Thursday’s Headlines: ‘Excelsior’ Forever and Only Edition

Sure, we were excited to see Department of Transportation workers installing fortified bollards so that the Grand Street bike lane finally lives up to its street name, but the big news on Wednesday was in Albany.

The smallest part of that big news was Gov. Cuomo’s plan, first revealed in a tweet by Jimmy Vielkind, to apparently add “E Pluribus Unum” to “Excelsior” on the New York State seal. We can’t stop attacking this misguided, wrongheaded and ill-conceived idea. Dammit, Cuomo, “Excelsior” is good enough — it’s been our state motto since 1778. It doesn’t need to share space with some newfangled federal motto that wasn’t even adopted until 1782. Of course, we’ll be following this story.

Meanwhile, we sent Dave Colon, the second-best-dressed man in the city press corps, to the frigid state capital and he’s already filed a story about the governor’s plan to help e-bike-riding delivery workers get justice instead of getting harassed by the NYPD.

Other outlets had their own coverage of the governor’s State of the State address:

• The Daily News kinda sneered, calling Cuomo’s agenda, “a lengthy list of liberal legislative priorities.” (You say that like it’s a negative thing.)
• The Post at least called it the “progressive greatest hits.”
• Gothamist, of course, focused on legalized marijuana.
• The Times summarized the Cuomo agenda, including … pot!
• And amNY focused on environmental promises.

Of course, there was also other news yesterday:

• A Midtown pedestrian was critically wounded by the driver of a Coach bus on Tuesday. The driver fled. (NYDN, NY Post)
• Stand clear of the closing (and faulty!) doors. Inside the latest Bombardier catastrophe. (NYDN, NY Post)
• Sorry, we remain unimpressed by the OMNY fare-collection system because it does not include weekly and monthly passes (which the MTA could do with simple fare-capping). Now we find that some customers are being double-charged. (NY Post, Gothamist)
• Why are cars even allowed anywhere near schools between 7 and 8:30 a.m. — when the streets are filled with kids? The Post offered more evidence that Richard Carranza needs to call his boss and demand safe routes to schools.
• Should the MTA board include voting representatives from each borough? Would-be Queens borough president Costa Constantinides thinks so. (NYDN)
• Gothamist followed our quibble with the Queens bus network redesign with a quibble of its own.
• The Times Metro section is starting to do a better job covering the ongoing carnage on the city’s roads. Has Cliff Levy been reading our tweets?
• Finally, is busway opponent Arthur Schwartz running for the Council seat that will be vacated by a term-limited Corey Johnson? If so, get ready for a fight — his platform includes eliminating the busway. Oddly, the Village Sun story goes on to say, “Other planks of a possible Schwartz Council campaign would include mass transit…” (Isn’t the busway “mass transit”?)