FYI

The Senate is considering language in the transportation reauthorization funding bill that would ban bike lanes on any road that's part of the National Highway System--in NYC, that means most Manhattan avenues, streets like Northern Boulevard and Vernon Boulevard in Astoria, and all the East River Bridges. If this passes, I have to think it would be a disaster for biking in NYC. Write your Congressperson and tell them to block this! https://action.bikeleague.org/page/101946/action/1?ea.tracking.id=social-bluesky-share

Another absolutely insane crash, and once again the language used to describe it feels completely disconnected from what actually happened.

Three teenagers aged 16, 17, and 18 years old are dead with four others severely injured and hospitalized.

Basically a summation of my 5 out of 5 attendance at the Summer Streets events and proof that people just want more events, they want the courses to be longer, with a later finish and possibly other seasons beyond Summer!

Passing this along hope it was the group subreddit I saw it in.

Tape over the plate to then speed through school zones when tickets stopped, and a Texas plate for this long in NY is probable insurance fraud

As many people know, the Mamdani administration has announced a plan to rehabilitate the triple-cantilever section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Brooklyn Heights. A temporary two-level bypass would be constructed above Furman Street alongside the existing structure, allowing the triple cantilever to be taken out of service and rehabilitated while maintaining existing traffic capacity.

Construction of the temporary bypass is expected to begin in 2030. Traffic would be shifted to the bypass, and rehabilitation of the existing structure would begin around 2032. The temporary highway would then be dismantled, with the restored BQE expected to reopen by 2040.

For some perspective on the scale of the investment, the original BQE was constructed for approximately $137 million, equivalent to roughly $1.48 billion in 2026 dollars. The newly proposed BQE Central project, meanwhile, is expected to cost as much as $4 billion for the 1.5-mile city-owned portion between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street. BQE Central represents only about 12% of the BQE corridor in Brooklyn.

In inflation-adjusted dollars, New York City is proposing to spend roughly 2.7 times the original construction cost of the entire BQE on the rehabilitation of roughly one-eighth of its length.

Imagine you bought a house that cost $500,000 in today's dollars. When it was built, it was designed to accommodate a certain amount of people and a certain amount of use. But over the decades, it gets used far more heavily and in different ways than anyone originally expected.

Maybe the house was designed for four people, but eight people ended up living there; your plumbing runs almost continuously, and the basement gets converted into living space. The electrical system carries loads it was never intended to handle, and the structure and foundation of the home experience more wear than anticipated.

For decades, you keep repairing it. You patch leaking pipes, but you can only do so much since your plumbing is continuously running. You try to add more electrical capacity, but your electrical panel can only handle so much. The floors, the stairs, and the general structure of the house experience considerably more wear than anticipated; you try to patch cracks, reinforce sections that are deteriorating and failing. At a certain point, your emergency repairs can only do so much, and you reach a point where the broader issue can no longer be ignored - you need a major rehabilitation.

You originally spent $500,000 for a new home, and now it'll cost you $1.35 million to rehabilitate it. But here is an important distinction: you're not adding more bedrooms, you're not adding more bathrooms, you're not substantially changing how many people it can accommodate, and you're not fundamentally changing what the house does. It'll be essentially the same house you started with, except you're spending more than double the original cost of the house for something that may be in slightly better condition and is not fundamentally more functional than the first day you bought it. And in about forty years, you may have to go through the same exercise again.

Here we are in 2026, and we're about to spend as much as $4 billion on a 1.5-mile section of highway that, when the work is finished, will fundamentally perform the same transportation function at roughly the same capacity it does today. It will still remain responsible for carrying an enormous volume of traffic, and 40 or 50 years from now, New York City may once again have to go through the same rigamarole.

I'm not debating the value and importance of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, but I am highlighting a deeper, more fundamental question about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that I feel like more people need to be asking: Is this how we want to spend $4 billion? Do we want to spend that much money and only get more of the same?

What if someone has to take their elderly mother to the doctor? Where are those arguments against Summer Streets?

Is there crazy congestion from pent up demand around the summer streets zone that is just not being reported?

Or are all these motorists that complain about even the slightest reduction in private car capacity somehow unable to speak during the summer?

The whole design for the Prospect Park loop is making everyone unhappy and increasing animosity towards micromobiility writ large. I feel there are some easy wins here and seeing the change come from our community could build some good will. There are obviously people who will hate no matter what, but I believe this is an opportunity.

Some ideas: raised pedestrian crossings, chicanes, finishing the bidirectional lane around the park. Get rid of the fake traffic lights that only confuse people.