Bill de Blasio

The public won’t know what prompted de Blasio to restore teacher parking perks until the general election is in the mayor’s rear view mirror.

One section of the Bx6 goes beyond typical New York City bus lane designs, which run next to the curb or the parking lane. By Sheridan and Sherman avenues, buses now run in center-running lanes.

People who can afford a $10 or $20 Uber ride are slowing down people who can afford a $2.75 bus fare. Move NY will change that.

The mayor says he's never seen a version of congestion pricing that's fair to the outer boroughs, but the Move NY toll reform plan is specifically designed to distribute costs fairly between different parts of the city.

Prospect Park will be completely car-free from July 17 through September 10, Mayor de Blasio and DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg announced this morning. It's the first time that Prospect Park will cease to be a shortcut for car traffic for more than a few days at a time.

Calling congestion "self-correcting" is a convenient way to steer the subject away from congestion pricing. The argument is that drivers can bail when congestion "gets bad enough." Problem solved -- without collective (governmental) action requiring political leadership. Let's unpack that.

In light of a new legal analysis that concluded NYC can toll its own streets without waiting for Albany, the Move New York campaign has proposed a "home rule" version of its road pricing plan that would charge $2.75 to drive across the four East River bridges and a 60th Street cordon and tax for-hire vehicle and taxi trips in the densest parts of Manhattan. But despite a supportive City Council, the de Blasio administration isn't adding road pricing to its agenda.

De Blasio dismisses the importance of getting out of his SUV. But if he's getting chauffeured everywhere he goes, there's no way the mayor can viscerally understand what the three-quarters of New Yorkers who don't commute by car experience on a daily basis. If he doesn't regularly experience what it's like to get around without driving, he won't feel on a gut level why improving transit, biking, and walking is so important.

The mayor cares about preventing traffic deaths but has no broader appreciation for how diminishing the primacy of the car on city streets can make life better for New Yorkers. If he did, we'd be putting bus lanes on every avenue and bike corrals at every street corner, instead of sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into ferries.