It's a new week and there will be lots of crucial events, so let us help you set your calendar.
First, today will start at 8:15 a.m. with MTA Chairman Janno Lieber taking reporters' questions in Lower Manhattan before "boarding a PATH train to Newark, N.J., where he will appear in response to a lawsuit filed by the State of New Jersey relating to congestion pricing." (Aren't there lawyers to do that?)
Later, there's talk that opponents of open streets will storm tonight's Queens Community Board 3 virtual transportation committee meeting to complain about Paseo Park. We'll be watching.
Then, on Tuesday, our own Julianne Cuba will headline a League of Women's Voters lunchtime session with the awkward title, "E-Vehicles- Can NYC Make Them Safer?" (we probably would have titled it, "Dangerous Streets: Can NYC Make Them Safer?"). For tickets, click here.
And on top of all that, Streetsblog's annual "Bus Week" begins today. Click here for all the week's coverage of multiple agencies' and officials' failure to make New York's buses run faster.
In other news:
- Speaking of Julianne Cuba and e-bikes, DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez had a must-read column in amNY about them. The main takeaway is that he doesn't support registering the legal bikes, but instead calls for three things: redesigning streets for safety, "educating motorists about sharing the road, and working with partners in law enforcement to crack down on dangerous driving and to keep cars and trucks out of bike lanes." Sounds like he has the right priorities, adding, "E-bikes ... make cycling more accessible and our city more sustainable. This is a good thing."
- The Times had a number of questionable stories (or stories featuring questionable behavior):
- The paper devoted considerable column inches for an apparently exciting new technology that, for tens of millions of dollars, will remove the carbon produced by 200 cars, a process that the company, Heirloom Carbon Technologies, is hoping to do at scale. The paper made no mention of how much cheaper it would be to create policies that would remove the 200 cars ... and then do that at scale.
- The paper's coverage of flagging sales for electric vehicles was heavy on the demand for more government action, even though electric bike subsidies have proven to be a better use of public money.
- The principle fundraiser for the High Line — the old train line that became a park — was profiled on Sunday. He admitted (without shame, because why would The NY Times ever introduce shame about car use?) he takes his "white Chevy Traverse" to drive from the Lower East Side to a church on 16th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenue — approximating the exact route of a real life, working train called F. (The mega-car gets 17 miles per gallon in the city.)
- And the Metropolitan Diary again led with a cheery car story.
- The Daily News got another story out of the EV cab controversy, this time looking at how hard it is to charge electric vehicles in the city right now. Meanwhile, the Post still hates cleaner electric power because ... The Post.
- Car carnage in the Bronx (NYDN) and bus carnage in Queens (NY Post).
- Speaking of bad car drivers, here's a sick practice: goading cops into high-speed chases ... for the 'gram. (NY Post)
- DOT to MTA: Sorry, your buses are too heavy. World to DOT: Really? You had one job. (The City)
- The photo on Tom "The New Cuozzo" Wrobleski's latest driver lament sort of tells it all. If he would just carpool, he wouldn't be so miserable. (SI Advance)
- The Upper West Side deliverista hub is apparently still going forward, reports the West Side Rag.
- Former federal transit man Larry Penner picked through the details of the latest federal funding for the Second Avenue Subway. (Mass Transit)
- And, finally, when David Zipper tells us to watch something, we watch:
