Elections

Bill Thompson is making it pretty hard for New Yorkers who care about safe streets to get behind his campaign for mayor. With Tony Avella out of the way, Thompson has no bike lane-bashing rival nipping at his heels. There's no anti-livable streets flank to shore up. But that didn't stop the Democratic nominee from telling a NY1 crew that he'll rip out the Grand Street bike lane at the first opportunity:

The biggest news from last night's primaries has to be the ouster of no fewer than four sitting City Council members in a vote marked by low turnout. A fifth incumbent, Maria Baez, looks extremely likely to lose her seat, trailing by 100 votes. In these local primaries, where several winning candidates failed to clear the 2,000 vote threshold, that pretty much qualifies as a solid mandate for challenger Fernando Cabrera. A sixth, Queens rep Thomas White, leads by six votes -- with 1,849 to his credit in the un-certified tally.

Meet a few of your (highly probable) new City Council members:

Despite the number of important races to be decided today, signs point to an abysmally low voter turnout. Like many who have reported in, when I voted at around 2:00 this afternoon there was no wait time at my polling place, Good Shepherd Church on Cooper Street in Inwood.

It's finally here: primary day, with a slew of key races to be decided before the polls close at 9:00 tonight.

From a livable streets perspective, the race for public advocate is that rare contest with no clear-cut villains. 

If you live in New York City you've probably been conditioned to believe your vote doesn't count all that much. Fundraising and media appearances aside, presidential campaigns mostly ignore New York while the Electoral College ensures that the votes of people who live in places like North Dakota and Wyoming are nearly three times more valuable than our own. Every once in a while we see a contested Congressional race but even the most shockingly useless incumbents are impossible to get rid of. U.S. Senators, these days, are machine-picked like non-organic industrial produce. And in the New York state legislature, incumbents are re-elected more than 90 percent of the time. Assembly Members and State Senators leave office in handcuffs and pine boxes.

Two pedestrians were killed in Brooklyn over the weekend. Saturday evening, 66-year-old Fred Wilson took the family dog and went out for ice cream. He had only walked a short distance from his Gerritsen Avenue home when he was hit by an unidentified driver. He died soon after at Kings County Hospital.

We've got two more citywide elections to review on the eve of tomorrow's primary vote -- the contests for comptroller and public advocate.