Gov. Cuomo has been using state police to patrol deep into the boroughs (claiming they're just patrolling MTA bridges and tunnels — sure, right), which feels menacing and police state-y.
Now it turns out that the governor has hired another 500 state cops — at a cost of $663 million over 10 years — to knock down the straw man of fare evasion in the subway (a barely worth mentioning minor crime that is disproportionately enforced against people of color). Oh, and if that isn't bad enough, Gothamist reported on Monday that these friendly neighborhood officers won't have body cameras like the NYPD.
So that's roughly $125,000 per cop per year to criminalize poverty — and do so in a way that's unaccountable. Your tax dollars at work. (Counterpoint? The MTA says aggressive enforcement is working, as the Post reported, though the Wall Street Journal reported just the opposite.)
Now, the rest of the day's news:
- On NY1's "Inside City Hall" last night, Mayor de Blasio vowed that the Queens Boulevard safety redesign "will be finished next year. Period" — finally putting a schedule on his year-plus delay on the project (which earned him allegations of a quid-pro-quo with anti-bike-lane Queens Council Member Karen Koslowitz for her support on his Queens jail plan).
- The MTA is going to spend $47 million to redo a state-of-the-art signaling system in Brooklyn that's already kaput. The original system also about $47 million. (The City)
- Cops arrested the reckless driver who killed one and injured another on the Upper West Side over the summer (News4)
- The frequently pro-car Riverdale Press is at it again, depicting efforts to break the city's addiction to car culture as a "war" on drivers. That kind of martial rhetoric isn't getting us anywhere. Think of it this way: The city has come down with atherosclerosis; if the doctor treating the condition prescribed medication or proper diet, you'd call that a sensible course of action, not a "war on veins"!
- Corey Johnson called for better transit for long-suffering New Yorkers on Monday. And then there was the NY Post spin. (amNY's take was more measured — though the website itself is still a mess.)
- The Times did another of its highly watchable crowdsourced stories — this time on broken subway escalators.
- More placard abuse (and speeding) by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. (PlacardAbuse via Twitter)
- In case you missed it, Stephen Rex Brown in the Daily News offered yet another look at why the abuse of parking privileges is the gateway drug to full-on corruption in this city. (By the way, it's everywhere.)
- And, finally, if you haven't bought a ticket to the Streetsblog family's Thursday, Nov. 7 fundraiser and cocktail party, what are you waiting for? (Eventbrite)
