Monday’s Headlines: DSNY on Ice Edition

Caught in the wild! The Department of Sanitation's new narrow snow plow in its first test. Photo: Dave Colon
Caught in the wild! The Department of Sanitation's new narrow snow plow in its first test. Photo: Dave Colon

Full disclosure: We were poised for the worst when forecasters predicted four to six inches of snow on Friday, mostly because of the Department of Sanitation’s horrendous past record — and official policy — of discriminating against pedestrians and cyclists in favor of drivers, who shouldn’t be driving in the snow anyway.

But this time, Sanitation workers (and their colleagues in the Department of Transportation) did an above-normal job in clearing bike lanes for cyclists, thanks to the deployment of a few dozen narrow snowplows that the agency finally leased this year (only two decades into the protected bike lane era).

It wasn’t perfect — believe us, we received a lot of photos early in the storm, such as this:

And our own Dave Colon was about to use a poison pen to describe the DSNY’s efforts on Flatbush Avenue … but then one of the little cuties showed up:

And Julianne Cuba rushed to the new Brooklyn Bridge bike path to see if the DOT had cleared it when it cleared lanes for driver — and found parity!

The mayor even cleared his own ice and snow at his Brooklyn home in between stops at a Sanitation garage in Manhattan and a school in Staten Island:

The Post, of course, only focused on the car lanes, which were cleared well. That said, not every agency or entity did well. Brooklyn Bridge Park apparently discriminated against cyclists:

And the DOT did a good job on Prospect Park West, but not in Grand Army Plaza or Ninth Street, its other Park Slope protected lanes:

But overall, cyclists were treated better than in the past.

In other news from the weekend:

  • Mayor Adams spent Sunday defending the seemingly indefensible: the hiring of his brother to oversee his personal security and hiring a former top police official who was an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal corruption probe to oversee the NYPD. (NYDN, NY Post, Gothamist)
  • More problems for the still-unopened MTA bus command center. (NY Post)
  • A teenage drunk driver has been charged in Saturday’s fatal crash in The Bronx (NYDN), and a slightly older drunk driver was charged in a fatal crash in Queens (NYDN, amNY)
  • Oh, and a car driver crashed into Nathan’s! (Curb Jumping)
  • Here’s a dog-bites-man story: Queens Borough President Donovan Richards loves Gov. Hochul’s “Bi-boro” subway plan. And why wouldn’t he? (NY Post)
  • Speaking of the governor, she made it official and took the “interim” off Janno Lieber’s title atop the MTA. The governor also selected New York Building Congress Chairwoman Elizabeth Velez for a seat on the MTA board. (amNY)
  • We wish Gale Brewer had invited us to this (next time, Gale?):

  • Tell us again, why does Manhattan need an Aston-Martin dealership? (NY Post)
  • The oldest subway cars — the Brightliners — were finally retired on Sunday after almost 58 years on the rails. (amNY)
  • Now this is public space management — meet the one-minute city. (Bloomberg)
  • And, finally, young reporters should really read our headlines post closely every day:

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