Wednesday’s Headlines: Cars are Not Environmentally Friendly Edition

We had a little fun tweaking the New York Times yesterday, which published a mini crossword that included this bizarre clue for six across: “Green car.”

The answer? “Prius.”

Reminder to the car-loving New York Times: There is no such thing as a green car. Even electric cars — as our USA colleague Kea Wilson reminded in a three-part series earlier this year — get their power from burning something. And burning something is anything but “green.”

We tweeted at Times crossword editor Will Shortz and the puzzle’s creator, Joel Fagliano, but never heard back. The good news is that an anti-car crossword maven Jesse Lansner sent us his “Ban Cars”-themed word grid, which gave us several minutes of pleasure. (If you want to play it, check it out here.)

And now the news:

• The Wall Street Journal took the exact right angle in his story on the current bicycling surge — blaming the de Blasio administration for not doing enough to ensure riders will be safe when all the cars come back. Paul Berger’s story also through in the obligatory mention of what a great job Mayor de Blasio’s friend (and Paris counterpart) Anne Hidalgo is doing.
• Gov. Cuomo took a victory lap on his overnight subway closures, claiming the subways have never been cleaner and the homeless never treated better. The Post story did not get the other side from a homeless person. Meanwhile, the Daily News had a story about a food delivery worker who was killed by a gunman after a roundabout bus ride undertaken because the subway wasn’t running after his late shift.
• News12 The Bronx finally got on the story that everyone (in Morris Park, at least) is talking about: the unauthorized reduction of the Rhinelander Avenue open street. But the story just scratched the surface and refused to call out selfish drivers for not being able to give up their unfettered access to just a few blocks of the hundreds of thousands of blocks in the city.
• Mayor de Blasio signed a bunch of bills yesterday, including one to prevent food delivery apps such as Seamless from gouging restaurateurs with excessive delivery charges. (NY Post)
• We’ve been priming the pump on this coverage for weeks, so we were pleased that Guse of the Newsuh covered the re-opening of the New York Stock Exchange with an eye on the market’s ban on public transportation. Gothamist did a good job, too (including citing Streetsblog’s before-the-bell coverage).
• The same advocates who got stop-and-frisk declared unconstitutional are calling for a federal monitor of the NYPD. (NY Post, Gothamist)
• Several outlets previewed Gov. Cuomo’s meeting today with President Trump. The Post played up infrastructure in general while the Daily News focused on Cuomo’s hope for funding for the LaGuardia AirTrain. But no one took the angle of Streetsblog’s Eve Kessler, who saw right through Cuomo’s puffery.
• And, finally, the city’s temporary protected bike lanes on 38th and 39th streets in Manhattan didn’t debut so perfectly, but in fairness, there are always speed bumps when selfish drivers are involved. (BarmanNYC via Twitter)