There are basically two stories today: First, in Williamsburg, a long-suffering community will ask — again — for relief from the gaping scar that Robert Moses left in their neighborhood in the form of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Rep. Nydia Velázquez will push BQGreen, a decade-plus-old proposal [PDF] to cap (for starters!) a trench portion of the highway between South Third and South Fifth streets. The plan has been discussed almost since Moses cleaved Williamsburg, but has been seriously considered since 2010, when various politicians made promises to get money for it, etc. etc.
Back then, though, Reynoso was just an aide to Council Member Diana Reyna. So maybe this time is the charm?
Meanwhile, up in Albany, state Assembly members will gather for one last mini-session — though no one in the livable streets community has much hope that Speaker Carl Heastie will let Sammy's Law come to a vote, given that he hasn't even put it on the calendar. So for another year, at least, New York won't get the life-saving power to set its own speed limits (a power that would help Heastie's constituents most of all, as we reported earlier).
Monday was the federal Juneteenth holiday, so there wasn't much news:
- The New York Times suggested that there's a "widening" divide between the city and the suburbs. Well, that hostility goes both ways, you know. Plenty of city residents are angered that suburbanites don't pay their fair share. And Komanoff had another spin:
I'll bet that the 20-something rando quoted "disputing the notion that the suburbs are safer than the city" had LI's and NJ's appalling highway crash rates in mind. If so, he's a smarter and better defender of NYC than our mayor (and press corps). https://t.co/LVy0IcYAMg
— Charles Komanoff (@Komanoff) June 18, 2023
- Speaking of the suburbs, some people up there get it! (Ct News Junkie)
- A motorcycle passenger was killed in a Queens crash. (NYDN)
- An EMT fled the scene of a crash and was later arrested. (NYDN)
- One day after a small child was hurt badly by the driver of a hit-and-run moped, another moped rider was injured in a crash with an MTA bus driver. (amNY)
- Mayor Adams has come up with a new definition of the missionary position. (NY Post)
- An upstate man killed his sister in a crash. (NY Post)
- The MTA is setting the stage for a lot of track work in the Rockaways. (QNS)
- Early voting continues today from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Board of Elections)
- Crain's looked at why the Adams administration is hemorrhaging talent.
- Russell Shorto, who wrote "The Island at the Center of the World," indirectly reminds us that New York City was one of the world's most important places long before there were cars. (NY Times)
