Skip to Content
Streetsblog New York City home
Streetsblog New York City home
Log In
Today's Headlines

Friday’s Headlines: It Never Ends Edition

A great Hell Gate story about fake placards is our top story. Plus other news in our digest.

It seems like we're always writing the same story, so we were pleased to see our friends at Hell Gate report on Thursday about yet another way that entitled drivers are stealing from us and how the city isn't doing anything about it.

As the worker-owned outlet reported, according to a city law passed in 2019, drivers are supposed to get escalating fines if they are caught using a fake parking placard. But, of course, they don't. In fact, Hell Gate could not find a single instance where repeat offenders who were ticketed were slapped with the higher fines.

"It's outrageous," Manhattan Council Member Gale Brewer told Hell Gate. "I know about the problem but I didn’t know how extensive it is."

Well, now she does.

In other news:

  • Entitlement on display: Let's play the world's smallest violin for the New Jersey drivers complaining how hard it is to store their cars for free all day in Manhattan now that congestion pricing has started. Hey, Garden Staters, that's a feature, not a bug (and tell Josh Gottheimer we say hi). (Gothamist)
  • Janno Lieber's tin-cup trip to Albany began with Gothamist's curtain-raiser on the MTA's high construction costs and ongoing debt problems and ended with his demand that the legislature look to its own dysfunctions (Streetsblog, NYDN, NY Post, Gothamist).
  • Vacant lot or housing? A Harlem community board chose the former. (The City)
  • Another senior was killed by a reckless driver, this time a 90-year-old woman on the Upper East Side. (Patch, NY Post)
  • Speaking of reckless drivers, Williamsburg365 — the house organ of the opponents of the Bedford Avenue bike lane — reported about a driver who slammed his car into a McDonald's restaurant on that very same avenue. Because no one could blame the bike lane, it wasn't mentioned. But what should have been mentioned is that the car in question has 91 violations on its record!
  • Like Streetsblog, amNY covered the damning Independent Budget Office audit of Mayor Adams's failed bus lane efforts.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog New York City

And the Winner Is…: Streetsblog’s New Video Team Honored with Deadline Club Award

Streetsblog's social media team, led by Engagement Editor Emily Lipstein, received the Deadline Club's award for digital video reporting on Thursday night.

Friday Video: The ‘Clear’ Benefits of Daylighting

The doyen of daylighting is back with a new video.

May 16, 2025

How One Anti-Gov’t Republican Signed onto a Street Safety Bill to Rein in Reckless Drivers

State Sen. Anthony Palumbo went from "government overreach" to reaching across the aisle in a single day.

May 16, 2025

‘All in the Family’: NYPD Commissioner and Power-Broker Mom Are Both Crusading Against E-Bikes

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has justified her criminal crackdown on cycling by saying that complaints about cyclists are the most frequent concerns she hears. Such complaints could be coming from inside the house.

May 16, 2025

Puddles Plague Hudson River Greenway As Rain Batters NYC

Greenway cyclists face dangerous conditions when it rains — as Streetsblog observed this week in Manhattan.

May 16, 2025
See all posts