Today’s Headlines: Super Bowl Tuesday Edition
We’ve been talking about it for weeks, but today is the Big Game.
At 10 a.m. in the Council office building on 250 Broadway, the Transportation Committee will convene to find out whether the Mamdani administration really will build us streets “that are the envy of the world” or whether it will be business as usual — aka more failures like the Adams administration to carry out the mandates of the Streets Master Plan.
Oh but that’s not all! After the oversight hearing on the Streets Master Plan, the Shaun Abreu-led committee will get down to serious business, discussing:
- A long-discussed bill, which has the support of Council Speaker Julie Menin, to allow for all-year outdoor dining. (Intro 655 — Restler)
- A bill to require DOT to install at least 5,000 bicycle parking stations over five years, though the city has already committed to building secure bike parking with its contract with Transito. (Intro 93 — Brewer)
- A bill to require curb extensions for safety at 15 locations per year in each borough — though we’d like to add two zeroes onto that location figure. (Doesn’t have a bill number yet! — Hanif)
- A bill to speed up the installation of traffic-calming devices. (Intro 202 — Gutierrez)
- A bill to bring back those Chinese-character street signs in Chinatown. (Intro 310 — Marte)
- A bill to require DOT to install one million square feet of pedestrian space per year for five years. (Doesn’t have a number yet — Restler)
Like we said, the Super Bowl of Council meetings. Transportation Alternatives is holding a rally in advance of the hearing in support of full implementation of the Streets Master Plan, the construction of more public space, the wider use of city power under the so-called “Sammy’s Law” to lower speed limits to 20 miles per hour, and other items seen in Ben Furnas’s tweet below:
Not to be outdone, our sister organization Open Plans put out a full statement that was longer on ambition, frankly, calling for year-round outdoor dining to, as the group’s Co-Executive Director Sara Lind put it, “remove so many barriers to entry, including the cost of breaking down and storing temporary structures”; more daylighting; a “fully funded and simplified” school streets program; and, most important, a new Streets Master Plan that includes low-traffic neighborhoods and a codified goal of reducing vehicle miles traveled by 40 percent by 2030.
“Many of the critical goals in the Streets Plan — like speeding up buses — are impossible to achieve without reducing VMT,” said Lind, who is also expected at the rally.
Rallies are fun, of course (they’re like Old Home Week), but we’ll have a team of reporters (no, seriously, Dave Colon, Max White and Gersh Kuntzman at least) inside covering every burp and spit of the proceedings. (amNY will be there, too, apparently.)
But we wouldn’t have it any other way. Nor would you! If you’re watching at home, Engagement Editor Emily Lipstein made this handy Bingo card:
In other news:
- Like the proverbial broken clock, Steve Cuozzo is indeed right about Coney Island, but for many of the wrong reasons. Yes, Coney Island needs retail offerings befitting its growing population, but it’s the growing population that is the goal, not some “woke” affordability agenda. (NY Post)
- Gov. Hochul is doing her “affordability” thing again. Just like she did with congestion pricing, she’s delaying meeting certain environmental requirements because it would be too expensive. We’ve seen this movie before (and by that we mean the seminal documentary, “The White House Effect,” of course. (NY Post)
- Speaking of Gov. Hochul’s other obsession — reducing the cost of car insurance — Gothamist offered a balm to apply to this rash of a proposal, swallowing whole the myth of rampant fraud (as alleged, but never proven, by the insurance industry). But the WNYC-owned outlet did add something to the debate: a debunking of the governor’s claim that the “average” auto insurance premium in New York State is $4,000 (it’s half that, Gothamist reported).
- Speaking of insurance, when Janno Lieber complains about lawsuits, remind him of this picture. (News12)
- The Times continues its obsession with parking.
- Hey, Peter Madonia, stop peddling that “streets are for cars” bullshit. It’s 2026 and you live in the suburbs. (NYDN)
- Hey, Peter Madonia, maybe you hate to see the mayor on a bike. But Joyce Carol Oates certainly doesn’t. (X.com)
- Extreme cold plus public policy failures equals a spike in subway crime. (NY Post)
- That drunk cop who killed a Manhattan doorman in an upstate crash was charged with homicide. (NYDN)
- And, finally, our own award-winning reporter Sophia Lebowitz was invited to break the Ramadan fast with Mayor Mamdani and about 100 delivery workers at the Workers Justice Project headquarters in Williamsburg. All we got are these pics:
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