Friday’s Headlines: Driving You Crazy Edition

We sent Kevin Duggan to the annual greenways summit on Thursday and we expect lots of important stories over the next few days (here’s the first). But while Duggan is putting his notes together for the big pitch meeting on Monday, he did pass along a great tidbit shared by city Department of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn.

Sure, the Commish was on hand to boost the joy and efficiency of cycling, but he also reminded us that car ownership is a real money pit.

“The average household with a car spends about $8,000 more a year on transportation than a household that relies on transit, walking, and biking,” Flynn said.

That’s a reminder that what we working class people really need better and cheaper transit, not Madison Avenue’s lies about freedom or serenity that Big Auto pumps onto our airwaves.

Rant over. Have a great weekend!

In other news:

• The mayor and NYPD Commissioner Tisch held a presser to discuss the “gridlock” of next week’s gridlock alert days during the United Nations General Assembly, but Tisch’s handlers declined to let me ask my question. Had I been chosen, I was going to ask about why we’re constantly talking about gridlock and traffic and security when we could simply temporarily pedestrianize the area around the Secretariat building so diplomats can do what they do all over the world: walk around. This “Diplomacy World’s Fair,” if you will, is an idea put forth in these pages today by former DOT policy legend Jon Orcutt, who reminds us that when Mayor Mamdani barred cars in Lower Manhattan for the Knicks parade, he created joy. Other outlets covered the presser, albeit with the wrong angle. (Gothamist, NYDN, NY Post)
• But most outlets (Gothamist, Streetsblog, Patch) had the right angle on the gorgeous new Park Avenue design, which we really do hope will get built. …
• Speaking of “most outlets,” I’ll except the New York Times for its mostly laudatory coverage of the Park Avenue plan. The problem was not that the Paper of Record quoted the head of the pro-car E-Vehicle Safety Alliance or even allowed her to masquerade as a champion of safety. The problem was that her quote was simply wrong: e-bikes will not be “flying by” the pedestrians; under the new plan, the bike lane will be separate from the pedestrian seating area, not through it, as originally proposed. The paper should not have let the EVSA rep spread falsities.
• NY1 made a similar gaffe by allowing opponents of the Interborough Express to claim that the MTA will tear down homes to make way for the new rail service. It ain’t true.
• Gothamist got action on its NYPD handwriting story.
• Friend of Streetsblog Michael Freedman has an art exhibit about traffic violence at Littlefield in Brooklyn.
• Another county heard from: Staten Island is dubious about Vision Zero. (Advance)
• NIMBYs don’t like zoning reform, either. (The City Reporter)
• Sophia Lebowitz totally kicked ass on Fox5’s “Newsroom Live” yesterday, talking about the e-moto crisis.
• A school bus driver crashed into a Brooklyn building. He was later arrested. (CBS2)
• I’ve been a fan of the MTA’s low-tech platform barriers, but amNY wants something more expensive.
• I really loved the Twitter fight between mayoral spokesman Jeremy Edwards and NY Post reporter Craig McCarthy, but only because I learned that the Post had launched a new stat to justify its Mamdani Derangement Syndrome: potholes filled per day. Apparently, Mayor Bill de Blasio was hitting 1,268 ppd while Mamdani is only hitting 769 ppd. Who knew that de Blasio was in the Asphalt Hall of Fame?
• Open the gates! A lawsuit against Columbia University for its theft of 116th Street is moving forward. (Columbia Spectator)
• It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to … er, in this case, maybe not. (Gothamist)
• Street safety activist and Friend of Streetsblog Kevin LaCherra tells us that Brooklyn Community Board 4 and Manhattan CB9 are the latest civic panels to demand that Mayor Mamdani use his power under the so-called “Sammy’s Law” to reduce the speed limit to 20 across the board in the area. That brings to 15 the number of full boards that have demanded this basic safety measure, which we are tracking graphically: