New York streets, kangaroos and global warming, and cellphone accidents: Ramping up, August 13

Big Apple does it, why can't we?

New York held the first of its August street closures for recreation on Saturday, with 6.9 miles of roadway connecting Central Park to the Brooklyn Bridge, via Park and Lexington avenues, among others. The roads were closed for six hours at the request of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has been displaying his green thumb of late. Streetsblog Los Angeles has some excellent video that I sincerely hope someone in the mayor's office in Los Angeles studies very closely.

Accidents caused by cellphones underreported

Tribune transportation columnist John Hilkevitch reports that Illinois authorities believe the number of crashes caused by cellphones is underreported because police don't always do the paperwork.

He also reviewed the 1,357 crashes in which cellphones were listed as a factor in Illinois last year. Among those were 442 cases of drivers failing to reduce speed to avoid crashes, 113 cases of drivers following a vehicle too closely and six cases of motorists driving the wrong way or on the wrong side of the road.

Congestion pricing plan for Golden Gate Bridge dies

Officials had been looking at charging more during rush hour after getting a $158-million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Chronicle reports. Unpopular with the masses -- particularly those from Marin County -- the feds agreed to let the region use the money to do variable-priced parking meters.

The idea, often pushed here by UCLA professor Donald Shoup, is to encourage more turnover so people don't have to keep circling to find parking spaces.

Escalade going hybrid

Grist says it best about the house-sized SUV: "The hybrid version of the Escalade gets 50% better fuel economy in city driving than its non-hybrid counterpart, bringing it up to a whoppingly unimpressive 20 miles per gallon."

Eat kangaroo to reduce your carbon footprint

A study by the University of New South Wales suggests that Australia could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by replacing cattle and sheep ranching with about 175 million kangaroos, which produce far less methane than cows and sheep, reports Reuters. Another option for everyone is to drive less. I had rack of 'roo at Saddle Peak Lodge once. It was kind of tasty.

More boots in Long Beach?

The Long Beach city auditor says booting more cars with five or more unpaid tickets could raise $2.5 million to help erase the city's budget deficit, reports the Long Beach Press-Telegram. One recent analysis shows there were nearly 19,000 motorists with five or more tickets, costing the city $11.7 million in unpaid fines.

Video of Santa Monica bike protest

I had a short item Friday saying cyclists that night were going to protest the over-policing of Critical Mass rides in Santa Monica. In fact, the cyclists responded to getting 14 citations the previous week by walking back and forth in a crosswalk and tying up traffic for a while. Streetsblog Los Angeles has video, via Dailymotion.

Later today on Bottleneck

Sales tax update(s!) and hopefully my opus-in-the-works on biking, planning and mass transit in Portland.

Also, you may want to check out these recent items:

California high-speed rail dispute, Copenhagen and bikes and Oropeza says she's prepared to kill sales tax bill.

--Steve Hymon

Park Avenue photo: Michael Nagle / Getty Images

Golden Gate photo: Eric Risberg / AP

Kangaroo photo: Mark Duncan / AP