The local papers took great pains to avoid blaming Gov. Cuomo for the slow-rolling debacle that will likely lead to the Trump administration to delay and perhaps kill congestion pricing.
The Daily News and The Post botched the story in exactly the same way, allowing Cuomo to blame Trump, and burying at the very bottom that Cuomo could easily have done more to provide the proper information to the federal government and head off an unnecessary oversight review that everyone knew the feds would conduct (because apparently localities are not allowed to put tolls on roads that had benefitted from federal money at some point).
Only the Wall Street Journal focused — albeit only a little — on the Cuomo administration's failure to get information to the federal government until January!
This is a disaster with more to come. Until then, here's the rest of yesterday's news:
- State Attorney General Letitia James says she'll sue the city for inflating the value of taxi medallions (NYDN, NY Post, NY Times). Meanwhile, a hedge fund is gobbling up medallions and taxi loans (NY Post).
- Car-culture curator Tom Wrobleski was up to his old tricks in the Staten Island Advance, first wrongly calling speed cameras an attack on car culture (they are, in fact, an attack on rogue car culture, i.e. speeding). But Wrobleski always has a good point buried under all his car carping, this time urging the mayor to take away cars from himself and all his staffers, plus all the placards he's given away, too. Right on, Tom!
- Like Streetsblog, the Post also covered the death of a pedestrian in East Harlem, allegedly by a motorcycle rider.
- Well, at least President Trump is trying to break the car export culture. (NY Times)
