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Here's a little update on the "streets master plan" for your rainy Friday morning.
Recall: City Council Speaker Corey Johnson passed an ambitious plan for redesigning the city's streets to prioritize pedestrians, cyclists and transit users over drivers.
Then: Mayor Adams took office and repeatedly failed to meet the plan's benchmarks, but Johnson's successor Adrienne Adams did little to push back that other than the rare statement of displeasure. At one point, Speaker Adams publicly mulled suing the Adams administration for not complying with the law.
On Thursday, as both Adamses move into retirement from public life, Streetsblog asked the speaker why she never backed up her own Council's law by dragging the mayor to court.
Her response? "We were not interested in going through a lawsuit."
Looking to the future, Speaker Adams advised her likely successor Council Member Julie Menin to follow her lead — and seek a "collaborative" relationship with Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
"My advice for incoming speaker would be to do as much as you can to work very very closely with the mayoral administration," Adams said at a press conference before her last meeting of the entire City Council as its speaker.
Fortunately, the issue of streets master plan compliance may be moot under Mayor Mamdani — incoming First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan earlier this week "committed to actually achieving" the plan's benchmarks.
In other news:
We like to start the day’s headlines by celebrating our December Donation Drive contributors from the previous day. But there was only one (what’s up with that?). So, thanks, Liliya! And the rest of you … help a site out, we beg you!
Programming alert: Streetsblog's "Car-Free Carolers" will be live on NY1 at 7:30 a.m. on Friday.
Council Member Gale Brewer is everywhere. West Side Rag profiled her scheduler. (West Side Rag)
One Lower East Side block typifies NYPD's disregard for truck route enforcement. (Hell Gate)
The City Council approved a set of housing bills opposed by both Mayor Adams and Mayor-elect Mamdani. (NY Times, Gothamist)
Politico reports that Mamdani tried to stop Julie Menin from winning the Council Speaker's race.
The MTA is buying anti-fare evasion turnstile "fins." (NY Post)
Mamdani's just-picked head of appointments resigned over old anti-Jewish tweets. (Politico, Gothamist)
Whatever happened to the MTA's platform screen door pilot? (Aaron Shavel via Substack)
How Northeast Queens went MAGA. (Nick Rafter via Substack)
The City Council voted to lift the street vendor permit cap. (Gothamist)
Former MTA board member Sherif Soliman will be the city's next budget director. (amNY)
Woo! Subway crime hit its lowest levels since 2009. (NY Times)
David was Streetsblog's do-it-all New York City beat reporter from 2015 to 2019. He returned as deputy editor in 2023 after a three-year stint at the New York Post.
"We shouldn’t be aiming to nudge a few percentage points in public opinion. Our goal should be to make freedom of mobility so compelling that people demand it."
