Our top story today is from the Daily News which (inspired by Streetsblog, no doubt) has done its own assessment of the mayor's busway successes and found those successes, well, limited.
As we've reported for months, Mayor de Blasio has struggled to create car-free transitways, and dedicated bus lanes, after announcing 20 miles of them in June.
Our most recent assessment was back in October (when busways in Flushing, Jamaica, and Washington Heights were delayed) and, apparently, nothing has changed since. Guse from the Newsuh came to a similar conclusion on Monday: "The city Department of Transportation has built just 0.8 miles of new busways." (That's a reference to Jay Street.)
Well, as we say in the mayor's adopted borough of Brooklyn, "Wait 'til next year" (or next DOT commissioner; Margaret Forgione replaces Polly Trottenberg on Dec. 11).
In other news:
- There's blink-and-you-miss-it video of that COVID-loving Staten Island bar owner allegedly hitting a deputy sheriff with his car (NY Post, NYDN). The Tabloid of Record's reporter Nolan Hicks had wisely asked de Blasio if he thought the White bar owner would have been released on his own recognizance despite the serious nature of the crime if he was Black — but that sharp questioning somehow didn't make it into Hicks's published story.
- Gothamist had the provocative question headline of the day — and the answer is clearly yes.
- This is old hat to Streetsblog readers, but Assembly Member Bobby Carroll and transit workers union president John Samuelsen published a Daily News op-ed on the need for an Amazon delivery surcharge.
- So what killed Bingo? Carelessness ... or cuts to Correction Department overtime? If you believe the latter, the Daily News also has a bridge to sell you.
- New York's delivery workers are the cutting edge of today's labor movement. They deserve better working conditions, better pay and more respect for the work they do. (The City)
- A Queens kid got a hold of his parents' loaded pistol and took it all the way to the Jersey-Delaware line. (OK, the story is about a kid who stole his parents' car and drove it all the way to Delaware, but admit it, if it had been a just-as-deadly gun, the story wouldn't have been played for laughs, as it was in the Post and the News.)
- A driver-owned ride-hailing startup is hoping to compete with Uber and Lyft in New York City while paying a living wage. (NPR)
- From the assignment desk: Today at 11, a coalition of transit groups — Riders Alliance, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, New York League of Conservation Voters, Regional Plan Association, NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign, StreetsPAC, TransitCenter, Transportation Alternatives, and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign — will release its "Equity Agenda" for the 2021 mayoral candidates. There'll be a Zoom call — or you can just click on Dave Colon's story, which will be posted at exactly 11 a.m.
- And finally, one more reminder that December is our annual donation drive. Just click on the icon above to donate — and soon your name will be in our honor roll of benefactors. Yesterday, we got contributions from Lawrence (thanks!), Gary (thanks!), Matthew (thanks!), and Choresh (thanks!).
