From the assignment desk: At noon today at City Hall, Council Members Carlina Rivera and Ydanis Rodriguez will unveil bills to create a bike mayor and a pedestrian mayor (Streetsblog had the scoop yesterday) — so we've already moved onto the next question: Who should be the first bike and pedestrian mayors?
The Orson Welles of the streets, Clarence Eckerson Jr. of Streetfilms, will be at the presser asking would-be bike mayors for their campaign platform — in 20 words or less. So Doug Gordon, Helen Ho, Cristina Furlong, Claudia Corcino, Gersh Kuntzman, Brian Howald, Laura Shepard and all you other contenders, get your spiel straight and smile for the camera.
Until then, here's the news roundup from yesterday:
- Upper Manhattan wants its busway — or busways. (NYDN)
- The City Council is voting on a slew of placard-abuse-related bills on Tuesday, but David Meyer's coverage in the Post makes it sound like old wine in a relabeled old bottle. Anything that allows the NYPD to enforce placard abuse is a non-starter. Check out all the bills yourself right here.
- How about this Thanksgiving feast on the L train? (NY Post)
- As predicted yesterday, Monday's commute for NY Waterway ferry riders was terrible after two dozen boats were pulled from service. (NY Times)
- Not much news came out of Monday's City Council hearing on the MTA's $51-billion capital plan, but Vin Barone at amNY found an angle — "MTA pledges more details on its capital plan — after it’s funded."
- The city finally cracked down on FedEx's delivery robots — but it seems the company may have only been using them as a stunt. (NY Post)
- Uber got its license pulled in London because the city no longer feels confident that passengers are safe (NY Post). Streetsblog called our own Taxi and Limousine Commission for the classic old "can it happen here?" story, and was told, in short, that it can't (we have regulations that London does not have).
- It's beginning to look at lot like Christmas ... traffic jams in Dyker Heights, so Council Member Justin Brannan is already working with local cops to keep things moving. (Brooklyn Reporter)
- A driver was uncharged despite slamming into a motorcyclist in Brooklyn. (NY Post)
- The Tribeca Citizen loves the bike lane and pedestrian improvements coming to Lower Manhattan.
- A cyclist in New Jersey was run down and killed by a truck driver on Paterson Plank Road. The Jersey City Police Department offered scant details (NJ.com). Locals called out the news site for not doing a better job of reporting on the dangers to cyclists (Gabriel Elizondo via Twitter)
- Some Upper West Side car owners have taken the NIMBY fight against bike lanes and free on-street car storage onto the web, with a new campaign, "Common Sense Streets." Reading the supposedly moderate manifesto, however, will set the blood of safe streets supporters to boil. We'll be looking into it this week. (Common Sense Streets)
- Charles Komanoff offered a deeper dive on why he's not too hot on Michael Bloomberg for president. (Carbon Tax Center)
- And, finally, Clarence Eckerson put together his video tribute to the new bike/ped path on the Kosciuszko Bridge. Classic Clarence: "The bike connections are crap!" Watch it here.
