Traffic Cops Really Need Something Better To Do

A priest gets a ticket for double parking while trying to administer last rites:

A Brooklyn priest got slapped with a $115 parking ticket after he rushed into a hospital to administer last rites to a dying woman, the Daily News has learned.

But even after the Rev. Cletus Forson pleaded his case to a traffic judge, the city refused to throw the summons out.

“If the sanctity of the law won’t bend for the needs of a dying person, I feel really sad,” Forson said yesterday.

“It disturbs me as a priest and as a human being,” added the priest, who has served at St. Andrew the Apostle Church on Ridge Blvd. in Bay Ridge for nearly three years.

Forson got hit with the ticket July 26 about 9:30 p.m. for parking in a No Standing Anytime zone in front of Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park.

The 42-year-old Catholic priest, who is originally from Ghana, said he knew the spot was technically illegal but felt he couldn’t risk wasting time continuing to look for a better spot.

He had just received a call from a panicked parishioner desperate to find a priest to administer last rites to her elderly mother. Forson, who was sick in bed with the flu at the time, said he even checked in with a nurse before leaving and was told there was no time to spare.

“I couldn’t get any parking,” said Forson. “It is my obligation to get there and administer to the needs of the sick.”

Forson placed his official clergy parking permit on the dashboard — which reads “Clergy on Call” — and said he was inside for less than 20 minutes.

“It’s not about the money,” said Forson. “It creates the feeling that if somebody is sick, nobody should go. I don’t think that’s right.”

Forson appealed the ticket, but Administrative Law Judge Michael Ciaravino refused to back down.

“Respondent’s claim that vehicle was parked while he, as a pastor, was attending to a patient at a hospital is not a valid defense to the violation,” wrote Ciaravino in the July 28 decision. “Guilty.”

The only thing better would have been if an ambulance pulled up and got a ticket for being double parked.

SJP Has Blood On Her Hands

“Sex and the City” glamorizes cigarette smoking, a Health Department study shows:

Virtually every teen girl interviewed as part of a new Health Department report on smoking said the show influenced their deadly habit.

“Whenever I think of how to smoke, it’s the way Sarah Jessica Parker exhales, and I’m like obsessed,” one 10th-grader said. “I love her, and the way she exhales is very memorable. She kind of … elongates her neck and exhales into the air.”

About 11% of teenagers smoke, according to the Health Department. The highest rates, about 35%, are among white girls.

Researchers ventured into a private high school and asked more than 30 middle and high school girls between the ages of 13 and 18 about smoking.

De Facto Termination!

This will interest only about five people who go to Target on the weekends, but G apologists are openly speculating that the MTA is quietly implementing a “de facto termination” of G service into Queens:

The G train has been called the “stepchild” of the MTA.

It is the only line that doesn’t pass through Manhattan. It runs with just four often-crowded cars per train between Brooklyn and Queens. The trains lack a conductor. Portions stink from sewage that leaks from pipes onto the tracks. It runs its full route only after sunset and on weekends — when it’s not shut for track work.

Sometimes, it even runs in two segments, forcing a transfer.

Still, thousands of people, especially in booming Williamsburg and Greenpoint, depend on it. But the MTA is calling for unspecified subway service cuts in 2007, and G-train riders fear the 13-station Queens Boulevard segment will get axed.

“At this time, we do not know which lines will be affected by cuts,” said MTA New York City Transit spokesman James Anyansi. Specific cuts, if any, will be announced by the end of the year.

Advocates say that the MTA should consider adding train service, given the population boom in the neighborhoods the G serves.

“It really shows a lack of foresight on the part of the MTA,” said Assemb. Joe Lentol (D-Brooklyn). “Greenpoint is becoming a major site of redevelopment on the waterfront.”

Some MTA board members suggested that might be possible, but that’s not reassuring enough for Teresa Toro of rider advocacy group Save The G.

“They’ve already done a de facto termination,” she said.

She was referring to ongoing work to replace Queens tunnel road beds on the G, which runs from Red Hook to Forest Hills. That work has meant no weekend G service between Long Island City and Forest Hills since January. Disruptions will continue until at least Aug. 14, MTA officials say.

On weekdays, the G travels from the Smith-9th streets stop in Red Hook, to Court Square in Long Island City. On weekends and weeknights, it is supposed to continue to the last stop at 71st-Continental in Forest Hills.

There is, however, apparently movement towards extending the G deeper into Brooklyn:

Even though there’s a chance of a partial line closure, there’s actually talk of expanding the G by five stops in Brooklyn, some MTA board members said.

The southernmost G stop is Smith-9th streets in Red Hook. But after the last passenger departs the train, it has to pass five stations, down the F line tunnel to Church Avenue, where there’s enough room to turn the train around. Some MTA board members and rider advocates have suggested that the G simply keep picking up and dropping off passengers since it is going to Church Avenue anyway.

Backstory: G Love (And That Special Sprint); The Little Train That Couldn’t Get Any Respect; Ironic, Because Everyone Knows The G Never Comes.

You Say “Tomato,” I Say “The N And W Lines Suck Eggs”

Tuesday, The New York Times noted that “The No. 6 Is Rated No. 1 In Straphangers’ Report”. Today, the Queens Chronicle reports the real story — “N, W Subway Lines Ranked Worst In City”:

In its annual report on the subway system released Monday, the Straphangers Campaign slapped three Queens subway lines with the dubious distinction of being among the five worst rated. Only one Queens line rated among the five best.

The report, which assessed each line for frequency of service, delays, breakdowns, seat availability, cleanliness and announcement clarity, ranked the N and W lines as worst with a $0.75 “MetroCard” rating, followed by the M with a $0.85 rating and the D, G, R, V with a $0.95 rating. Only the No. 7 line scored among the five best, with a $1.15 rating.

. . .

Kiro, a 31 year old waiter from Kew Gardens, called the E train “cool but smelly,” adding that “the trains aren’t very clean.”

Kenyatta Johnson, 25, of Kew Gardens, had some complaints of his own about the E and F trains that were not covered in the Straphangers report. “I’ve been in a bunch of trains in the past few days that had no air conditioning,” he said. “And I waited almost 45 minutes for a train the other night.”

Johnson also said that the Union Turnpike station was particularly dirty with “rats as big as cats.” He added: “They jump up on the platform and just look at you.”

Low-Hanging Wires, Er, Fruit

The Post piles on Con Ed chairman Kevin Burke, noting that the recent blackout may lead to an Enron-esque boost for his stock options:

Kevin Burke, the embattled Con Ed chairman who relocated Queens into the Third World, could make a bundle off his company’s stocks, thanks to the blackout.

Con Ed’s stock closed at $45.21 on Friday, July 14, the last trading day before the electricity went out for more than 100,000 people in the borough on the following Monday.

Yesterday, the stock finished at $47.19 — up 4.4 percent from July 14.

Power broker Burke owns 272,625 shares and options of Consolidated Edison, according to regulatory filings.

This means that while northwest Queens was sweating in the sweltering darkness, the total value of Burke’s paper holdings surged $560,000.

Experts say that utility stocks are generally very stable — Con Ed’s hasn’t moved more than a few percentage points all year — but crisis situations where supply is limited can boost trader speculation and investor interest.

Burke’s windfall is in addition to his $1.5 million salary and bonus.