Monday’s Headlines: See Spot Run Edition

Let’s talk trash: People who criticize the effort to containerize residential trash in shared bins are full of garbage when they complain that the so-called Empire Bins will remove “parking” spaces.

The latest flare up in the Dumpster fire of our soul came late last week in Gothamist. The Brian Lehrer-influenced news blog got under out skin by — again — claiming the mantel of defending New Yorkers from having “parking” spaces “replaced” by the Sanitation Department’s ambitious (and successful) effort to get garbage out of the way of pedestrians and into the curbside lane where it belongs. (Our story on the same subject took a very different angle, because we care about people, livable streets and quality of life, not preserving the maximum amount of public space for car owners to seize for free, but, hey, vive la difference.)

The Gothamist story did have a new detail in it (but one clearly cherry-picked to make things sound more controversial): apparently, there’s a new calculation of how many parking spaces there even are in New York City. For years, the Department of Transportation had used three million as the figure, which means the new Empire Bins would only repurpose 1 percent of what many people call “parking” spaces.

But Gothamist discovered by reading actual environmental documents that the DSNY is now using 1.96 million as the number of “parking” spaces because the agency used computer mapping techniques and other science to count all the loading zones, fire hydrants, curb cuts, and other “No parking” zones and subtract them from long-accepted three million today.

So according to Gothamist, the bins “could erase … 1.52 percent of the city’s legal street parking spots!” (Emphasis and exclamation mark added just to poke fun at Gothamist).

Reminder: The bins are not erasing anything except decades of poor garbage logistics, cluttered up pedestrian space, and rats. If the editors at Gothamist (and the Post, too) really believe that pedestrian space that’s free of garbage and vermin is less important than space to store cars, well, they need to think hard about their readership. And Brian Lehrer needs to read Streetsblog.

In other news from the long weekend:

• The Brooklyn Bridge briefly caught fire during the Saturday night fireworks, but was fully open for bikes and, yes, cars by Sunday morning. (Comparing the New York Post and New York Times‘s coverage is like a lesson in the different types of modern journalism, by the way.)
• On the plus side, Joey Chestnut did it again! (NY Times, NYDN)
• And Taylor Swift got married at Penn Station. (NY Times, NYDN)
• Speaking of Penn Station, Amtrak special adviser Andrew Byford penned a Daily News op-ed about what a good job he’s doing on the hub renovation, but he really needs to stop comparing New York legend Jalen Brunson to New York pariah Sean Duffy. Beyond that gaffe, the only news that Byford made was his read-my-lips promise: “There will be no fare hikes or surcharges for Amtrak, NJTransit, and MTA riders to pay for this redevelopment.” Let’s hold him to that, people.
• And speaking about the state of journalism, what the hell, New York Post? Yes, it’s newsworthy when the mayor’s wife goes on vacation. But just because it’s a vegetarian retreat for Islamic women doesn’t make it sinister.
• The City Reporter offered the only heat wave story that mattered: Concern for workers.
• The Times looked at all the new Knick murals around town.
• Speaking of the World Champion Knickerbockers, remember how badly Mitchell Robinson shot free throws? Well, it turns out, the muscle truck enthusiast from the suburbs had broken his hand in a road-rage incident. (ESPN)
• A just-graduated high schooler makes the case to Mayor Mamdani for better open streets. (amNY)
• Here’s an official “meh” to the new expanded Grand Army Plaza space on Fifth Avenue between 58th and 59th streets. Then again, Central Park is across the street. (amNY)
• Really, NJ Transit is not a system worthy of the New York metro region. (NY Times)
• Gov. Hochul made news on the July 3 national no-work-day holiday by revealing that the I-81 boondoggle in Syracuse is going to be more expensive than previously revealed. No surprise there; highway projects (even tear-downs) are always budget shams. (Syracuse.com)
• Indiana has created “blackout” license plates that can’t be read by our speed cameras. Hoosier daddy now? (NWI Times)
• A subway driver was injured in Saturday’s freak storm. (NY Post)
• Janno Lieber likes the Fair Fares expansion. (amNY)
• Check out the new D trains. (Gothamist)
• We at Streetsblog were saddened by the death of great New York City historian Mike Wallace. (NY Times)
• Finally, here’s a painful use of public space. (NY Post)