Wednesday’s Headlines: Bike Lane Delay Edition

Do you remember the proposed sidewalk bike lane on Ocean Avenue and big plaza improvements to the Prospect Park entrance on the corner of Parkside and Ocean avenues? No? Well that makes sense: it got approved five years ago and then nothing happened.

And now the project won’t be finished until 2026 at the earliest, according to reporting by ace scribe Dave Colon.

To recap: The Prospect Park Alliance, the Department of Transportation and the Parks Department are all working on a big refurbishment of Ocean Avenue on the east side of Prospect Park. The work, first approved in 2019, involves replacing cracked and broken sidewalks, adding a two-way eight-foot bike lane and a spruced-up and unified entry plaza at Parkside Avenue that will one day house a monument to the great Shirley Chisholm.

The project was supposed to be finished in 2021, but got delayed by the pandemic and given a new completion year of 2023 … until it was delayed again, this time because of new stormwater management requirements. The city is finally in the process of awarding a contract for the whole shebang — a shebang on which the next mayor can cut the ribbon.

Patience, they say, is a virtue. Unless you’re a dad who wants to take his 6-year-old on a safe ride to the park, we suppose.

In other news:

• The big story yesterday: Mayor Adams is going to hire Randy Mastro, a former Giuliani deputy mayor, to be the city’s Corporation Counsel. Another fun fact about Randy Mastro? He’s the lawyer representing New Jersey in its bid to undo congestion pricing. So, um, welcome to the administration that’s supposed to help implement it? (NY Times with the bona-fide scoop, but the Post added details)
• Read about all the good things that happened when Rochester got rid of an urban freeway scar. (Bloomberg)
• Protest is an American value — though Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton wants protesters beaten up if they block roads. (Fox News)
• Rest in peace, Hayalde Yitel ben Eliezer Wertzberge, taken yesterday by a driver at just 10 years old (Streetsblog, PIX11, NY Post). Meanwhile, there was some backsliding at Gothamist, which seems to believe that the car, not the driver, killed young Hayalde.
• The City Council held a hearing on bills to ban “non-essential” helicopter flights (amNY), and you know carbon tax booster Charles Komanoff had the perfect take (Carbon Tax Center).
• The City offered a primer on trash containerization.
• And Crain’s did a City of Yes primer.
• Non-Jewish taxi drivers are being slurred out of business in Rockland County. (Shtetl)
• Wow, fancy people in the suburbs have it bad! (Wall Street Journal)
• The Post followed our weekend story about arborcide in Kissena Park.
• And, finally, our own Polk Award-winning reporter Jesse Coburn was on the Longform podcast!