Wednesday’s Headlines: This Time, It’s Personnel

Could this be your next council member from Bushwick?
Could this be your next council member from Bushwick?

Much-loved reporter Dave Colon — aka the second-best-dressed man in the New York press corps — broke a big story on Twitter on Tuesday: He’s joining Streetsblog as senior reporter, after stints at Gothamist and Brokelyn and freelancing for everyone. Colon replaces David Meyer, who left us for the Tabloid of Record. Colon’s tweet about his new role got more likes than free ice cream on a hot day, a testament to how he’s viewed by his pixel-pocked and ink-stained colleagues across town. He starts on Monday, the first day of the rest of all our lives. Here’s hoping Marty Markowitz comes out of retirement to name it Dave Colon Day in the Republic of Brooklyn.

Until Colon’s debut, here’s yesterday’s roundup:

  • Wow, the state MTA and city DOT agreed to work together to make sure congestion pricing happens. Is this really a story? (NYDN)
  • Fare evasion just got a little harder. (NY Post)
  • Who doesn’t love a good sex-pun-filled tabloid story about sex toys in the subway? Obviously, tabloid Tennyson Max Jaeger does! (NY Post)
  • Like Streetsblog, Vin Barone at amNY covered the transit advocates’ push for a better MTA reorganization.
  • You gotta hand it to Treehugger for pointing out the stupidity of the ban on low-powered e-bikes on the Hudson River Greenway. Pedal-assist bikes are not like throttle-controlled bikes — and they are vital for the disabled and seniors. They are also … Citi Bike e-bikes, as Streetsblog pointed out.
  • We gotta hand it to the 19th Precinct in Manhattan. An officer there tweeted pictures of how cops are making sure no one parks in the non-protected protected bike lane on Second Avenue near the 59th Street Bridge, which remind us that any bike lane that needs police tape to keep out cars is probably not a very well designed bike lane, right DOT?
  • Gothamist got in on the e-bike/e-scooter coverage, adding in a nice detail that Council Member Mark Levine wants deliver workers’ fines refunded and confiscated bikes returned. We’re all still waiting for the Times to put this story in the official record of 2019… [Update: The Gray Lady published Emma Fitzsimmons’s piece this morning. The Times focused a bit too much on how Manhattanites won’t get shared scooters and not enough on how Albany put an end to Mayor de Blasio’s insane war on tens of thousands of delivery workers, but that’s just quibbling. Streetsblog was pleased to see a link to our story on the Hudson River Greenway e-ban.]
  • As the legislative session neared its end, the Senate passed a Liz Krueger bill to lift the cap on bus lane enforcement cameras (Senate via Twitter). It’s unclear if the Assembly will pass its version today.
  • The NYPD has tweeted out pictures of the Chevy Tahoe whose driver, cops believe, killed Christopher Nieves near Bruckner Boulevard on Sunday. Help the highway squad find this driver.

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