Wednesday’s Headlines: Talk is Cheap Edition

These are heady days in the Streetsblog newsroom. First, for the past few months, we’ve been sharing space with the estimable news outlet, New York Focus. It’s been nice having another dozen or so reporters hanging around, pushing us to do better and correcting our typos while also listening to us drone on and on about psychotic drivers (especially yesterday).

To show thanks for our hospitality, Akash Mehta and the gang want to invite Streetsblog readers to the website’s latest public forum on transportation, “The Next New York: Are We There Yet?”

It’s on Wednesday, Jan. 28, at Littlefield in Park Slope (so close to Dinosaur BBQ that this vegan is wavering) and will feature such big names as Megan Ahearn of NYPIRG, Renae Reynolds of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, Betsy Plum of Riders Alliance, former Department of Transportation Commissioner Hank Gutman, and Ben Furnas of Transportation Alternatives.

We’ll be there to heckle from the audience, but if you want a half-priced ticket, use the exclusive discount code for Streetsblog readers: streetsblog50.

Second, you may have noticed that our Instagram and YouTube pages have been booming with new content.

The reason: our latest hire, Henry Beebe-Center.

Henry’s a few years out of University of Vermont and back from doing his California thing (he muttered something about making it in Hollywood, but Tinseltown’s loss is our gain). Look, all young men are supposed to go west, right, but that Boulevard of Broken Dreams and suburban hellscape always leads back to Gotham — where now Henry can indulge his obsession with urbanism.

So welcome Henry, our new social video producer!

You might have caught his most-recent video on Central Park last week. Missed it? Here’s the rerun (it’s vertical like the kids like it):

Now, to the news:

• Stop stealing parking with orange cones. (NY Post)
• Our own Sophia Lebowitz was on Bike Talk, the seminal podcast.
• This driver was going 107 when he killed a woman! (NYDN)
• Heard about the secret fare hike? (Secret NYC)
• You mostly get what you pay for … except at the pump. (The City)
• Jersey City has a delivery drone. Meet Coco! (NJ.com)
• And they said congestion pricing would kill Broadway. Ha! “Magic Mike” proves the haters wrong! (NYDN)
• School bus drivers don’t give a shit about your bike lane. (Reddit)
• Did you hear how Craig Newmark (of the eponymous “list”) has decided that journalism is no longer a good use for his philanthropy? That’s because he never invested in Streetsblog! (Nieman Lab)