Wednesday’s Headlines: The Damn Kosciuszko Bridge Edition

Before Gov. Andrew Cuomo was disgraced by scandal, he was disgraced by his complete disregard for the well-proven phenomenon of induced demand.

We remember confronting him at a press conference once when he was boasting about how his new $1-billion Kosciuszko Bridge would erase the ghost of the traffic jams of the past that made his father enter the Cuomo homestead every night and bellow, “The goddamn Kosciuszko Bridge.”

Here’s what Cuomo the Younger said back in 2019, partly in Italian, back in 2019 about our prediction that traffic would get worse: “It’s impossible! It’s not possible. That’s crazy. Do you understand? It’s not possible. Now there are nine — how do you say ‘lanes’ in Italian? [Continuing in English with a weird Hollywood-style Italian accent]: Nine lanes where there were six lanes. When you have six lanes and then you go to nine lanes, there’s gotta be a better a-traffic a-flow. Non è passo. It’s simple math.”

Well, we go over that bridge several times a week and it still sucks. Except the bike lane. That’s awesome.

In other news:

• What a bad day for Council Member Bob Holden. Still smarting from the loss of Republican Lee Zeldin (whom the supposed Democrat Holden endorsed), Holden learned on Tuesday that his stall tactic against Citi Bike had failed and the rentable bikes would be coming his Maspeth and Middle Village district in the next few weeks. The Queens Chronicle kinda buried the lede: 40 of the 57 docking stations locations will be in roadway space that drivers consider theirs for free storage of their cars, while 17 stations will be on area sidewalks. Holden had wanted all the stations to be on sidewalks — and, for a while there, had powerful ears at City Hall.
• Brooklyn Magazine also weighed in on the DOT’s effort to turn Grand Army Plaza from a car sewer to a car gutter, though, like other outlets, it overplayed the design process in its newsletter headline, “Grand Army Plaza ponders a car-free future.” Um, no. The actual web headline was closer to what’s going on: “Could Grand Army Plaza Become a Car-Free Zone?”
• Coney Islanders still want their ferry. (Brooklyn Paper)
• We’re big fans of Stephen Nessen over here. Here’s his piece on the just-approved fare increase to help struggling taxi drivers. (Gothamist)
• Remember this story whenever you see a Columbus statue being protected by cops on overtime. (Gothamist)
• Manhattan is getting still more awesome bike and pedestrian space, amNY reported.
• An alleged drunk driver was collared for severely injuring a pedestrian in Brooklyn. (NYDN)
• Willets Point is getting an $800-million soccer stadium. (NY Times, The City)
• Crain’s got in on The Bronx e-bike coverage, which we had earlier.
• Just as we showed with our seminal investigation into staff morale and overall malaise at the Department of Transportation, City and State reported on a massive brain drain from all of city government.
• Like Streetsblog, BK Reader covered Monday’s press conference with the family of Ronald Anthony Smith, who was killed by recklessly driving cops in April.
• From the assignment desk: Want to know the latest on the city’s slow-moving redesign of McGuinness Boulevard? The “Make McGuinness Safe” coalition will host a Zoom call update at 8 p.m. tonight. Just register by clicking here.
• Also from the assignment desk: Set your calendars, #bikenyc, for Friday night’s third attempt to fix Lake Ydanis:

• And, finally, cars are gonna car: