A coalition of greenspace-loving groups is demanding that Zohran Mamdani make good on his promise to raise the Parks Department's budget. Plus other news.
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It's time to put some green in the green.
Our friends at New Yorkers for Parks and the Play Fair for Parks Coalition are demanding that incoming Mayor Mamdani do more than just make good on his promise to double the Parks Department budget (because zero times two is still zero!) by ending the agency's hiring freeze, launching a bathroom blitz, reduce the 35,000 open work orders in the forestry division, create a Parks Master Plan and fully fund the Queensway.
It's a long list of "first 100-day priorities," but these are some pretty low-hanging branches to clear away, if you ask the two groups.
“New Yorkers have been told for years that parks matter — but the Adams administration’s cuts showed the opposite,” Adam Ganser, executive director of New Yorkers for Parks, told us in a statement. “Mayor-elect Mamdani now has the chance to reset the city’s priorities and prove on Day 1 that parks are essential infrastructure, especially for working families.”
Most important: finally achieving a budget for the Parks Department that is at least 1 percent of the city budget (it's about 0.6 percent now, despite Adams's promise to get to the supposedly magical 1 percent). The money isn't for gilding lilies, of course, but to rebuild a department that, the groups say, lost more than 600 positions under Mayor Adams, who hired 5,000 more police officers — and their overtime budget alone exceeds what the groups sought to fund the entire parks system.
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Why is the Adams administration failing to collect fines from scofflaw school bus companies, Brad Lander wants to know. (NYDN)
Two workers were hurt at the MTA worksite on the Broadway Bridge. (NYDN)
Following up on our own Sophia Lebowitz's insightful reporting about how Amazon contracts labor through outside companies, Jacobin is calling for reform.
More congestion pricing-funded improvements are coming to the subway. (amNY)
In a related story, the MTA Board passed the agency's $21-billion budget. (NY Post)
And MTA CEO Janno Lieber says Facebook leaves subway surfing videos up way too long. (The City)
Pete Davidson and Colin Jost's ferry bad idea continues. (NY Post)
And, finally, watch this guy race an NYC Ferry boat from Soundview to the Rockaways. He's amazing:
A new analysis of toll evasion found that the amount of money owed by drivers who don't pay paper toll invoices has more than doubled since 2022, from $147 million in unpaid tolls to nearly $350 million.
