Some days, you gotta love the inbox: "On Wednesday, Mayor de Blasio will deliver remarks at a street renaming ceremony in honor of the 50th anniversary of Sesame Street. ... There will be no Q-and-A." No Q-and-A? At the Sesame Street street renaming?! Is the mayor afraid we're going to ask about why the city has for so long allowed a man to live in a garbage can?
In any event, we'll try to chat up Hizzoner on Thursday. For now, here's the news:
- A questionable new report blames the MTA's unionized workers for the agency's fiscal troubles. Sad to see Clayton Guse in New York's Hometown Paper not defend the working man and woman a bit more. That said, it is hard to fathom why the average salary at the LIRR is $104,000. (NY Post)
- Reinvent Albany is blaming Gov. Cuomo for the MTA's problems. (NY Post). Our own David Meyer took a different angle on the good-government group's report, focusing on how out of touch the MTA board is.
- Here's the problem with the bipartisan "infrastructure" bill that's being worked out with top Democrats and President Trump: It'll be a disaster for the environment — so supporters of the Green New Deal rallied outside Chuck "Sellout" Schumer's office to protest his capitulation to Trump's desire to build more roads and burn more fuel (NY Post). The good news? The Gateway Tunnel project, a Schumer favorite, might move forward (NY Post)
- Placard abuse is so bad that even the city's chief actuary was caught doing it this weekend. That's bad enough, but tell us again why the chief actuary even has a placard. (NY Post)
- The Daily News's editorial board obviously doubled-down on Stephen Rex Brown and Graham Rayman's fine reporting this week about the NYPD cover-up of a minor fender-bender involving Mayor de Blasio.
- We were definitely not fans of amNY's headline predicting a disaster during the Five Boro Bike Ride on Sunday. Sorry if drivers are slightly inconvenienced. Imagine how all us non-drivers in this car-minority city feel the other 363 or so days a year when the roads are completely given over to cars.
- Unions are opposing an effort to get the state pension fund out of dirty fuel. (NY Post)
- Friend of Streetsblog Shabazz Stuart penned a long Medium piece about the challenges he's faced creating the Oonee bike shelter system. It's an interesting story of race, class and privilege.
- And finally, in case you missed it, the Times had a cute story about a bus with just three stops — and just 220 riders. (One critique? What is the Metro section's obsession with transit routes that don't "make money"? Transit isn't supposed to make a profit. It's supposed to be the foundation of our economy. You wouldn't blame a backbone for not being able to play the violin.
