Thursday’s Headlines: Reset the Meter Edition

All things must pass.

Mayor Mamdani’s epic run of not disappointing the livable streets movement ended on Wednesday after Streetsblog published Kevin Duggan’s story about the city’s failure to advance a bold plan for the Eastern Queens Greenway.

In an apparent attempt to appease Council Member Vickie Paladino’s “my-way-is-the-highway” approach, the Department of Transportation put forward a plan for a greenway with sharrows, which is not a greenway at all. Paladino, of course, is the same elected whose behavior at a greenway planning session was so egregious that the city created a code of conduct for such meetings.

So the mayor, who had gone 47 days without disappointing the movement, is back at square zero. The 47-day run was the second-longest run of Mamdani’s six-plus-month tenure. The previous record was 51 days, which ended on April 24 for two reasons.

We almost reset it in late May after Mayor Mamdani decisively moved to advance the QueensWay linear park in a way that, some of our editorial board believes, will make it impossible to ever restore MTA service along the defunct Rockaway Branch, aka the QueensLink.

We opted not to reset the meter, but took a lot of heat about it from some Eastern Queens readers who look to Hizzoner to improve their commutes. But we could neither hem nor haw about the administration’s capitulation to anti-bike hostage-takers in Eastern Queens, which will likely embolden other bike lane opponents, so the mayor goes from hero to zero.

In other news:

• After the reset on Wednesday, our meter quickly moved to 001, thanks to yesterday’s announcement that the city would bar cars from the restored Carroll Street Bridge in Brooklyn. The mayor should keep the good news coming by now announcing a low-traffic-neighborhood configuration in the area around the historic wooden span, but that’s a meter reset for another day. (Curbed)
• We had trouble following the MSG watch party back and forth on Wednesday between Mayor Mamdani/NYPD and James Dolan, but it all worked out in the end when the NBA let the city broadcast games on LinkNYC kiosks (and then the Knicks won):

• The Times set the residential parking permit bar extremely low at “anywhere from $100 per year to far more than that” in its latest parking policy safari.
• Newsday is raising the alarm about Penn Station’s ability to handle the World Cup.
• New Jersey will give Uber a monopoly over for-hire vehicle trips to MetLife Stadium … (Gothamist, ABC 7 NY)
• … as Congress moves to give Uber and Lyft immunity from lawsuits. (The Lever)
• DOT is bringing raised crosswalks citwide, according to Williamsburg365.
• The City Council is making another attempt to ban horse carriages. (City & State)
• NYPD says it’s taken steps to get unlicensed tow trucks out of its impoundment process after reporting from Gothamist. (Gothamist)
• Vornado CEO Steve Roth, who once declared Friday dead forever, is on a tear picking up tenants for his Penn 2 building atop Penn Station. (The Real Deal)
• An 83-year-old SUV driver swerved into another SUV — allegedly to avoid hitting a pedestrian — then into a Citi Bike station, then over the curb into a laundromat, injuring three … and NYPD and QNS blamed the pedestrian for not being in the crosswalk.
• An Amazon subcontractor fired a driver for posting about union organizing on TikTok. (The City Reporter)
• The city will hold a rules hearing on Jun 17 regarding its plan to bring trash containerization to Brooklyn Community District 2. (Brooklyn Eagle)
• Inflation in New York City is outpacing the national average. (Comptroller Mark Levine via X)
• Programming alert: Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Ben Furnas will appear at a live taping of the podcast Person Place Thing next Thursday at P&T Knitwear. Get you tickets here.
• Noise complaints led to the demise of a beloved parking spot-based Knicks viewing party on Smith Street. (South Brooklyn History)
• Meanwhile, our editor’s favorite NBA Finals projection effort was this one on 10th Street in Brooklyn: