Friday’s Headlines: A Great Day for the City Coffers Edition

File photo: Gersh Kuntzman
File photo: Gersh Kuntzman

Today is famously the day when so many New York drivers forget that it’s a holiday even though it’s a regular weekday and forget to pay for parking in commercial zones. As such, it’s known as Black Friday because it’s the day when city coffers are filled with vital revenue from thousands of parking tickets that otherwise would never have happened.

For some reason, Council Member Justin Brannan, whose Bay Ridge neighborhood is a car-filled, cyclist death zone where every good bike lane idea goes to die, tried to ruin all the fun:

Now, to the news from a very slow news day:

  • We had a great Thanksgiving. Thanks for asking.
  • StreetridersNYC donated 400 turkeys to needy families. (via Twitter)
  • We really need to do something about these out-of-control cars that are racing at reckless speeds and killing people and injuring their own innocent drivers! (NY Post)
  • A car is a great Thanksgiving feast … for a sinkhole! (NY Post)
  • Will Manhattan Borough President succeed in her fight against tourist helicopters? (Gotham Gazette)
  • And, finally, we’re not lawyers, but Justice Neil Gorsuch’s reasoning in his concurrence in the Supreme Court’s rejection of Gov. Cuomo’s ban on religious gatherings was egregiously privileged. Ruling in favor of church services, Gorsuch took aim at bike shops. “While the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues and mosques,” Justice Gorsuch wrote, according to the NY Times story. Gorsuch’s contempt for “bike shops” reflects the standard windshield view of American commuting — where if you’re not in a car, you must simply be using a bike because you’re a 10-year-old or a Spandex bro out for a weekend ride. In fact, millions of Americans either chose to use bikes to get around — or don’t have Gorsuch’s wealth to afford more expensive transportation. Shame.

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