The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) has shown a knack for some real gamesmanship this week. First in Brooklyn, and then in Queens, the mayor and his appointees tried to fight grandstanding with some not-so-grand-standing.Last Thursday, two groups of politicians, one in Prospect Park and the other just past Flushing Meadows Corona Park, held press events to spur the DOT to action. Both groups were calling for a more pedestrian-friendly city.

In Brooklyn, they wanted to get rid of all the rush-hour cars in Prospect Park so that people can exercise in peace and safety, and in Queens they wanted new street crossing signals with countdowns so pedestrians will know how long they have to cross the Boulevard of Death, i.e. Queens Boulevard, and other dangerous thoroughfares in a borough that is often mistaken by commuting motorists as a mere speed bump on the way to Long Island and Connecticut.

Then, early this week, DOT tried to nip both public requests in the bud, by giving an inch and pretending they’d walked a mile.On Monday, the mayor stood in the very spot where the Brooklyn pols had gathered a few days before. (Of course his chauffeured SUV was parked just a few feet away from the podium.) Like a queen passing out cake to the bread-starved masses, Hizzoner and DOT chief Iris Weinshall brazenly announced that morning traffic would be halted in only one direction, but afternoon rush-hour traffic would continue as before. Better than nothing, grumbled park users, but far from the promised land.

Then, just minutes before we went to press this Tuesday, our inbox rumbled with another meatless bone thrown about by Weinshall’s agency. There will now be one pedestrian countdown signal installed on a pilot basis, but it will be in Coney Island, far from the dangerous locations the Queens pols had highlighted.

We certainly don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, and of course we all must crawl before we can walk, etc.But crawling is not going to get us across New York streets, not at the rate we’re going. All we can say that is we hope the mayor and his appointees are serious about moving in a more pedestrian-friendly direction, especially in our parks and residential neighborhoods. We hope--repeat hope--that the announcements of the last two days were meant as first steps, and not as temporary concessions designed to wait out the publicity.