Monday’s Headlines: Time for Action Edition

Transportation Alternatives has called for a “die-in” outside City Hall this coming Wednesday amid impatience with the city’s slow progress toward eliminating traffic deaths after hit-and-run drivers killed killed three cyclists in the span of three days last week.

Preliminary data shows 18 cyclists have died in traffic crashes this year — 15 on e-bikes and three on “traditional” bikes, according to DOT. Bike fatalities are up 70 percent over last year, Transportation Alternatives said.

Tragedy struck again over the weekend when another hit-and-run driver struck and killed a 22-year-old woman in a crosswalk in the West Village early Sunday morning.

All told, more than 3,000 people have died in New York City traffic crashes since the city officially declared its goal of “Vision Zero.” Ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration once pledged to get to zero traffic deaths by 2024. Now advocates want Mayor Mamdani to come up with “a plan to stop the carnage and protect all New Yorkers from preventable crashes.”

The Times finally got around to covering the rash of hit-and-run deaths on Sunday. Mamdaou Diallo, the third victim, was delivering for Doordash at the time of his death, the paper said.

“Three hard-working New Yorkers are dead, and three families are heartbroken with grief. It doesn’t have to be this way,” Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Ben Furnas said in a statement. “These three New Yorkers lost their lives because they rode a bike in a city that, despite years of steady progress, still does not ensure safe rides for them.”

The late-August call-to-action revived our memories of another summer die-in back in 2019, which advocates called as cyclist fatalities soared to their highest rates of the century. This year is already on pace to match 2019’s end-of-year cyclist death toll of 29.

The demonstration begins at 5:30 p.m. in City Hall Park.

In other news:

• Streetfilms’ Clarence Eckerson was out on Eastern Parkway with the Bergen Bike Bus for the last edition of 2026 Summer Streets. (Streetfilms via YouTube)
• “This is what happens when people stop being contrite and start cutting deals”: The Times panned Sean Duffy’s heavily sponsored, U.S. DOT-produced reality TV show.
• Out of options after its own anti-congestion lawsuits failed, U.S. DOT has now signed onto a suit filed by two New Jersey drivers (and a third driver from Virginia). (NJ.com)
• NYPD seizures of illegal e-motos are up under Mayor Mamdani. (Gothamist)
• The MTA will finally introduce virtual OMNY cards. (Gothamist)
• Is “Blue America” missing out on driverless cars? (The Atlantic)
• ICE enforcement focuses on drivers with out-of-state plates. (The City Reporter)
• Council Transportation Committee Chair Shaun Abreu wants Apple to kick the illegal for-hire vehicle app Empower off the app store. (amNY)
• Police arrested the driver behind last week’s wild Uptown drag racing crash. (Daily News)
• In response to the same crash, Assembly Member Manny De Los Santos called on the city to install more speed cameras in the area. (NY1)
• An anonymous Chicago bus driver revealed the truth about bus bunching: it often starts at the terminal. (A City That Works)
• Hell Gate on why the mayor “can’t quit” his NYPD commissioner.
• “How Much Surveillance Are We Comfortable With?” (NYT Magazine)
• A driver crashed into a Tennessee college’s cycling team, killing two people. (NY Post)