Wednesday’s Headlines: Zero Vision Edition

There were two big stories yesterday: The Brooklyn Democratic machine’s attack on bike lanes and a federal judge’s attack on the Trump administration’s war on congestion pricing.

First, the bikelash: After the Brooklyn party chair and the borough’s pre-eminent fixer posted on X about how much they hate bike lanes, we rushed to Mayor Adams’s Tuesday presser — only to watch him defend the attack on bike lanes and go further to say that Vision Zero is too focused on car drivers (never mind that a) they do virtually all of the damage and b) enforcement against car drivers has actually been dwindling).

We turned that into two big stories, one by Kevin Duggan and the other by Sophia Lebowitz. Both are must-reads as the bike lane culture war turns into a political war. (Meanwhile, the mayor’s actual announcement of the day — a seemingly worthy bid to turn vacant city land into parkland — was ignored by everyone except the great Liam Quigley. But then again, the mayor spent all of like two minutes discussing it.)

The other big story, as covered by our Dave Colon, was that a federal judge basically told the U.S. Department of Transportation to stand down on its threats to strip funding from New York State until the judge can make a ruling on the larger congestion pricing lawsuit. Everyone covered it (NY Times, Politico, amNY, NYDN, NY Post, Gothamist).

In other news:

• Public Advocate Jumaane Williams put out a report showing that congestion pricing is working (amNY), though the Post can’t allow its readers to enjoy the traffic and crash reduction.
• Like Streetsblog, the Post, Gothamist, The City and QNS covered Mets owner Steve Cohen’s successful bid to open a casino on land that is currently mapped as park.
• A speeding cop slammed into another vehicle and then into an outdoor dining shed, injuring two. My guess: the “dangerous dining area” will somehow be blamed. (NY Post)
• A 78-year-old woman was run down and killed by a driver in the Bronx. (NYDN)
• It’s like that old joke: What do you get when you put a bunch of Classicists from the suburbs in the same room? A really ugly design for Penn Station! (That’s the punchline, right?) (Beaux Arts Atelier)
• Speaking of jokes, no one should be laughing when the anti-bike minority brandish their MAGA street cred. (Second Avenue Sagas)

• And from the assignment desk: The Workers Justice Project and Los Deliveristas Unidos will rally today at noon at City Hall in opposition to NYPD Commissioner Tisch’s month-old policy of criminalizing minor traffic violations committed by cyclists. The NYPD refuses to provide new data, but the groups say that more than 1,000 criminal summonses have been issued by cops, many of them wrongly, as Streetsblog has reported (endlessly!).
• Also on Wednesday, the city DOT will provide more details on the four lane miles of protected bike lanes and other improvements that it will construct this year as part of its later Harlem River Greenway project in the Bronx. Join Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez at Sedgwick Avenue and Depot Place at 11 a.m.