You don't need a top-notch news site like The City to know that Mayor de Blasio has dropped the ball on preventing the coming carpocalypse.
The website reported on Monday that, yes, car registrations are up. Nearly 40,000 new cars were registered in the five boroughs in July — the highest for the month in recent years.
So the cars are coming. So it's time for an update on all the measures Mayor de Blasio has undertaken to rein them in:
- In June, he promised a few miles of car-free busway. Not a single inch has been built.
- The City Council demanded that he create 75 miles of "open streets." So far, he's created about 67 miles — including about 10 miles of temporary protected bike lanes that are not really protected. And those will likely start disappearing in September (though the city has promised to make a 10-block stretch of Second Avenue in Manhattan permanent).
- The city has not undertaken any protected bike lane projects this year, a DOT spokeswoman confirmed last week. (Central Park West counts as a 2019 project.)
- The city has been asked to create more space for cyclists and pedestrians on its bridges. It has not.
- Restaurants can now use curbside space for dining — but that also disappears on Oct. 31, when drivers will reclaim the space.
Meanwhile, other cities — Paris, London, Bogota, Vienna, literally every city but us — have transformed their urban cores into car-free or car-light zones, while boosting cycling, transit and walking modes.
So in wades our editorial cartoonist, who does not believe Mayor de Blasio has done enough.
All of Bill Roundy's cartoons are archived here.
