It's Aug. 1, which means two things: Where the hell is this summer going and finally, drivers can now be caught speeding in school zones all day, every day.
Yes, at long last, as of 10 p.m. tonighr, the city's speed cameras will start spitting out tickets 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Department of Transportation has been on a month-long "awareness" campaign, though it's likely that drivers will still complain.
Oh, right, local news is on the story, so of course there were plenty of stories airing the facts (that most deaths occur when the cameras were forced to be off) and the misguided spin (complaints from drivers who see reckless driving as something for which they should not be punished). The Rockaway Wave led in the latter regard. And the Post irresponsibly quoted a guy claiming that drivers can get tickets for going 5 miles per hour above the speed limit — sorry, Rupert, but the tickets only kick in when a driver is going 11 miles per hour or more above the speed limit.
Gridlock Sam praised the cameras in the Daily News.
But for the most part, coverage was cursory. And, the Staten Island Advance tossed in a review of the history of New York's speed cameras, in case you want to take a trip down Memory Lane (which should have a speed camera!)
In other news from a busy weekend:
- Several outlets (including the Daily News, the Village Sun, NY1, UPI) noticed that opponents of outdoor dining filed their long-awaited environmental lawsuit on Friday in New York Supreme Court.
- Michael Dowd, a Midwood High School teacher, had one of a truly well-written call for fixing the broken parking "system" in New York City. (NYDN)
- The Post followed our story about the initial shortcomings of the Department of Sanitation's Clean Curbs containerized trash pilot.
- Did you hear the one about the food delivery app that wanted to "empower" delivery workers? Yeah, it didn't go well. (The City)
- The Times finally got around to the cellphone-service-in-the-subway story. And speaking of Times coverage of the subway, the paper did a fun story about the much loved and much reviled subway entrance at 60 Wall Street.
- Sharp-eyed reporter Kevin Duggan of amNY used his Sunday shift to get into print something we were going to work on today — the city has scaled back the 181st Street busway!
- A couple of crashes were of particular note this weekend:
- First, an e-bike rider was struck and seriously injured by a hit-and-run driver of a 2019 Nissan Pathfinder on Saturday morning in the Bronx. (amNY)
- Second, a 70-year-old woman (with an interesting backstory, according to the Daily News) died after slamming her Range Rover into a pillar on Third Avenue in Brooklyn. And here we thought SUVs were safer for occupants of the car...
- Curbed did a funny piece about how terrible you look at that instant when you get off your bike, lock it to a pole, and start sweating profusely.
- Don't miss the Five Boro Bike Club's Aug. 20 ride from Harlem to the last of the three Summer Streets events this year.
- Here's your annual story in which DUMBO residents complain of visitors enjoying a street with no cars. (NY Post)
- And, finally, we covered a weird press conference on Friday about the redesign of a single intersection near the Brooklyn-Queens border that literally every elected official showed up at: Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, Council members Bob Holden and Sandy Nurse, State Sen. Julia Salazar and Assembly Member Jenifer Rajkumar. For one intersection! Naturally, since it was an event celebrating an intersection, we asked DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez how far along the agency had gotten in completing Mayor Adams's promise of redesigning 1,000 intersections by the end of the year. He wouldn't answer, except to say the DOT is more than half way there. He also dodged our question about why the NYPD fails to write more failure-to-yield tickets. One other footnote to the event: There were three DOT trucks parked near the press conference, two of which had multiple moving violations, which is just embarrassing. Also embarrassing? Holden had only a few weeks ago demanded the firing of DOT Queens Commissioner Nicole Garcia — who found herself inches from her professional tormentor, which our shutterbug couldn't help but notice:
And here's a photo from our friends at NYC H2O, showing Council Member Nurse with the before-and-after photos:
