Monday’s Headlines: Jerry Edition

Last month, Streetsblog solicited and published an op-ed from U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler (co-bylined with Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal) laying out the outgoing congressman’s position on President Trump’s plan to renovate Penn Station.

Well it turns out the op-ed we published (“Penn Station Belongs to New Yorkers,” June 8) was merely a first draft — for an op-ed that ran in the New York Times on Friday titled, “Penn Station Won’t Fund Itself.”

In both pieces, Nadler welcomed a remodeled transit hub while blasting the “secret” deliberations seemingly underway to determine who will foot the $8 billion bill. He criticized Amtrak for selecting the project’s developer without public input, and expressed concern over attempts in Congress to seize New York tax dollars to fund the project.

Nadler went even further in the Times piece to mention Amtrak official Andy Byford by name, accusing the former MTA official of “only adding to the project’s opacity” by claiming that riders wouldn’t foot the bill for the rehab with higher fares on the one hand while acknowledging “that his word could not be taken as a promise” on the other. (The developer Amtrak picked for the project has already contradicted Byford’s claim.)

In both pieces, Nadler went to great lengths to say that Penn Station needs to be renovated, but does it? Is Trump’s plan any more than cosmetic? Byford keeps highlighting signage and retail as the key value-adds of the effort, while making small overtures to added platform capacity and the possibility of through-running. But the focus seems to be mostly aesthetic, and Jerry Nadler — a longtime foil of Trump the developer — isn’t buying it.

In other news:

• A motorcyclist killed by a box truck driver in Woodside on July 2 left behind a wife and three young children. (Daily News)
• It’s a new day for bus riders as the city and MTA pledge collaboration. (Gothamist)
• Gothamist paid a visit to Utica Avenue, where Mayor Mamdani promises to speed up B46 bus commutes.
• A two-driver collision sent one car flying into a deli in Carroll Gardens. (News 12 Brooklyn)
• That wasn’t even the first driver-on-building incident of the week in Brooklyn — The Post got video of another crash from Tueaday.
• Meet the $25,000 electric pickup truck. (NY Times)
• Read how one reporter beat a “bogus” traffic ticket and NYPD incompetence. (NY Post)
• The guy who played Marlo in The Wire spends his Sunday biking around Brooklyn. (NY Times)
• MTA General Counsel Paige Graves resigned amid scrutiny of the agency’s legal expenses. (NY Post)
• The City Reporter followed our coverage of the continued closure of the Red Hook Pool.
• The Citi Bike Boyz are a “global phenomenon,” according to Bicycling Magazine.
• Monthly car payments are at record highs. (Jalopnik)