Wednesday’s Headlines: A Little Biking Music Edition

Several older members of the staff saw Neil Young at Forest Hills Stadium last night, and we were hoping for two things: 1. That it won't be the old folkie's last appearance in the tri-state area and 2. that he wouldn't sing too much about cars.

I mean, the guy has a lot of songs that mention cars ("Drive Back," "Who's Driving My Car Now," "Long May You Run," "Sedan Delivery," etc. etc.) and he once even put out an entire album about his car ("Fork in the Road"). And his greatest (IMHO) song, "I'm The Ocean," references what it feels like to be an old Cutlass Supreme in the wrong lane, trying to turn against the flow.

In a career that dates back to the mid-1960s, the guy has only two lyrics mentioning a bike: one is a quick aside on "Trans," and the other is a full-fledged reference: "His bicycle leans on an oak tree/While the cars rumble over his head," from "It's a Dream" off the under-rated "Prairie Wind." (And, of course, he does reference riding a llama, so there's that.)

The lack of two-wheel-friendly lyrics doesn't mean we don't love him. Just sayin'.

Meanwhile, one of Streetsblog's house bands (besides Jimmy and the Jaywalkers) has been Life in a Blender — ever since the band's epic gentrification hit, "What Happened to Smith?"

The band is back with a new LP, "Bent by the Weather," which includes some classics ("Rowan & Martin," "On the Sand"), but also a new song that is certainly going to entrance Streetsblog readers, "My Heart Your Sweat Does Feed":

It opens with some great biking lyrics: "Gravel, gravel between my legs/Huffy can eat my dust, Raleigh get out of the way/I’ll be laying down fat skids, I didn’t come here to play/Leave the knapsacks in the lawn/When your kickstand’s up I’ll be long gone."

And it's ultimately a touching love song on two wheels, not four: "The open road/We both will ride/I ring my bell/Mouth open wide/On banana seat/I’ll make some room/Hug my waist/We’ll be home soon."

Can Neil Young do that?

In other news:

• Does Mayor Adams realize how straight up offensive this is? (NY Post)
• Looks like we need a new Train Daddy, as Rich Davey heads for the exit at NYC Transit. (Gothamist)
• The City seemed to make this sound like a scandal, but the MTA got buses on the cheap from New Jersey.
• Even terrible AI-created renderings of livable streets go a long way towards helping sway opponents, a new study shows. (Bloomberg)
• The Blue Highway got a boost yesterday with the announcement (and handout to Bloomberg, later followed by the Daily News and the Times) that the city is going to take over a huge section of the Brooklyn waterfront for what the Adams administration promises will be housing and a modern port. But Rep. Jerry Nadler, who has long fought to expand the Red Hook cargo port, was upset (not that Bloomberg had that).
• Well, apparently winter is over, because the Department of Transportation handed out a non-story to the Daily News about how it will indeed finish the redesign of the northern part of McGuinness Boulevard (as long promised), but the story had no word on the stalled southern portion.
• The amNY 20th anniversary overkill did at least allow the paper to look back on the last 20 years of transit in the city.
• New York Focus deserves a hat tip for its analysis of the massive NYPD press office, a story that ended (you can't make this up) with this gem: "DCPI, which is responsible for responding to media inquiries 24 hours a day, did not respond to New York Focus’s questions before press time."
• The scooter-share expansion into Queens now has a timeline, DOT (and amNY) reported: