Not to toot our own horn, but we had noted last week that presumptive mayor Eric Adams sent a shot across Gov. Cuomo's bow after the flooding that revealed how the MTA has failed to protect the subway system from the inevitable toll of climate change — and how urgently we need the governor to implement congestion pricing to pay for it.
Well, this weekend brought a spate of coverage:
- The New York Post lavished attention to Transit Workers Union head John Samuelsen's very public divorce from the governor, reporting, "Things are really going off the rails for Gov. Andrew Cuomo!"
- Nicole Gelinas — also in the Adams-loving/Cuomo-hating/controversy-stoking tabloid — also said Adams was "right to stay on the very public offense — playing nice [with Cuomo] won’t get him far."
- The Times also looked into the possibility of an Adams-Cuomo rift (plus tossed in an explainer about the flooding, though Gothamist suggested it coulda been worse).
- Politico did a deeper dive into Attorney General Letitia James — once an ally of the governor, now his likely tormentor and, possibly, his challenger.
In other news,
- Eric Adams is heading to the White House on Monday. No wonder he hasn't been returning our calls! (NY Post)
- The NYPD is interacting way too much with emotionally distressed students. (WSJ)
- The bike boom continues. (amNY)
- Summer Streets is back after a pandemic cancellation. But it's only two weekends now. Gothamist wrote up the press release (including the superlatives, SMH). You do realize that Bogota has 75 miles of car-free streets every Sunday, don't you?
- Clayton Guse was badly let down by his editors at the Daily News in this weird Sunday story about a stray comment made by MTA official Sarah Meyer on June 24 about redeploying token booth clerks out of the metal stalls. Our problem with the story? It raises way more questions than it answers, which, our old tabloid editor in chief always says is when you point the finger at the desk not the reporter.
- Philly Inquirer architecture writer Inga Saffron used the Moynihan Train Hall and was as unimpressed as we were ... for the very same reason. (via Twitter)
- Yet another piece of infrastructure failed on the Upper West Side on Sunday ... but the Post's only concern was, "Think of our defenseless cars!" (Reminder: A kid could have been killed, people).
- A truck driver struck and critically wounded a man in Coney Island. No charges, of course. (NY Post)
- Our friends at the "New Third Avenue" campaign have released the winners of their People's Choice Award for NYC Safe Streets/Transit Advocate of the year. It's a three-way tie: Jim Burke of the 34th Avenue open street; Sophie Maerowitz of the Avenue B version, and CJ Wojtkowski, who recently appeared in a Streetfilms profile (via Twitter)
- It concerns us that no one in the mainstream media has followed our scoop on Friday that revealed that a speeding driver who killed delivery worker Borkot Ullah may have been being chased by cops — the latest example of a high-speed chase in a dense urban area gone wrong. The Post's coverage at least mentioned a Queens woman who was also killed in a hit-and-run — and was struck by an MTA bus driver who fled. We had asked the MTA about that on Friday, but the agency sent over crickets.
- And, finally, Streetsblog's old man editor had a nice time at the War on Cars in-person meetup on Saturday in Brooklyn gabbing with the bold-faced names behind the world's most important podcast, Aaron Naparstek, Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon, plus other attendees journalist Aaron Gordon, City Comptroller staffer Adam Forman, North Brooklyn open streets volunteer Noel Hidalgo, Oonee founder Shabazz Stuart, former Council candidate Billy Freeland, Post reporter Nolan Hicks, Second Avenue Sagas legend Ben Kabak, and a guy from the Lower East Side named Cecil who said he loves Streetsblog so much that we just had to include him (even though we did not catch his last name!). See all the party shots on Patreon.
- Oh, and speaking of a war on cars, auto thefts are up, the Post reports.
