Friday’s Headlines — Bike Snob Goes Full Zen Edition
UPDATED | Some interesting tidbits to start the weekend:
6:41 AM EDT on August 24, 2018
UPDATED | Some interesting tidbits to start the weekend:
- If you think community boards are just fine the way they are — stodgy, NIMBY-ish car lovers who are unrepresentative of their changing communities — then you’ll love the four borough presidents who hate the term limits idea. Only Brooklyn Beep Eric Adams supports limiting board terms (NYDN). Gotham Gazette makes it clear why he’s right.
- Point of information: Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, who opposes term limits because they would cause a CB “brain drain,” has ensured that her community boards are whiter and older than the ethnically rich constituency she leads (H/T to Diedrich vanVlissingen on Twitter).
- Someone hacked a DOT road sign in Brooklyn to give a particularly satisfying Bronx cheer to President Trump. H/T to bike-friendly reporter Max Jaeger, who saw the handiwork on his morning ride over the Pulaski. (NY Post)
- Bike Snob Eben Weiss considers the Zen of cycling — and suggests that maybe I shouldn’t spend every ride to work screaming at cars and pedestrians. (Outside)
- More pressure is building on Gov. Cuomo to put MTA funding in Al Gore’s lockbox (NYDN).
- A man wan slashed on A train for stepping on the wrong woman’s foot, prompting the NYPD to release a genuinely weird wanted poster. (Gothamist)
- Don’t like Uber or Lyft? Try Waave, Crain’s reports.
- Attorney General candidate, not-very-strong-bike-lane-supporter, Tish James and one-time bike lane blocker, went to a speed camera rally in the Bronx. But people on Twitter were quick to point out that the very same car has SEVEN parking and speed camera violations! Your move, Zephyr Teachout! (H/T to Peter Kaufman and @howsmydrivingNY)
- Queens Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer joined a speed camera rally, which looked great on the Council’s Twitter feed. Make Queens Safer had a funny photo of a kid using a radar gun to time Van Bramer’s speech.
- Sick of subway buskers? Well, you don’t know Fly Bay Jay (AMNY).
- Uh, oh: Some Queens pols prefer traffic congestion to any loss of parking (Queens Chronicle)
- And finally, our friend Doug Gordon, who tweets as BrooklynSpoke and is a co-host of the new War on Cars podcast, is in Utrecht and posted this bike lane porn.
I’m not going anywhere this weekend — except maybe to Soundview on one of Mayor de Blasio’s heavily subsidized pleasure cruises — so if something’s gone wrong in your neighborhood, why not send me an email (and then I’ll send David Meyer to check it out).
Update: Thanks to commenter vnm below, this post has been updated. An earlier version suggested that the photo of Tish James’s massive SUV was from this week. It was not.
Tabloid legend Gersh Kuntzman has been with New York newspapers since 1989, including stints at the New York Daily News, the Post, the Brooklyn Paper and even a cup of coffee with the Times. He's also the writer and producer of "Murder at the Food Coop," which was a hit at the NYC Fringe Festival in 2016, and “SUV: The Musical” in 2007. He also writes the Cycle of Rage column, which is archived here.
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