Tuesday’s Headlines: Service Outrages (Er, Outages) Edition

Other than the mayor mocking a sitting Council member (which no one but we covered), the big news of the day is that the MTA has set up an entirely new way to alert you to service outages.

Not too many outlets covered it (the Daily News did), so here’s the upshot: Once you sign up (by clicking here), you can can choose which subway or bus delays you want to be notified about a la minute, as the French would say if they had subway delays. You can even select what times of the day you want to be bothered with the bad news.

We signed up and we’ll keep you posted if it works.

And speaking of the mayor’s petty snipe at Council Member Lincoln Restler, some reporters did tweet it, thankfully:

In other news:

• Remember that viral photo of the firefighters who bashed through the windows of a car that had been parked at a hydrant? Hell Gate broke it down for you.
• It looks like the city is finally starting to get the idea that MSG is a terrible corporate citizen — and has now put some strings on that lucrative permit. (NYDN, NY Post, amNY, Gothamist, Crain’s)
• Responding to an amazing report in The City about the triple-digit increase in police chases, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell blamed ghost tags. Hmmm. (NY Post)
• Even The Bronx Times is covering the Fordham Road busway fight, so you know it’s important.
• Congestion pricing was back in the news again, thanks to a somewhat off Ross Barkan explainer in Crain’s and a Newsday interview with the newest member of the toll-setting Traffic Mobility Review Board, John Durso, who definitely doesn’t sound like a congestion pricing true believer. Reminder: We don’t need to be fair to drivers — they have poisoned our air, congested our streets, killed our young and terrified our seniors for too long.
• Repairs have started on the rain-deluged tracks that carry Amtrak and the Metro North Hudson line (and, if we’re lucky, our old man editor away on his upstate train vacation next week). (amNY)
• Speaking of ghost plates, OK, we probably can’t take credit, but shortly after we published Jesse Coburn’s investigation into the temp tag black market, Vermont suddenly decided to change its lax ways. (Autopian)
• Finally, hey, DOT, nice bike lane you got there. We’d had to see anything bad happen to it: