The latest streets and transportation news from Streetsblog NYC.
Today’s big story was two days in the making: Our own Sophia Lebowitz covered Wednesday’s City Council hearing on a bill to ban the horse carriage trade in Central Park, but it took an extra day before opponents of the bill delivered their Trojan horse — a metaphoric statue filled with opponents of e-bikes armed to the teeth.
As a result, Speaker Julie Menin pivoted from banning horse carriages into a full-blown call for registering electric bikes, a proposal that has no safety benefit.
But it will certainly make Menin (and her pro-car pals on the Upper West and East Sides) feel good about all they’re doing to make streets safer.
Also in today’s newsletter: good news about the Red Hook Pool and very very bad news about the air we are supposed to breath.
President Trump sort of inadvertently made an argument for banning horse carriages from Central Park on Thursday when he critiicized the City Council’s 40-7-2 vote to end the Central Park horse carriage industry with an ill-conceived analogy to cars.
The city’s much-anticipated program to require speed-limiting devices inside the cars of repeatedly reckless drivers will launch next year, though questions remain.