Monday’s Headlines: Victory Lap Edition
If the corner of First Avenue and E. First Street is the nexus of the universe, the corner of 31st Street and 31st Avenue is the nexus of the Astoria bike lane boom.
The two corridors played host on Sunday to a ride celebrating the completion of the first chunk of the legally contested 31st Street protected bike lanes.
Two years of legal attempts to kill the bike lane have so far failed to stop the Mamdani administration and Department of Transportation from implementing the project, which then-Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani and other Astoria elected officials dreamed up years ago as part of a neighborhood safe streets plan.
Two of those officials — State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez and City Council Member Tiffany Caban — joined Sunday’s ride and accompanying press conference with Transportation Alternatives, NYC Bike and Brew and the 31st Avenue Open Streets Coalition. More than 100 cyclists participated in the ride.
“If it saves lives, it’s worth it. It is that simple,” Caban told a row of TV news cameras. “You know, there are very few things — when I got into office, I learned this very quickly — very few things as contentious as a bike lane or street infrastructure change. But when you get down to the brass tacks and you talk about safety and lives, it becomes very, very simple.”
DOT isn’t stopping there: Crews are currently milling and repaving 31st Avenue east of Steinway Street, where later this year the city plans to extend the bike boulevard and protected bike lanes it installed on the corridor west of Steinway last year.
ABC7 and PIX11 also attended the ride and rally.
In other news:
- NYPD dangerously squeezed cyclists and joggers at intersections at Manhattan’s annual Summer Streets, in the name of public safety. Read our coverage.
- A hit-and-run driver struck and killed a woman in Corona early Saturday morning. (ABC7)
- Public Transport Magazine took over a subway kiosk at W. Fourth Street. (Gothamist)
- Mayor Mamdani selected Jennifer Jones Austin to lead the Civilian Complaint Review Board. (Gothamist)
- The American electric vehicle industry has been “crushed.” (NY Times)
- Little details were available regarding a crash that left a 12-year-old Staten Island boy was in critical condition late Thursday. (S.I. Advance)
- Rolling Stone covered the Trump administration’s “dumb” war on “DEI bike lanes.”
- The Architect’s Newspaper ran an unhinged critique of trash containerization and Empire Bins.
- Baseball player Harrison Bader reportedly slammed his scooter into a fire truck. (CBS Sports)
- Two buses collided in the Bronx on Thursday, injuring “multiple” people. (PIX11)
- A “police-involved collision” left four people injured in Queens. (PIX11)
- Amtrak Special Advisor Andrew Byford claims the federal government will cover 80 percent of President Trump’s Penn Station renovation project. (Chelsea News)
- The Queens DA indicted a Bronx man for the hit-and-run killing of a pedestrian in Jamaica earlier this year. (Queens Chronicle)
- China is requiring gig economy employers to pay for their workers’ insurance. (Sixth Tone)
- A guy jumped off the top of the Brooklyn Bridge naked. (NY Post)
Read More:
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