Friday’s Headlines: A Big DOT Day Edition

All day long, the Department of Transportation made news.

First, the good news: Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez began the day by cutting the ribbon on the new bike lane on Bronxdale Avenue, a key route, especially for scooter riders in the city's pilot (which, the agency reported on Thursday, has "logged more than 1.2 million trips since its launch in summer 2021").

Of course, a ribbon-cutting doesn't mean a bike lane is completely done yet, as Friend of Streetsblog Michael Kaess showed in his own version of our popular Eyes on the Street feature. He found lots of missing paint:

Next up, amNY reported that the agency had torn down its 100th defunct restaurant shed — though it's worth noting that 100 sheds is a tiny tiny fraction of the working and popular streeteries out there.

Then, our colleague Jackson Chabot reported that work appears to have begun on Apolline's Garden in Fort Greene.

But then, the agency revealed that it will be doing work on the dangerous Greenpoint Avenue bridge next week — and there won't be any temporary safety for cyclists, who will have to "share" a lane with drivers. Hey, don't tell bike riders to share a roadway with drivers going 40 — unless, that is, this "work" will end up with a real protected bike lane, rather than the paint and a prayer currently afforded cyclists:

The Greenpoint Avenue Bridge news came after the agency took heat from activists for not protecting cyclists on Fourth Avenue, where drivers have been given the protected bike lane during construction of the future "Great Street," as Streetsblog reported.

And then, the agency dealt promptly with what could have been a disaster: Some driver moved all the barrels that had been temporary deployed to protect the Williamsburg Street West portion of the Brooklyn Greenway, but, once alerted, the DOT sent a crew:

So, all in all a busy day.

In other news:

• People are spotting the new 5G cell towers all over town — and realizing they are way bigger than we thought they'd be. On the Upper East Side, at least, they're on top of streetlights instead of being freestanding towers. (Upper East Site)
• A man was killed by an unlicensed driver after getting out of his car with engine trouble. (NYDN)
• The Tour de Bronx is back — but not better than ever. (The City)
• Times reporter James Barron got an autonomous vehicle to stop by standing in front of it. That's good news for safety, but it's also every driverless car manufacturers' worst nightmare: how will autonomous cars operate in cities if they stop whenever someone walks in front of them? (Easy: Our car-loving elected officials will force us all to wear transponders.)
• Speaking about how much it sucks to own a car, the city's just-rebooted parking app is apparently frustrating people (boy, they'll really be frustrated when the city finally charges the fair market price for the curb). (The City)
• Here's a must read on crime for Nicole Gelinas (hint: Mayor Adams is not a fan). (NY Post)
• We love how Mayor Adams claims he didn't fire a staffer who mouthed off because as mayor, he has thick skin. But Adams ended up firing the staffer because of negative comments he made about the NYPD. (NYDN)
• This Twitter post was funny in a sick way because the suggestion that a terror attack could be enabled with a placard might be the only thing that gets our terror-obsessed nation to actually crack down on placard abuse. (@debdrens via Twitter)

• Finally, we aren't going to pretend that there's no crime in New York or that even one subway assault is OK, but still, if you're going to attack Gov. Hochul for the supposed rise in violence in New York, you should at least make sure the video you're tweeting is from New York and not, um, Chicago!