The Department of Transportation announced early on Monday — and doled out the exclusive to the Daily News — that it would do more to combat this year's horrifying increase in cyclist deaths (first reported by Streetsblog).
A lot of the projects mentioned — such as McGuinness Boulevard in Brooklyn and Third Avenue in Manhattan — have been previously reported on, but it was nice to see the Addabbo Bridge finally make the list.
Of course, who knows what will happen? The Hasidic community in Williamsburg is already gearing up to fight the DOT's Bedford Avenue proposal, Gothamist reported.
We'll keep our eyes on DOT's progress this year, as the agency is required by city law to build 50 miles of protected bike lanes in calendar year 2023. Nothing announced on Monday suggests the agency will get there, but a spokesperson at least promised more bike infrastructure than in any prior year.
In other news from a supremely busy day:
- We were happy that our old man editor was back from his junket fact-finding mission to Perugia, Italy, where, in addition to eating lots of pasta trading reporting strategies with the world's top journalists, he picked up Jesse Coburn's Sigma Award for his story last year on the unique dangers of New York City school streets.
- The MTA's OMNY fare card system has been delayed again — and the agency's excuses sound bad (NYDN), but at least there'll be OMNY vending machines this summer (NY Post, Gothamist). In addition, OMNY will eventually make it to the overpriced AirTrain (amNY).
- The MTA codified its e-bike and e-scooter rules. (NYDN)
- Kevin Duggan had a great story today about how collisions between cars and buses are down in bus lanes that are camera-enforced. But Jose Martinez had a story yesterday about how collisions between subway cars and people are up. (The City)
- Another electric bike rider has died. (NYDN)
- Paul Krugman broke down the real problem with New York City: housing costs. (NY Times)
- More muscle car mania by the NYPD. (NY Post)
- The Sheriff's Department invited amNY to watch it bust drivers with obscured or fake plates on Monday ... but read the fine print: in a three-hour operation, only seven cars were seized by the agency: Six for unpaid parking tickets and one for an unpaid Commercial Motor Vehicle Tax, the paper reported.
- Locals want change on dangerous Atlantic Avenue in Cobble Hill. (Brooklyn Paper)
- And, finally, we were happy (and jealous) to see the first excerpt of Henry Grabar's book, "Paved Paradise," in Harper's. We can't wait to read the book, which we hope will raise the consciousness of car drivers nationwide. "The significance we assign to good parking in our personal lives is surpassed only by our ignorance of its systemic consequences," Grabar writes.
