my commute venting), White has some vision for what a more pedestrian-friendly city could look like:

Ideally, the city should make Broadway car-free. It’s not as crazy as it sounds: it would be a boon for pedestrians that are currently spilling into the street , and traffic patterns would actually improve. Imagine a pedestrian friendly promenade connecting the crown jewels of Battery Park, Union Square, Times Square and Central Park. The tourism draw alone would make it worth it.

Some other folks are suggesting 42nd street be converted to a pedestrian street with surface rail.

Mass Transit Smackdown

As our buddy bush tries to starve Amtrak to death and it's suffering bad press, it's a particularly relevant time to turn our heads to the classic debate over mass transit taking place over at The Truth About Cars. On the liberal side is one Colin Murchie, Director of Government Affairs of the Solar Energy Industries Association:

My taxes bought the road you’re idling on and the troopers and snow plows and medevac flights that come with it; as sure as they bought the El train blowing past you on the left. More than $40 billion per year in the next highway bill, not including state taxes.

Yeah!  So much for "private" transportation.  In reality, only half the cost (perhaps even less) of automobile transportation is covered by your car payment.  Righties always harp on the public financial support that mass transit requires, but I never, ever hear them acknowledge the massive public payout for roads, bridges, traffic signals, and the traffic cops required to keep it all running smoothly.  Would SUVs still fly off the shelves if each one included the cost of building roads?