Harbinger or bummer?
Yesterday afternoon, Mayor de Blasio tweeted support for his administration's open streets program, using surprisingly Streetsbloggy language:
THIS is what happens when you prioritize people over cars. Open Streets give public spaces back to our communities and we're a stronger city because of it. https://t.co/sqdFbygNSn
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) May 24, 2021
The only question becomes: Will the mayor's obvious excitement that people are enjoying his open streets lead to him ordering his Department of Transportation to turn the best open streets (looking at you, 34th Avenue) into permanent car-free spaces — or at the very least, not reduce the hours, length or days of those open streets, as fake "compromise" groups are calling for.
We'll know more in June.
Meanwhile, we learned on Monday that the next mayoral debate will at least be in person (NY Post), but there's no word yet on whether WABC will accept the Dave Colon challenge and hold the debate on a great open street.
In other news:
- Two pedestrians were struck by a driver, but one survived. (NYDN)
- Look out, the MTA is on the warpath about fare evasion again, which typically leads to a disproportionate number of people of color being arrested by cops (NYDN). On the plus side, ridership continues to trend upwards (amNY).
- The Daily News ran a story about a pickup truck driver who ran over a scooter rider, killing him. The article claimed that the scooter rider "veered into the path of a southbound silver Dodge Ram on Parsons Blvd. near 32nd Ave. in Flushing." And that may be true. But it's also true that the Dodge has eight camera-issued speeding tickets and one red-light ticket on its record — six of them since March, 2020. Not sure why the paper wouldn't publish a fair and balanced story about what reckless drivers do to us.
- The Post had more details about the fatal stabbing over a Queens parking space. (Reminder, people, you can't use a traffic cone to save a spot for someone else).
- The end of an error: Mayor de Blasio says he won't likely go back to (er, be driven 11 miles to) his beloved Park Slope Y until he's out of office on Jan. 1, 2022. If he had just made that decision on Jan. 1, 2014, he could have avoided so much unnecessary tsuris. (NY Post)
- Perhaps the state should continue to allow take-out cocktails, as the Post says residents widely support. But would it be too much to ask that the state require all purchases to be made by pedestrians? The last thing we want is drive-thru cocktail bars or scenes like this (amNY).
- And, finally, Andrew Yang took heat for saying his favorite subway station is Times Square (Gothamist). But that's not nearly as bad as his plan for the subways, as we reported last week.
