Friday’s Headlines: From the Assignment Desk Edition

Today’s a big day for sustainable transportation lovers: The Adams administration and Oonee, the bike-parking people, will “unveil a new curbside protected bicycle corral called a ‘Mini,'” according to the Department of Transportation press release.

Of course, readers of Streetsblog know what an Oonee “Mini” is — we’ve written about the company’s new vision of smaller pods here, here and here (and most recently when one of them landed at Grand Central Terminal).

What is the Adams administration’s angle? That’s not clear from the press release, which only says, “Starting in the Meatpacking District, Oonee’s curbside parking ]Mini’ will be tested at a series of curbside locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens … over the next five months.”

But tout le monde will be there today at 12:30 at 400 W. 14th St.: DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, Assembly Member Deborah Glick, Council Member Erik Bottcher, Shabazz Stuart (of Oonee), Jeffrey LeFrancois of Community Board 4 and the Meatpacking Business Improvement District, plus advocates from Transportation Alternatives and other groups that want to save the city.

Dave Colon will anchor Streetsblog’s full team coverage.

Until then, here’s our news digest:

• Everyone covered Mayor Adams’s “recovery” plan (NYDN, NY Post, The City, amNY, but not the Times), while Streetsblog focused readers’ attentions on the good stuff.
• Speaking of the mayor, it was nice to see he has his priorities straight (#LGM), at least as far as baseball is concerned:

• The federal government will maintain mask mandates on transit until April 18. (amNY)
• State senators are putting more scrutiny on Gov. Hochul’s Penn Station redevelopment boondoggle. (NY Post)
• Another cop has fired on another reckless driver, this time in Queens. (NYDN, NY Post)
• Polls close today at noon in one of two first-round Queens fights in our March (Parking) Madness series. And you have ’til Monday to vote on this Bronx battle. Meanwhile, polls just opened in our other Queens first-round fight, featuring last year’s champion returning to defend its crown dishonor.
• Everyone lost his shit over this tweet from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services — but the fact is: wouldn’t we much rather have a public park for all of us than a private parking lot for pols at City Hall?

• Um, this one is really going to bruise some egos: New Yorkers can no longer complain that we give more to the country than it gives to us, according to state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. (Gothamist)
• In case you missed it, we ran a fairly horrifying story about how dangerous city streets are this year.
• And, finally, there’s definitely a storm and heavy winds coming late Friday into Saturday, but this “bomb cyclone” is not going to be as bad as the weather-hyping Post originally thought. (NYDN, NY Post)