How about the mayor trying to steal the hype of our "Park Week" with his own "Streets Week!" announcement (yes, City Hall commandeered the exclamation mark). It's not like we have a fancy logo or anything!
We certainly covered (twice!) the first of what we expect will be several days of Streets Week! announcements from Hizzoner (and so did the Post, amNY, and the Daily News).
But our main focus this week is our coverage of grassroots efforts to compel the mayor to turn his "gold standard" open street on 34th Avenue in Queens into a linear park. Neighbors have a petition, which our old man editor already described as the only real compromise, and we kicked off "Park Week" with a clarion call op-ed from Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas. Today, Borough President Donovan Richards has his say (he also supports the park idea — but, of course, it's "Park Week"!).
The mayor is expected to make a bike-related Streets Week! announcement on Tuesday, judging from the fact that DOT Commissioner Hank Gutman will, according to the DOT press shop, hold a noon photo opportunity "as he inspects the installation of a protected bike lane on Sixth Avenue in Tribeca." (Want to know more about that bike lane? Check out the news digest below.)
In other news:
- Well, she already got the Dave Colon bump, so we suppose it's expected that Kathryn Garcia got the New York Times endorsement late yesterday. We won't quibble with another paper's opinion on a highly subjective matter, but one line stood out because it typified the Times's unique cluelessness: "We worry that the former nonprofit executive Dianne Morales ... has politics too far out of the mainstream to be a successful mayor.” We're not sure we even know what that means? The current City Council is far more to the left than the current mayor — and is poised to go even further left. Perhaps the Times is simply afraid of the other possibility: that Morales’s progressive politics would force the city’s sleepy de Blasian political class to start working for the people again.
- We are loving the latest salvo from New Jersey's know-nothing pols who are now threatening to retaliate against congestion pricing by adding new tolls in the Garden State aimed only at New York residents. That's awesome! Can we get more tolls — and make them even more expensive? Nothing discourages driving more than something that would reduce the existing driving subsidies. The only problem with Rep. Josh Gottheimer's plan is that he wants to use the money to reimburse New Jersey residents who get tolled to come into NYC. That's just a more driver welfare, congressman. “We simply cannot expect a robust recovery and return to in-person work to be successful while workers ... are being penalized simply for going to their jobs,” State Sen. Joe Lagana, told NJ.com. (Reminder: they're not being penalized for going to their jobs; they're being for how they go to their jobs and for the social impacts of that selfish and destructive choice.) (NY Post, WSJ)
- Meanwhile, congestion pricing expert/mastermind Charles Komanoff pointed out on Twitter that the New Jersey pols should just STFU.
- More tensions between NYC Transit President Sarah Feinberg and NYC Mayor de Blasio have emerged. (NY Post)
- Cabs are coming out of hibernation. (WSJ)
- One day after Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-S.I.) called for federal help to reduce crime, Mayor de Blasio also asked for federal assistance — but his position could not be more different than hers. She wants federal troops on the ground in New York City. He wants the feds to finally pass and enforce common sense gun laws, which Malliotakis consistently opposes. (NY Post)
- DOT revealed a great project to add more protected bike lanes to Tribeca — but what about Chambers Street? More safety is needed on the crucial route to the Hudson River greenway, especially in advance of the Brooklyn Bridge bike path. (Tribeca Citizen)
- And, finally, why can't the baseball gods just stay away from Jacob deGrom? (NYDN)
