Monday’s Headlines: Summer’s Here Edition

Summer’s here and we’re almost there.

Spike Lee said it himself at Saturday’s confab with Al Sharpton and the anti-Cuomo candidates for mayor: We’ll have “Do the Right Thing” weather this week — just when we’re having a huge municipal election on Tuesday.

But this is Streetsblog, and despite being one of the few issues entirely under the mayor’s control, streets haven’t come up much in the mayor’s race.

Yes, most candidates made commitments more or less in line with the desires and dreams of advocates, but we know from Eric Adams that campaign promises don’t necessarily become mayoral policy. Frontrunner Andrew Cuomo declined to fill out Streetsblog’s candidate questionnaire, declined to attend the candidate forum co-hosted by transportation advocacy groups and declined to participate the pro-bike, pro-transit group StreetsPAC’s endorsement process. His campaign promised us a transportation plan, but still hasn’t released one.

It’s too bad, because we’d love to know whether Cuomo agrees with Mayor Adams’s likely illegal push to remove the Bedford Avenue protected bike lane. We’d love to know whether he supports the ambitious goals of the Council-mandated Streets Master Plan. We’d love to know whether he wants to license all e-bikes or just delivery e-bikes.

And we’d love to know why he drives so recklessly (on that, the Post shared our concern and followed our coverage, though without mentioning us, of course).

Neither Cuomo nor his leading opponent, Zohran Mamdani, answered the “Dave Colon Challenge” to bike the city’s streets with us (though Mamdani did fill out our questionnaire). Instead you’ll have to settle for Dave write-ups of rides with Brad Lander, Whitney Tilson and Zellnor Myrie. Streetsblog doesn’t support or oppose specific candidates, but plenty of members of the livable streets movement have given us their five-slot mayoral rankings here (and not a single one of them ranked Cuomo anywhere).

Early voting is over, so if you’re a registered Democrat in New York City who hasn’t voted, it’s tomorrow or bust. Then we’re onto November.

In other news:

• DOT still doesn’t have a vendor for the secure bike storage pilot the mayor had announced to start next month. (Gothamist)
• An unlicensed drunk driver killed a moped rider. NYPD charged the driver, but the initial police narrative that landed in reporters’ in boxes blamed the victim. (Gothamist, Daily News)
• If Steve Cuozzo is against a street redesign, it’s probably a good idea. (NY Post)
• Increased service coming to the L and A lines. (Gothamist)
• The clock’s ticking for these 40-year-old LIRR trains. (Newsday)
• News12 reheats Streetsblog’s nachos on fake license plates.
• Citi Bike e-bikes are now capped at 15 mph. (Gothamist)
• A reality TV star was killed by a hit-and-run driver in the Hamptons. (NBC News)
• Everybody hates Amtrak all of a sudden. (Politico)
• And finally, check out Lander and Mamdani on Citi Bikes: