We don't usually start the headlines with a roundup of the week, but we need to because so much happened! Here are just a few Streetsblog links we hope you didn't miss:
- Not so fast on bringing cars back into a park, Staten Islanders said.
- You'd think if the city was spending $160 million on a new rec center in Harlem, it could find a few dollars for a bike rack.
- The city, on Earth Day no less, revealed that it was no longer taking 311 requests for street trees.
- The NYPD was again accused of racially biased policing.
- That last one is especially relevant given Kevin Duggan's blockbuster of a story about how the NYPD is now going to write criminal summonses instead of mere traffic tickets to cyclists.
- And we also started our mayoral questionnaires.
What a week. Read them all and then head into the weekend strong.
In other news:
- The thing about most reporters is they just don't know the law. The Daily News apparently forgot that opening a door into traffic — aka "dooring" — is illegal, instead allowing the killer van driver whose illegal act killed a cyclist in SoHo to say he was sad about what happened. Nor did the paper mention the 28 red light and speed camera tickets on this awful driver's record. Meanwhile, amNY accepted — hook, line and sinker — the NYPD's official narrative that the cyclist "ran into" the van driver's already-open door.
- Related, Council Member Jen Guttierez has a pending bill that would require taxis "to prominently display a sign on all rear passenger doors warning passengers to look for cyclists before opening the door."
- Pols can always find money for more cops in the subway, as Gov. Hochul did yesterday, even as her MTA CEO Janno Lieber pointed out that crime remains down underground. (NYDN)
- Best budget ever? We'll have more to say on that later today. (NY Post)
- Council members Amanda Farias and Keith Powers had an op-ed in the Daily News about their bill to prohibit noisy, "non-essential helicopter flights" from taking off or landing at city-run heliports. (Now do Jersey!)
- Here's what's going on with those silver boxes that say "New York City Drinking Water Sampling Station" on them. (NY Times)
- Maybe that Rockaway Boardwalk bike ban won't happen. (Hell Gate)
- The DOT will be out today at Franklin and Lafayette avenues chatting with the community and gathering input on potential street improvements. (Reddit)
- No, no, you urbanists got us all wrong: We love bike lanes and how they make roadways safer … as long as we can still double-park our buses and cars everywhere, making roadways less safe. Yeah, right. (Astoria Post)
- And, finally, sad news for all of us fans of quirky singer-songwriters: Jill Sobule is dead at age 66 (NY Post). My favorite song of hers, "Jetpack," includes the line, "I don't have a jetpack/I don't even have a car."
