Tuesday’s Headlines: Tactical Urbanism vs. Placard Abuse Edition

It’s pretty clear that Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams isn’t going to do anything about placard abuse in the borough — or at his own office.

So it was nice to see some burly activist take matters into his or own hands yesterday — with the help of a heavy planter.

Too bad we didn’t get to see that Borough Hall staffer’s face when he or she tried to move that car out of that non-parking space commandeered by the Adams family of placard scofflaws. The latest example of Adams’s laissez-faire approach to illegal parking comes months after the Beep held what increasingly appears to be a meaningless “placard abuse” summit in September.

It’s long past time for Adams to solve the problem and stop being the problem.

Here’s the rest of the news:

• State Attorney General Letitia James said she’s investigating the NYPD for racial bias in how it carries out fare evasion arrests. Maybe she’ll look at jaywalking next, thanks to Streetsblog’s bombshell last week. (NYDN, NY Post)
• Gothamist had great pictures of the waterlogged subway after a main break near Lincoln Center (the Times also covered it). This one we can’t blame on Andy Byford or Gov. Cuomo.
• Speaking of the Big Dog, Cuomo responded to anti-Semitism by announcing hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants so two upstate towns could install license plate readers to help the hunt for criminals. Can we get that here — and not only for the criminals of the anti-Semitic kind? (Gov. Cuomo via Twitter)
• Wow, it takes a long time to modernize the signals on the subway — the entire E line won’t be done until 2025 (reminder: the E line is just one line). (NYDN)
• The Post got a second day on its “ferries are for the rich” scoop on Monday, with all the would be future mayors rightly piling on the de Blasio administration for withholding key info.
• The Daily News editorial board demanded that the city mandate that simple, life-saving equipment be installed on all trucks, whose drivers killed more people last year than any year since 2002. (We asked City Hall if it will consider it, and a spokeswoman wrote back, “We are committed to making our streets even safer, and will be releasing more information on our new efforts to deepen Vision Zero in the coming weeks.”)
• Everyone ran with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s objection to how the “Wrong Way” AirTrain at LaGuardia is being approved with no consideration of reasonable alternatives to a $2-billion train that takes riders away from where they want to go. Streetsblog has been covering this story for weeks (NYDN, NY Times, Streetsblog). The Post sort of covered it, but made it clear that the editors at the Tabloid of Record think AOC can’t possibly have a valid opinion on weighty matters of state because she was once a “bartender.” Really guys? Really? What ever happened to the tabloid trope that bartenders were fonts of real New York wisdom?
• Wealthy Village residents are still complaining about the 14th Street busway — and The Village Sun is more than happy to air their grievances … to the point of ignoring the main benefit of the busway: 30,000 bus riders a day are actually getting good commutes. That’s no minor detail.
• And, finally, we’re happy that Prince Harry and Meghan (or the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, both per Times style) finally got Queen Elizabeth’s approval to “step back” from being royals — but is no one going to consider the carbon implications of their new bi-continental life? Surely, Friend of Streetsblog Charles Komanoff has already computed the offset needed.