We start every new year with such optimism, we really do. Sure, we end every year with endless recapitulation of City Hall and Albany's political broken promises, policy failures and betrayals of the previous 12 months, but once the ball drops in the former Longacre Square, we're born again and there's new grass on the field.
And think of all the great things we have to look forward to in 2025!
Congestion pricing starts at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, and we're already planning to party near the toll gantries on the west side. (Look for us with our confetti and domestic Champagne — that is, unless Judge Leo Gordon changes his mind and gives New Jersey a temporary restraining order on the quite implausible grounds that a toll meets the legal standard for "irreparable harm," Gothamist and the Times reported).
After that, we'll have a state budget that, hopefully, will fully fund the next MTA repair and renovation plan, despite Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins's effort late last year to derail it.
And in June, we get to pick a new mayor, as amNY reminded us!
And we get an entire year to see if new Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch can give us all five items on our Christmas "Reform the NYPD" list.
So things are looking up!
Meanwhile, let's roundup some of the news you might have missed when you were watching Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper on CNN, four of the greatest hours of drunken TV of the year:
- Speaking of congestion pricing, Gothamist offered a primer on all the different toll costs, and also offered some irony: the Port Authority raised the price of its tolls to drive into Manhattan, but no one uttered a peep.
- And speaking of Police Commissioner Tisch's, she made her first questionable move in elevating John Chell, the architect of the department's massive increase in dangerous, high-speed chases, to Chief of Department. But perhaps Tisch is playing the long game? (NY Times)
- We've been writing about it all year, but the Times has finally cottoned onto the 2024 pedestrian death crisis.
- Christmas miracle: A man who had been pushed onto the subway tracks on Tuesday is expected to make a full recovery, which is stunning news if you'd seen the video. (NYDN)
- City cops said they are "monitoring" activity in New York after a pickup truck driver rampaged through the crowded French Quarter just after the new year began in the Big Easy, though there were no credible threats, Gothamist reported. Yet can it happen here? Of course it can, given how few parts of New York City are fully pedestrianized. (NYDN) The Post had video of the horrific attack. The Times also covered it big as the death count rose to 15.
- The Post also had video of a Cybertruck exploding outside a Trump-branded hotel in Las Vegas and sparking a blaze that was very hard to extinguish, thanks to its huge batteries.
- Indeed, a hit-and-run driver struck and killed a man in Brooklyn. (NYDN)
- Add this to the list of idiotic things to say after you drive your car into another car: "Sorry, my car just drives really fast." Here's hoping the DMV takes away this driver's license. (NY Post)
- Enjoy this long read from Jarrett Walker about the Frenchman who invented the first bus routes. (Human Transit)
- And here it is, our final "thank you" to the last few donors to our December fundraising drive (though, of course, you can give all year long!). Thanks, Steven! Thanks, James! Thanks, Colin! Thanks, Rich! Thanks, Peter! Thanks, Ayla (who told us, "I start every morning with a coffee and a scroll through Streetsblog!")! Thanks, Bill! Thanks, Jennifer! Thanks, Aaron! Thanks, Ross! Thanks, Thomas! Thanks, Brian W.!
