City Hall pledged last year to build two charging station rest stops for delivery workers to take breaks near City Hall and on the Upper West Side, but the proposals have faced opposition. On Wednesday, Mayor Adams doubled down on the plans — and blasted delivery-loving Manhattanites as hypocrites for opposing the effort.
"We’re still navigating all those who get their food delivered to them but don't want the hubs in their community — that's hypocrisy," Adams said during a surprise appearance at the grand opening of the latest attempt to provide space for the industry's workers to rest and recharge.
The delivery business is booming, but with the rest stop project slow-rolling up against opposition and a previous experiment run by Chick-fil-A shuttered, an urgent need has been met with a trifling response.
Enter JOCO — a company owned by two guys named Jonathan Cohen that operates an e-bike network out of the city's hotels and private parking garages. JOCO Concierge, its new storefront break room at 259 Bowery, will exclusively be open to JOCO riders — even if they don’t deliver for Grubhub, according to a rep for the tech firm.
The city's own public charging stations and rest hubs will be created out of retrofitted, vacant newsstands. Adams pledged to get them done.
"We're moving straight ahead. We're gonna get them open,” Hizzoner said.
In other news:
- Ice cream truck drivers are putting their customers in conflict with cyclists and creating dangerous conditions for everyone on Central Park West. West Side Rag "counted seven ice cream trucks on Central Park West between W. 67th and W. 96th Streets." Of the trucks, four were parked in the buffer adjacent to the bike lane and one was parked in a hydrant. Recall that the bike lane went in after an Australian tourist in her early 20s died trying to get around a taxi parked the then-unprotected bike lane.
- Other outlets matched our coverage of the sentencing of Tyrik Mott for killing 3-month-old Baby Apolline Mong Guillemin. (NY Post, Daily Mail)
- An allegedly speeding NYPD cruiser collided with another car and flipped into the elevated train column in Astoria, injuring the two cops inside. The driver of the totaled civilian car said the cops were "going 60 or 70" miles per hour with their lights on and no sirens. (amNY)
- New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy filed 15 pages of lies, fibs, and misdirections to the FHWA in opposition to congestion pricing on Tuesday. (NJ.com, NJ BIZ)
- Good news for the farebox: NYC office occupancy rates are at 50 percent for the first time since the start of the pandemic. (NY Post)
- A speeding BMW driver injured four people in Harlem. (ABC7NY, Patch, CBS New York)
- MTA bus maintainers caught stealing thousands in "no-show" OT scheme. (Daily News, MTAOIG via Twitter)
- Security guards from the 34th Street Partnership have the authority to ticket Herald Square street vendors thanks to an obscure law — and they do. (Documented)
- Meet two "heroes" of the MTA's customer communications operation. (ABC7NY)
- The Dept. of Homeless Services cutting costs — and homeless shelter personnel — as part of the mayor's war on government spending. (NY Post)
- Meet your likely next NYPD commissioner. (The City)
- De Blasio: "Well, Well, Well, Not So Easy To Find A Mayor That Doesn’t Suck Shit, Huh?" (New York Magazine)
