The state Legislature is on the side of platform edge doors.
Later today, Assembly Member Bobby Carroll and state Sen. Leroy Comrie will send a letter to Gov. Hochul and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calling on them to each set aside $3.5 billion (with a "b") for the MTA install platform security so that deaths like Michelle Go's can be avoided.
The money should be spent on "track sensor systems, which would alert oncoming trains if someone is on the track, the installation of platform strips and platform doors, where feasible, and more," according to the letter, which we got a hold of because we know the right people.
Twenty other Assembly members and nine other senators signed the missive.
Carroll told us that the death of Go — plus the 140 or so New Yorkers who fall onto subway tracks every year — showed once again that "it is time New York provides the necessary capital funds to the MTA to install platform doors at the 28 percent of stations that the MTA has identified as suitable for this life saving infrastructure."
Carroll added that the MTA has options at stations where platform doors won't fit. “The state should provide funds to install track sensor systems until advances in engineering or technology provide the MTA the ability to install life-saving barriers," he said.
We'll tell you if Hochul or Schumer respond.
In other news:
- It started as such an absurd pre-Groundhog Day joke — that former Mayor de Blasio would announce his candidacy for Congress at the Staten Island Zoo — that we didn't bother even cracking a smile. But now that it's apparently true — that lefty Bill de Blasio will challenge center-right Max Rose for the new Thin Blue Line-Green New Deal Staten-Island-to-Park-Slope district — we're in stitches. Perhaps de Blasio could best Rose in a June election that will bring out the more rabid Dems, but if he triumphs, he'd almost certainly lose to Republican incumbent Nicole Malliotakis, as thousands of Staten Island Democrats either stay home or actually pull the lever marked "R." (NY Post, NYDN)
- Why are there so many subway fires? Jose Martinez of The City explores the 12-percent rise.
- Could Jerry Nadler be getting his cross-Harbor tunnel after all? (amNY)
- John Surico did a deep dive on how New York got this way. (Bloomberg)
- Gothamist got a second-day piece on Gov. Hochul's Penn Station plan.
- Republican Council Member Joe Borelli of Staten Island took his fight against life-saving speed cameras to a national (and likely more receptive) audience on Fox News, which can't seem to decide if it is in favor of law enforcement or recklessness in the name of personal freedom (Daily Mail). Maybe Paul Krugman is right to call the GOP the "anti-social party."
- We're not art critics, but we do think artist Niclas Castello could have made an even greater statement about our culture if he had displayed his solid gold cube in a parking space (imagine the controversy!). (NY Times)
- Finally, from the assignment desk: The president of the United States will meet with Mayor Adams today. We won't be there because the White House didn't bother to respond to our request last week for credentials (and we were going to ask President Biden about federal help in clearing curb cuts and bus stops of snow after storms — you know, the tough questions). (Gothamist)
