Lights, Camera, Carnage: Sound Stage Honchos, Pro-Car Adams Aide Kill Greenpoint Road Redesign

Bad news for New Yorkers who want to cross the street without fear: According to reporting from Streetsblog, Mayor Eric Adams is caving to the influential family who opposes the Department of Transportation's plan to transform Greenpoint's deadly McGuinness Boulevard, and is instead now telling the DOT to go back to the drawing board. 

Via Streetsblog: 

Facing pushback from powerful business interests and from one of his top advisers, Mayor Adams has ordered the Department of Transportation to come up with alternatives to a long-planned redesign of a dangerous Brooklyn street, city officials told Streetsblog.

The administration had spent years developing a plan for protected bike lanes and safer pedestrian crossings on Greenpoint's McGuinness Boulevard, and the plan had broad support, including from the mayor himself, the officials said. But Adams reversed course this week, bowing to resistance to the proposal led by the Argento family, which owns a large neighborhood business and has donated more than $15,000 to the mayor's political campaigns.

It's not just the Argentos who swayed Adams, according to Streetsblog: 

Ingrid Lewis-Martin, one of the mayor's closest advisers, also railed against the plan, according to the officials, who requested anonymity to share internal deliberations.

You might recall that Lewis-Martin, Adams's friend and longtime aide whom the New York Times described as the "second most powerful person in New York City government," is no fan of public transit or getting more cars off the road. The Times reported that Lewis-Martin was the one who, in February of last year, ordered some Brooklyn roads that were part of the Open Streets program to be reopened to car traffic, overriding the DOT commissioner and the local councilmember. 

And in an interview with City & State, she had this to say about congestion pricing, which is happening (sorry, Ingrid!): "Me personally, I hate congestion pricing. I think it sucks." Of course she would say that, given that she hasn't taken the subway since she was 19. 

And now for some pedestrian-friendly links:

• Via the CITY: "NYPD car chases have skyrocketed under Mayor Eric Adams, part of a deliberate but unofficial shift in enforcement tactics that puts civilians and cops in harm’s way, two police sources told THE CITY. The police gave chase 304 times in the first three months of 2023, a nearly 600 percent jump from the same period last year, according to an analysis of vehicle pursuit calls THE CITY conducted from NYPD 911 data."
• New York City's first Narcan vending machine is already saving lives. 
• The Adams administration is looking at turning schools into temporary shelters for arriving migrants. 
• Anti-discrimination laws aren't being enforced due to a lack of staff. Via Gothamist: "The cause of the disruption, according to current and former workers, is a severe staffing shortage that was aggravated by the mayor's decision to eliminate another 20 positions from the agency earlier this year."
• "Singer Aubrey O’Day says she had sex with married Donald Trump Jr. in bathroom of NYC gay club"
• Weed will not be coming to a farmers' market near you.
• Mondaire Jones is running for Congress again.
• A new hero emerges. 
• *eyes emoji*
• Second tunnel, incoming! Second Avenue subway extension, incoming!
• Congratulations to Gloria Carter and her new wife!
• Yankees pitcher Jimmy Cordero has been suspended for the rest of the season after an unspecified domestic violence incident. 
• And finally: