Tuesday’s Headlines: Mayor on a Roll Edition

Mayor Mamdani got a hero’s welcome at last night’s Transportation Alternatives’ “Streets for People” gala on the Upper West Side — well, at least inside the building.

Outside, a smattering of NIMBYs protested the mayor’s plan to add a two-way protected bike lane and bus improvements on W. 72nd Street, a common street safety design that protesters pretend is something radical and untested when it is neither.

Inside, the mayor’s formal remarks made it clear that he values safety over the status quo and sustainability over carmageddon.

He spoke mostly of fulfilling his first major campaign promise: finishing the safety redesign of McGuinness Boulevard that his predecessor had stalled in a corruption scandal.

“This is just one part of a larger commitment to creating safe streets before tragedy strikes, not because of it, and I say that, looking out onto a crowd where I recall many times where we have gathered in the immediate aftermath of yet another New Yorker being stolen from us, knowing that that was the only time we could get the kind of investment that that street demanded years before that moment,” he said. “No longer will we wait for a New Yorker to get hurt before we take action.”

And noticing Streetsblog reporter Dave Colon in the crowd, the mayor acknowledged the effort he made in wearing a regular shirt instead of his customary Knicks attire.

“I know it’s incredibly important news, because I see Dave Colon’s wearing a full-length shirt, because he too wants to celebrate the fact that pedestrians will have shorter crossing [distances],” the mayor said.

The mayor’s appearance at the gala came just hours after a reprehensible Post front page depicted him as a hate monger because he rode his bike on a gorgeous Sunday instead of marching in a parade featuring several members of the Israel government who themselves have been accused of war crimes and worse, as the Times reported. On one level, of course, you have to tip your hat at how many reporters the Post tosses on the fire to produce that much gaslight.

In other news:

• News 12 Brooklyn gave new bus lanes on Marcy Avenue the parking-first “mixed reaction” treatment.
• Republican GOP candidate Bruce Blakeman seems to think rampant illegal vending on Canal Street started the day after Mayor Mamdani was inaugurated. In fact, it’s been this way for years and years. (NY Post)
• The face of Eric Adams’s ADU legalization is “not eligible for most types of ADUs.” (City Reporter)
• “Wait until everyone buys their own AVs.” (Bloomberg CityLab)
• Advocates rallied on Sunday to turn that downtown Brooklyn court parking lot into a park. (Hell Gate)
• There’s always money whenever cops are involved: Mayor Mamdani will hire 580 more NYPD officers. (Gothamist)
• The latest contract on the Second Avenue Project has been awarded. (Engineering News-Record)
• Tonight is the big Community Board 7 meeting over the W. 72nd Street safety redesign project that anti-bike activists were protesting outside the Transportation Alternatives’ gala last night. If you want to sign up to speak, here’s the form.
• And, finally, we want to give a huge shout out to former Streetsblog investigative reporter Jesse Coburn for winning a New York Press Club award for his investigation into “Moped King” Ou Zhou, a former delivery worker who completely upended New York City streets with cheap and sometimes illegal mopeds. The story, with additional reporting by Sophia Lebowit and yours truly, led to a city, state and federal crackdown on Zhou’s company, Fly E-Bike, which is no longer threatening New Yorkers with uncertified batteries and drivetrains. Our only regret? Coburn (inset photo below) was not on hand to collect his award, so someone had to do it for him: