Transit, streets, and housing reform are all hitting at once today: a possible LIRR strike, bike-enforcement whiplash, new cyclist-safety rules, and a Varick Street tower moving into the mix.
This is The New York Daily Fix. Today, we’re looking at what could change how New Yorkers move, build, and just get through the city.
Monday did not ease us in.
No, it did not. Let’s start on the rails.
From NBC New York:
For the first time in three decades, Long Island Rail Road workers could strike in just weeks, which would shut down all train service. The MTA is already getting buses ready.
The LIRR system is the largest commuter rail network in the nation. 300,000 people a day depend on the trains from Long Island to New York City and back.
A rail strike here is not some niche commuter headache. That’s a regional shockwave. If 300,000 daily riders suddenly need a Plan B, “getting buses ready” is not a fix. That’s triage.
Now to bike enforcement. From Kevin Duggan and Sophia Lebowitz at Streetsblog New York City:
NYPD officers gave out thousands of criminal summonses to cyclists and e-bike riders this year, until Mayor Mamdani finally fulfilled his campaign promise to call off the Adams-era crackdown nearly three months into his term.
That is very much a better-late-than-never moment — but the “late” part matters. If the crackdown was unfair enough to end, then thousands of people still got pulled through it while the new mayor was already in office.
Sticking with streets for a second — from Gersh Kuntzman at Streetsblog New York City:
The Department of Transportation once again says it will change city rules to allow cyclists to legally make right turns on red lights and also pass through stop lights at the top-of-the-T intersections — long-sought safety improvements that the agency has been trying to implement since at least the de Blasio administration.
This is one of those common-sense street-safety changes that somehow keeps getting announced instead of finished. If it makes riding more predictable and keeps cyclists out of dangerous spots, then great — stop circling it and do it.
And now, over to r slash nyc:
The property’s rental units will be delivered under the 485-x program, with roughly 25 percent designated as permanently affordable housing. The project follows the firms’ previous collaboration on Anagram Turtle Bay, a 194-unit mixed-income development.
The site is currently occupied by an open-air parking lot.
A Hudson Square parking lot becoming 149 apartments, with a permanent affordability piece? Yes. That is exactly the trade New York should be making all day.
One Reddit commenter put the politics pretty bluntly:
Get ready for a shockingly passionate fight from local NIMBYs to protect a parking lot.
We would love to be wrong. But yes — if New York can turn asphalt into 149 homes and still trigger a preservationist panic, that says a lot about how broken the local veto culture is.
Another r slash nyc commenter pointed to the local district politics:
This is Chris Marte’s district so you can expect a full-court-NIMBY press from him and the local yokels.
Will probably be something like:
“We have concerns about putting 25% affordable housing so close to the Holland tunnel on pollution and equity grounds - and would like 25 more years of studies done on the matter”
The joke works because it sounds like a community-board transcript that already happened somewhere. And look, pollution near the Holland Tunnel is real. But using that as the reason to keep a parking lot instead of building affordable homes? That’s civic malpractice.
And one more r slash nyc commenter kept it simple:
Always glad to see parking lot turning into apartment buildings
Same. A parking lot turning into apartments is one of the cleanest wins city planning can give you: more homes, better street life, and fewer blocks devoted to storing empty cars.
Links to everything in today’s briefing are in the show notes, so if one of these stories grabbed you, you can dig in there.
That’s The New York Daily Fix for Monday, May 4th. This is a Lantern Podcast.