Tuesday’s Headlines: School Daze Edition

This is how we normally treat our kids. Photo: Bess Adler
This is how we normally treat our kids. Photo: Bess Adler

Schools are shut again today to mark the Jewish New Year — which means a second day in a row of nice, quiet streets. The calm that comes over the city when schools are out of session is a reminder that the wound we inflict on our kids with our cars is self-inflicted.

You don’t need Greta Thunberg screaming at you to know that we adults have screwed up, big time. We’ve entrusted our children’s safety to a political establishment that does next to nothing to permanently keep our streets as quiet and relaxed as they’ll be today.

So it’s probably a good time to plug the photo essay we published on the first day of school this year. If you didn’t see Bess Adler’s shots, please check them out here. They’re a reminder that when schools return on Wednesday, our kids go back to fighting for their lives again.

For now, at least, Happy (Quiet) New Year. Here’s the news:

  • On that topic, advocates and several pols rallied near City Hall for safe streets on Monday. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, with a nice chart!)
  • The City looks at efforts to revive yet another defunct LIRR line, this time the old Rockaway Beach Branch between Ozone Park and Rego Park.
  • A Brooklyn community group did some textbook use of the Google to reveal that one of the judges who voted against the 14th Street busway last week has a major conflict of interest. (Boerum Hill Neighbors, via Twitter)
  • No surprise to anyone who read Julianne Cuba’s scintillating interview with Sean Avery last month, but the ex-Ranger bad boy and would-be bike lane avenger rejected a plea deal in his case of allegedly scrapping with a motorist back in April. (NYDN)
  • Paging Captain Obvious: The mayor’s ferry system is most popular with rich people. (NYDN)
  • The West Side Rag confirms what we’ve long known: the Central Park West Protected bike lane will only get to 77th Street before the end of the DOT work season. Crews will be back out there in the spring.
  • You can’t fight progress. But this epic Twitter thread from urban planner Christof Spieler makes it clear that we should!
  • We don’t usually cover street art — except when something catastrophic like Robert Indiana’s LOVE sculpture getting removed from Sixth Avenue. Gothamist’s story suggests it’ll return later this fall.
  • And in case you missed it, Axios came out in support of congestion pricing, with a hat tip to Charles Komanoff.

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