In case you missed it or simply decided to take a few well-deserved days off, Mayor de Blasio moved quickly to distance himself from the Cuomo clown car from which he had been forcibly expelled when the Amazon deal exploded last week.
The mayor penned an op-ed in the Times blaming Amazon for taking its ball and going home (true) rather than dealing with predictable local opposition — predictable local opposition that the mayor himself had ignored when he shelved his progressive credentials and joined Gov. Cuomo for a $3-billion handout to the richest man in the world.
In fairness to the mayor, he is right about one thing. When Amazon encountered resistance, the onus was on the corporate behemoth to save its corporate welfare deal. "If you don’t like a small but vocal group of New Yorkers questioning your company’s intentions or integrity, prove them wrong," the mayor said he told Bezos's minions.
Meanwhile, City and State ran its "winners and losers" list, which featured Cuomo and de Blasio at the top...of the losers section.
Here's the rest of the news on a holiday that celebrates all our presidents (even William Henry Harrison and Donald Trump):
- Whoa, nelly! The newly Col Allan-ified New York Post published an editorial opposing congestion pricing — but before Corey Johnson and Charles Komanoff have a conniption, the Post didn't really address the issue of central business district tolls on the merits, but basically argued that Gov. Cuomo can't be trusted.
- The Daily News wooded on Sunday with Clayton Guse's hit on the MTA for its continued use of smoke-belching diesel work trains. One caveat to consider: Diesel work trains can operate when the electrical third rail has been turned off for worker safety.
- New York's Hometown Paper also had a nice piece by Janon Fisher revealing the apparent racial bias of the NYPD's crackdown on fare-beating.
- Nixon in China? TransAlt's Tom DeVito tweeted that State Sen. Kevin Parker had a constructive meeting on speed cameras with Families for Safe Streets members. Parker, of course, is the rogue scofflaw who encouraged a GOP party official to commit suicide after she called him out for placard abuse. He does support speed cameras, though, despite his record of 18 speeding tickets and 13 bus lane violations caught on camera.
- Patch had more information about Sarah Foster, a teacher who was killed by a fuel truck driver on Third Avenue on Friday.
- We are living in the midst of an e-commerce revolution, yet the mayor declines to set aside more curb space as loading zones so that roadways are clear and safe. The Upper West Side is an epicenter of dissent on the mayor's pro-car-storage policy, as a FreshDirect executive learned last week. (West Side Rag)
- As Streetsblog, we don't usually care what happens in the skies above our city. But ... we aren't drones just the cars of the air? (WSJ)
- In case you need your daily dose of bike lane porn, here's the Dutch city of Houten, which looks like a heaven on two wheels. (The Dutch, via Twitter)
- And, finally, if you haven't seen Nicole Gelinas's video of how New Yorkers react to a manhole fire, you must. (Via Twitter)
