Good morning. Today is Wednesday. We’ll take a quick look at the limits – speed limits and time limits – driven by the expanding activity of speed cameras in the city. We will also look at a book that is finally allowed to be read where it says it is, except for two pages.
There’s a fascinating truth behind the city’s roughly 2,000 speed cameras, which began operating around the clock on Monday: to be charged a ticket, a car must be seen traveling above the speed limit by at least 11 miles per hour.
On most streets in New York City, the speed limit is 25 mph, so between 25 mph and 36 mph You can run at 30 mph or 35 mph without worrying that the Department of Transportation officer scanning the image from the camera will send you a $50 ticket.
That got us wondering: In a time-driven city like New York, what could be better? Anyway, how elastic is the limit – or how is it absolute? What can you get with?
This quickly becomes a brief history in a short period of time.
“We see time differently,” says Peg Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy. “I’m not sure why, half the time, but we’re in a hurry. When you cross the street and it counts down and goes to zero, you know you have a few seconds left before the light actually turns green. ” She said she ran because “you have at least two seconds to spare.”
What counts as late?
Commuter rail lines like the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North take 5 minutes 59 seconds. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Transport Authority, which operates both lines, said a train is not considered late unless it arrives at least six minutes before the scheduled time.
Amtrak has more rides, less metro. According to the Federal Railroad Administration, intercity passenger trains are not considered late unless they arrive 15 minutes after their scheduled arrival time. But a subway train is considered late if it does not reach the end of the line within 5 minutes of the scheduled time.
New York City has had a 5-minute parking extension since 2010. That gives motorists an extra 5 minutes to move their vehicle after the replacement rules go into effect (9:05 a.m. when the time is on). on a no-parking sign starting at 9 a.m., for example.).
In areas where motorists must take a parking receipt from a street dispenser and place it on a dashboard, the city gives them an extra five minutes to find the dispenser and return the receipt. The city council approved the extension after complaints about traffic officers paying too much attention to the meter and drivers not paying enough.
How can a student be late without being marked late? Late arrival policies are set by each school: The city’s Department of Education does not have a system-wide approach.
Some private schools, like SAR . High School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, tested. SAR used to give students a five-minute break at the beginning of the school day.
“What happened to that was in the minds of the students that the school day started at 8:05,” said Rivka Press Schwartz, vice principal. “If they arrive at 8:06 and we mark them late, the answer is, ‘Are you really going to make me late? I’m only a minute late. ‘ We have to remind students that they are six minutes late, not one. So we shortened the grace period.”
She says there’s a “natural tendency to push things to the limit that you can get away with”.
“What will happen with speed cameras, I am sure, is that people will just define the speed limit as 35, not 25,” she said. “Generally speaking, we follow the rules that we are forced to follow. Anyone driving on a highway in what appears to be the posted norm knows that. “
Weather
A sunny day is forecast, with maximum temperatures around 90. In the evening, the forecast is mostly clear, with temperatures dropping to the mid-70s.
PARKING OUTSIDE
Valid until August 15 (Hang Thuan Festival).
There are 10 places where the last history of Attica Prison’s Deadly Uprising of 1971 banned long ago – state prisons in New York, including Attica.
The currentin response to a First Amendment lawsuit from the author, the ban was lifted, except for two pages showing a map of the Attica Correctional Facility. Prison officials are cutting the map out of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Blood in the Water” by Heather Ann Thompson, above, a professor at the University of Michigan.
They are also inserting a copy of what appears on the back of one of the pages – a list of 43 people who died in the uprising at a maximum security prison in upstate New York. Among the dead were 10 guards and civilian prison staff who were held hostage by inmates for four days.
The state attorney general’s office wrote to Judge Edgardo Ramos of the Federal District Court in Manhattan last week, said the lawsuit should be dismissed. The letter said editing officials concluded that New York’s “incarcerated population” could view the paperback edition of “Blood in the Water,” excluding the map. Hardcover editions, with maps on the back cover, are still not allowed, but prison officials will substitute paperbacks for anyone who receives a hardcover copy.
My colleagues Benjamin Weiser said the dispute arose as the book ban became an issue for libraries and school curricula around the country. Officials have tried to justify banning books in prisons by saying that certain information can be legally denied – instructions for making weapons or planning an escape, for example.
Thompson’s attorneys wrote to Judge Ramos on Monday, arguing that the case should not be dismissed. Thompson is seeking an injunction against the Department of Community Editing and Oversight from preventing distribution of the book.
Thompson, whose lawsuit also seeks a system to notify her if the agency censors copies of copies she sends to inmates, noted that one of the problems that caused the uprising in Attica was that censorship by editing officials.
“The men in Attica are generally not allowed to read the letters sent to them,” she said. “They are usually not allowed to read the books that will come to them in the mail. And one of the things they just asked for is the basic recognition that they are human and that they have the right to read. “
METROPOLITAN . Diary
Climb up
Dear Diary:
I was expecting a friend to visit me at my fourth-floor Manhattan walk last summer. In the full-time New York City way, when she called to say she had arrived, I opened the window and threw a package with the front door key inside for her.
Unfortunately, the packet got caught on a tree branch with all its glorious leaves. My friend, Jocelyn, asked two passing women to help unpack the package.
The three of them grabbed the trunk and tried to shake it, but the tree didn’t move. One of the women took off one of her new white sneakers and tossed it in the package a few times. On the fourth attempt, the shoelace got stuck on a branch.
The other woman, hoping to knock down her shoe, threw her stick at the tree. Several throws later, the stick got caught in a branch. Without a goodbye or a wave, they limped down 9th Avenue.
Winter comes and all the leaves fall on the tree. The shoe is still hanging there. The packet and the stick were nowhere to be seen.
– Shela Xoregos
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and Read more Metropolitan Diary here.
So glad we can get together here. See you tomorrow. – JB
PS This is for today Small crosswords and Spell Bee. You can find all our quizzes here.
Melissa Guerrero, Jeffrey Furticella, Rick Martinez and Olivia Parker contributed to New York Today. You can contact the team at [email protected].
