Wednesday’s Headlines: Strange Busfellows Edition

Centrists for free buses?

Leave it to Rep. Grace Meng (D-Queens), Dan Goldman (D-Brooklyn/Manhattan), Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) and Nydia Velazquez (D-Brooklyn-Queens) to stand up for Mayor Mamdani's signature issue: free buses.

Though none of the aforementioned pols can be considered a true ally of the mayor (Nydia came close, until recently), they all signed onto a letter demanding that the House Transportation Committee stand up to President Trump's reported effort to make sure the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization bill does not cut off federal transit funding to big blue cities that want to eliminate fares on buses.

"Such a policy would undermine local decision-making and threaten access to safe, reliable, and affordable transit for the riders who rely on it most," state the group's letter, which was sent to the committee's chair and ranking Democrat.

"Adopting [U.S.] Department of Transportation's proposal could harm cities such as Richmond, Alexandria, Albuquerque, and Boston, which have successfully implemented fare-free transit for years, while discouraging many others from following suit, like New York City," the letter continued. "This approach undermines local innovation, limits access to public transportation, and penalizes agencies that have demonstrated the effectiveness of fare-free service for their communities."

More as this story — and the reauthorization bill — progresses. Kea Wilson at Streetsblog USA has been on top of this story and will continue to stay there.

The only other big story yesterday was the fallout from the world's-most-videotaped snowball fight. For the record, it took the right wing outrage machine a while to get where it always wants to go — a full case of Mamdani Derangement Syndrome. Indeed, the first draft of Monday's snow day action in the Post was downright restrained. But, of course, the law-and-order crowd quickly turned the story around: this wasn't a snowball fight that got a little rowdy, but a full-on assault on our brave New York's Finest. (Post, part deux, CBS2, Fox News)

Of course, the mayor really mishandled the whole thing — and by "mayor," of course I mean Mayor Tisch on Tuesday. After the police commissioner's ostensible boss downplayed the right wing's demand for blood — "It looks like a snowball fight," the real mayor said — Tisch defied Mamdani and demanded criminal charges for the alleged assault-by-snowball of cops. Clearly, she chose to escalate when the mayor's marching orders were clear: sometimes a snowball fight is just a snowball fight.

Anyone who has been in this city since the arrival of Rupert Murdoch knew exactly how this story was going to play out. Mamdani came to power by defeating the Andrew Cuomos and the Bill Ackmans of the world — and such people don't go away quietly (as the Times reported in an unrelated story yesterday). They waited for their first chance to depict the mayor as anti-cop, and seized it — even though they picked an ahistorical moment to do so, as one wag reminded on Twitter:

Gothamist wisely concluded that all these burning vanities had "turned into a political reckoning for Mayor Zohran Mamdani." (The Daily News played up the Mamdani-Tisch discord. The Times was late and made a hash of it. Hell Gate had exactly the right tone, given the pearl-clutching that filled social media all day.)

Will this scandal melt like Monday's snow or will it re-freeze in the crucible of the New York rageocrisy? Will the mayor get on the phone and tell his police commissioner to stand down? And is there anyone in City Hall who told the mayor that this was exactly how this would play out? To be continued...

In other news:

• At least one set of park-goers knew how to treat a snow day. Check out how much fun people had in Herbert Von King Park on Monday:

• As good as the subways were during the storm on Monday, they were bad on Tuesday (Gothamist) as was commuter rail (The City).
• It's about time that the Clark Street 2/3 station in Brooklyn Heights is nicer, says Council Member Lincoln Restler. (Brooklyn Eagle)
• Making $30 per hour shoveling snow for the city is not an easy gig. (Slate)
• There is nothing wrong with an old man reminding his kids to pee before they get in the damn car! (NY Post)
• Wow, it is so satisfying to see Vickie Paladino twist herself into a pretzel over a simple housing project in her Bayside district. (NY Focus)
• And, finally, is this the greatest hijacking of a live interview since Richard Sherman surprised Erin Andrews with his "LOB" rant after the NFC Championship Game in 2014? In the video below, the interview subject decides he simply doesn't want to talk about snow, but about the real problem facing our country: