Wednesday’s Headlines: Covering the Craziness Edition

Our reporters spent most of last night covering a full-on bikelash hurricane, as Community Board 7 on Manhattan’s Upper West Side heard from plenty of barely hinged people opposed to the W. 72nd Street bike lane, and Community Boards, 6, 8 and 9 in Brooklyn debated the Department of Transportation’s plan for Grand Army Plaza.

At both meetings, anyone in favor of street safety designs was derided as shills of “the bike lobby” rather than people who might simply want their neighborhood to be less oppressed by the congestion, violence and pollution of the car.

They were also depicted as interlopers from outside of the neighborhood and therefore people who should not be allowed to express an opinion — which was an odd thing to hear given that a member of a community board on the East Side showed up at the Upper West Side meeting to offer his opposition to a bike lane in someone else’s neighborhood.

Sophia Lebowitz has full coverage of the Upper West Side board’s ultimate vote in favor of the project, and Dave Colon is digging a bit deeper on what he heard at the Grand Army Plaza meeting, so stay tuned.

In other news:

• The big story yesterday was that Mayor Mamdani had appointed former DOT Commissioner and committed street fighter Janette Sadik-Khan to the MTA board. Sadik-Khan is not some seat-filler. (Gothamist, Streetsblog, NYDN)
• Two motorcyclists were killed in separate crashes. (NYDN)
• A police officer drove into a jogger during a wrong-way emergency response. (NY Post)
• Blame the bike lanes? The Bronx is experiencing more fires. (Gothamist)
• The Mamdani administration needs to tackle the central problem of disciplining cops: the Police Commissioner has the final say. (Bolts)
• Dublin has bike parking before we do. (Fietshangar)
• Another Liam Quigley classic: Dead animals in parks. (Gothamist)
• Check out the nice new street furniture near NYU. (Janet Liff via X)
• And, finally, you could learn a lot from listening to various Friends of Streetsblog as they make their way on the podcasts. For instance, Clarence Eckerson was great on the DOT’s “Curb Enthusiasm” podcast (listen to it on Spotify, Apple or Amazon, or watch it on YouTube) talking about his 30-year career documenting the positive ways New York City has changed. Meanwhile, Sara Lind of Open Plans was on the Active Towns Podcast, where she revealed that when she was a kid in Wisconsin, she biked herself to school in kindergarten!