Streetsies 2024: The Year in Fake Pictures

There was so much craziness in the news this year that we expanded the Streetsblog Photoshop Desk to help our readers make sense of it all.

And the team performed! Check out the best artistic efforts of the year:

The finger

When Gov. Hochul not only paused congestion pricing, but did so without finding revenue to continue the MTA’s vital capital work, we captured her betrayal of city transit riders with this gripping image:

ILM’s nexus of criminality

When the mayor’s main adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, was indicted, we broadened the public’s focus onto her larger corruption — that of public integrity:

Grass roots? No, Astroturf!

When the City Council wanted to raise wages for delivery workers not covered by previous pay increase reforms, a weird, tech-funded group showed up to testify against it — a classic “Astroturf” approach. We called out the group with this image:

Good, bad and ugly

The mayor’s record on street safety improvements was mixed at best, which we characterized by using the title of the famous Sergio Leone Western and turning it into this photo:

DEP TV

When the Department of Environmental Protection announced it would put videos of idling law violators on its website, we decided it was gripping viewing:

A mountain of cash

After Hochul’s congestion pricing “pause,” everyone was saying that the MTA was being buffeted by storm and would need a mountain of money. But only Streetsblog did it graphically!

The fiscal cliff

After the congestion pricing pause, we revealed that Gov. Hochul had led MTA workers over a cliff … which looked something like this:

Bulldozers for justice

After we revealed the full extent of the state Department of Transportation’s malfeasance, we were happy to see Rep. Ritchie Torres and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez team up to, hopefully, toss the plan into the dustbin of history. That’s a bit of a mixed metaphor for this image, but you get the idea:

Let’s go, Mets!

Like all New Yorkers (well, New Yorkers with a heart), we were pulling hard for our Mets. But when the team faced a critical, end-of-season series with the hated Atlanta Braves, we worried along with all of you. Mr. Met knew how we felt:

The watered-down toll

Gov. Hochul’s decision to reduce the price of the congestion toll prompted us to accuse her (graphically, at least) of vandalism:

The Albany machine

Remember the sequence: The state legislature passed congestion pricing as part of the 2019 budget, so no one would have to vote yes or no on the toll itself. Then, Gov. Hochul superseded the law without any accountability. Then the legislature went into recess without doing anything. Basically, Albany is one big accountability avoidance machine, which we demonstrated thusly:

Just one more ramp

We caught the state Department of Transportation trying to build new ramps on the Cross-Bronx Expressway, and wondered where it would end. This is what we imagined:

Shrinking pols

Mayor Adams’s vision for the city was so limited this year, that we decided he had shrunk himself and his office, which looked like this:

And Gov. Hochul also made herself small, with her unilateral congestion pricing pause, which reminded us of a movie:

She also shrunk herself in contrast with the anti-congestion pricing president-elect:

Landing the plane?

For a brief period this year, it looked like Mayor Adams would not fully go to the mat for his signature rezoning plan, the City of Yes. He kept saying he would “land the plan,” but we weren’t convinced. Here’s what it looked like to us:

Heroes want tolls

We’re not even sure what this was about. It was Veterans Day, so we wanted to demonstrate our anger at Hochul not showing leadership on congestion pricing, we suppose:

Clash of heavyweights

We were caught in the middle of an epic Twitter war between our contributor Charles Komanoff and John Samuelsen of the transit workers union. Reluctant as we are to get in the middle of a fight (we like to be one of the participants, naturally), we decided this battle was a dish best served with a graphic:

The big block

There was a brief period there when it looked like the Biden administration would protect Gov. Hochul from an assault against congestion pricing by the incoming Trump administration. We went with a football metaphor to demonstrate it graphically:

A three-pol circus

There were so many lawsuits against congestion pricing that we simply had to go with a wrestling metaphor:

Alone again, naturally

By the end of the year, Mayor Adams — indicted, — found himself all alone, which looked like:

What a year!