Thursday’s Headlines: Eric Adams Rashomon Edition

What exactly did  Mayor Adams say at his traffic-safety press conference on Coney Island Avenue yesterday? You’d be forgiven if you felt disoriented from the journalistic Rashomon.

To hear the Daily News tell it, the Mayor Adams inserted his foot in his mouth with a remark boasting that we have “the best transportation system on the globe” — especially when Adams razzed the News’s skeptical reporter, Clayton Guse, said, “If you don’t feel it’s the best, that’s sad for you.” To prove its point that our system is indeed not the best on the planet, New York’s hometown newspaper collected withering assessments from beleaguered straphangers. It also produced a straightforward dispatch with the news that Adams pledged to redesign 1,000 dangerous intersections.

Streetsblog put the mayor’s remark in greater perspective, while Gothamist and amNY stressed that Adams’s new “Vision Zero”-style push would come about with the help of enforcement. Well, we already have more police-department employees per capita than any other city in the country. How well has that been working out for New Yorkers and street safety? Streetsblog also saw an anti-biker angle in the enforcement push.

The Post, for its part, published a three-byline story pegging the announcement as a response to the hit-and-run killing of a Brooklyn teenager by a school-bus driver several days ago. Curbed emphasized that the city finally would be getting raised crosswalks.

In other news:

• Hallelujah! State Sen. Leroy Comrie stands strong against congestion-pricing exemptions. (NYPost)
• Hundreds gathered at Times Square in order to protest the subway-pushing death of Michelle Go, a possible anti-Asian hate crime. (amNY, NYTimes)
• Gothamist aired Boogie Downers’ complaints about being left out of the Interborough Express.
• Here’s the backstory on that deadly upstate limo crash — and it’s a doozy. (NYMag)
• Little steps for big feet: The MTA finished its accessibility upgrades at Jerome Avenue. (MassTransit)
• MTA board-meeting roundup: No fare hike looms (amNY); Gov. Hochul appointed Bronx construction big (and Cuomo donor) Elizabeth Velez to the board (NYDN); despite the prodding of Sen. Jessica Ramos, the agency is in no hurry to re-open its Covid-shuttered pissoirs. (amNY)

• Finally, as long as we are on the subject of Adams, here’s a vehicle problem that he could eradicate with the stroke of a pen: