Wednesday’s Headlines: Rhymes with ‘Local’ Edition

Welcome, Kathy Hochul!

Most New Yorkers don’t know much about future Gov. Hochul (rhymes with “local”), but we’ve been following her career for years. It seems like only yesterday that she was taking the right mode of transportation when she wanted to appear gubernatorial, wasworking with (or at least cutting a ribbon with) MTA Chairman Janno Lieber, was calling for President Trump’s impeachment over his failure to confront Vladimir Putin, was tweeting a nice thing about a bike lane, and was saying nice things about congestion pricing (albeit on behalf of her former boss).

But you didn’t come here to read about Hochul or to get a full summary of yesterday’s news about soon-to-be-ex Gov. Cuomo’s long-overdue (and fairly self-serving) sword fall, but if you want the key stories, here’s a very quick roundup below the video of the full speech itself:

• The Daily News went big with the first woman governor angle, and ran an Errol Louis column about Cuomo’s future (yes, he might have one).
• The Post played up President Biden’s pretty bad gaffe and one lawmaker’s pretty bad idea about punishing Mario Cuomo for the sins of his son.
• The Times did a Nixon-esque “final days” piece and the obligatory (for the Times) story about the publishing debacle that was Cuomo’s pandemic memoir.
• The community newspaper bones (and limited editing bench) of amNY was on full display with its haphazard reaction stories (come on, guys):
  • Bronx pols react.
  • Manhattan people react.
  • Other lawmakers react.
  • Brooklyn pols react.
  • Queens pols react.
  • Met GM reacts.
• And, finally, here’s the last time we’ll have to watch Big Dog Excelsior car guy drive away in a muscle assault vehicle (with illegal bull bars, to boot):

That said, there was some coverage of the Albany mess that did touch directly on our livable streets world yesterday, so here it is:

• Guse of the Newsuh had a good story about Port Authority employees demanding an end to Cuomo’s boondoggle LaGuardia AirTrain.
• Our own Dave Colon covered transit advocates’ advice for Hochul (hint: “Be a pro mo’, not like Cuomo”).

And there was also other news:

• Chuck Schumer is really excited about the infrastructure bill (NYDN). Kea Wilson at Streetsblog USA isn’t so enthusiastic.
• Pols are demanding the return of cash transactions at subway token booths. (NYDN, amNY)
• The new Staten Island to Midtown ferry service will start later this month. (amNY)
• Longtime Parks insider Margaret Nelson was named acting Parks Commissioner now that Mitchell Silver’s long goodbye has kicked in. (Brooklyn Eagle)