You don't need us to tell you to wear the thermals today. Wednesday will start out as a normal cold day (well, a normal cold day for those of us over 40), but then transmogrify into a frigid Chicago-esque hellscape by nightfall. Thursday will be so cold that you won't mind being stuffed like a sardine onto the L train — the insides of sardine cans, we're told, are quite temperate.
The only downside of the cold? President Trump will spend all day subtweeting global warming.
For now, though, here's the news:
- Gov. Cuomo renewed his call for congestion pricing on WNYC's Brian Lehrer show. He was much criticized for suggesting that congestion pricing could cover the MTA's operating budget gap in lieu of a fare hike, but Streetsblog Editor Gersh Kuntzman defended the guv for what he believes is a savvy political gambit. The Daily News played it straight. If you can get through all the pop-ups on the News website, the paper had another story featuring the governor opining that no sane person would want the vacant MTA chairmanship.
- Meanwhile, Nicole Gelinas pointed out in the NY Post that if Corey Johnson really wants the city to control the subway and buses, he'd better make sure to get the bridges, too. (Gothamist channeled both Gelinas and Streetsblog, but had the better headline: "Cuomo Is Eating De Blasio's Lunch On Congestion Pricing.")
- A woman died in a fall on a flight of subway steps on Monday night. Details are unclear, but the NY Times spun the death of Malaysia Goodson, 22, as evidence of a failing system: "Her death has shone a light on the lack of elevator service and accessibility issues." (amNY, New York Magazine and TransitCenter took a similar approach.) The Post and the News initially played it straight, but the Post later added two stories: One featuring Mayor de Blasio piling on, and another reporting that Goodson's fall was related to a medical condition.
- Members of Families for Safe Streets infiltrated a taping of "The View" yesterday — and briefly got to explain to Whoopi Goldberg why she's so wrong about bike lanes (albeit off-camera).
- NY1 looked at subway (in)accessibility in a good segment tweeted here.
- The Times did a 50th-day story on what Streetsblog's David Meyer declared on Day 1: Now that the L shutdown has been canceled, can we at least keep the goodies? Winnie Hu's story also quoted Friend of Streetsblog Jon Orcutt.
- It was nice to see Upper West Side residents complaining about the real livable streets villains — rogue delivery trucks — instead of the false one (cyclists). We especially appreciated resident Sandra Smith's comment about deliveries: “We can’t have it both ways. As a community, either you support and buy local — or if you want it cheaper or easier, you have to face the consequences of that. We all want it cheap, cheap, but don’t think about what that does.” (West Side Rag)
- Amazon is making a lot of promises (NY Times), but Gov. Cuomo says it's not selling its plans for a new Queens headquarters well enough (NYDN).
- Our friends at Reinvent Albany called on the legislature to hold Cuomo accountable for properly funding the MTA capital budget.
- The ire this time. Get ready for the next livable streets battleground: Trash. Friends of Streetsblog Janet Liff and Lisa Orman tipped us off to a Zero Waste Design Guidelines report about how badly we handle trash. The takeaway? "Compared to the movements of people and goods, the flows of water, sewage, gas, electricity and information; ... firefighting, policing and emergency medical services ... and especially, the use of curb space for parking, the predictable and inevitable outbound movement of wastes and recyclables seems to be the subject of afterthought rather than planning. This needs to change. The collection of waste and recyclables needs to be integrated into this overall public space planning context."
- London's "Bike Mayor" Will Norman wrote an op-ed for a British paper that hits all the topics Streetsblog wanted to ask him about, but our interview request was turned down. The takeaway? More bike lanes equals less congestion. (Evening Standard)
- And, finally, some personal news: We are now obsessed with Boris Karloff's guacamole recipe, which resurfaced on Tuesday thanks to a tweet from LA Taco.
