Mayor Mamdani's Department of Transportation is seeing red.
DOT on Friday announced plans to finally expand the number of locations in the city with red light cameras from 150 to 600 — more than a year after Gov. Hochul signed state legislation enabling the agency to so. Gothamist, amNY and PIX11 all covered the news, but no one really asked why the Adams administration had never taken advantage of the state-granted power.
In any event, new city government officials will turn on 50 new locations per week over the next five weeks, with the rest coming online by the end of the year.
DOT lobbied Albany to get the sorely needed expansion passed back in 2024, and Gov. Hochul signed the law in October of that year.
So why did it take so long for the new cameras to come online? An agency rep said officials have been "hard at work" setting up a new automated enforcement contract and "updating" the hardware at existing red-light camera locations, since the program launched three decades ago, and installing cameras at the new locations.
Was this an example of ex-Mayor Eric Adams's administration slow-walking yet another traffic safety initiative? DOT says no — and it's not like it's been shy about saying when Adams appointees delayed or canceled a project now being advanced by Mayor Mamdani.
In fact, they did so on Sunday, when they announced Madison Avenue's forthcoming double-lane bus lanes. Read all about that from Streetsblog's Dave Colon. (Gothamist and the Post also covered the Madison Avenue announcement.)
In other news:
- Gov. Hochul wants to lower New York car insurance premiums — and the money crash victims receive in payouts when drivers cause harm. (Capital Confidential)
- Cyclists love Mamdani. (Curbed)
- And Long Islanders love Broadway ... despite congestion pricing, Matt Chayes reports for Newsday.
- Do you live upstate? Now there's a Streetsblog for you! Wait a second? (Streetsblog Empire State)
- A traffic stop in the West Village turned fatal Thursday night when cops shot a man who had pointed what turned out to be a fake gun at them. (Gothamist)
- The state DOT wants to build a new road through Bronx Park in Van Nest. (News12)
- New elevators came online last week at the Parkchester 6 train stop. (Bronx Times)
- Crain's on congestion pricing: "Stay the course."
- Marcia Kramer asked New Yorkers on the street, "How old is too old to drive?" (CBS New York)
- Streetsblog Editor Gersh Kuntzman talked about Mayor Mamdani's inauguration on Bike Talk.
- The Mamdani administration will spend $4 million to build more public bathrooms. (NY Times, PIX11 via YouTube, NY Post)
- Anti-Trump protesters took to the streets on Sunday. (PIX11)
- Attorney General Tish James is demanding answers from Instacart about its "use of algorithmic pricing and price experiments."
- And finally, the DEA's 10th Avenue bike lane has a new tenant: "New York State Police."
