Let's start today's news digest with some philosophical thoughts from Times columnist Paul Krugman, who argued in his piece on Monday that a lot of the work life we have long cherished abhored will mercifully be a thing of the past:
"Some of what we used to do — long commutes so we can sit in cubicles, constant flying to meetings of dubious value — won’t be coming back," he said.
But most of it will (to the relief of the MTA): "So the best bet is that life and work in, say, 2023, will look a lot like life and work in 2019, but a bit less so. We may commute to the office less than we used to; there may well be a glut of urban office space. But most of us won’t be able to stay very far from the madding crowd."
And in other news:
- We were happy to hear that Patch reporter Maya Kaufman got a promotion of sorts to her new job at Crain's, but we were miffed that her last story — about the notorious scofflaw parking at the 108th Precinct in Queens — neither mentioned our current March (Parking) Madness series (in which the 108 was a first-round competitor) nor our S-Cop-Laws series from 2019 (in which we found that more than half of the cops at the 108th had multiple moving violations on their records). No wonder our old man editor is always yelling, "Pull the clips!" (as he himself was yelled at by some of the tabloid greats).
- Another Cuomo scandal? A Democratic member of Congress whose district straddles the Hudson River wants the US DOT to explore whether Big Dog Excelsior Car Guy fudged the numbers on his father's namesake bridge. (NY Post, WSJ)
- The Daily News added more details about the death (and life) of pedestrian Jaipaul Persaud on Queens Boulevard (we covered it, too). Transportation Alternatives was also upset.
- Also like us, the Daily News covered state legislators' pushback on Gov. Cuomo's cash grab of dedicated MTA funds. (Which outlet did the best Photoshop job of Cuomo? You decide.)
- The Times did an oddly structured explainer on how the MTA will benefit from the $30-billion in transit funding approved by Congress and the Biden administration last week. (Meanwhile, subways themselves are moving faster, The City reported.)
- The Post and amNY followed the Wall Street Journal's story from the previous day about renovating Penn Station.
- Subway ridership is slowly bouncing better (you thought we'd say bouncing back, right? But it's not yet). (NY Post)
