It takes almost no time for hopes to be dashed in this cruel town. One day after I noticed that the Department of Transportation had repainted the 10th Avenue bike lane in front of the Drug Enforcement Administration – complete with “no-parking” zones – I returned on Monday to find DEA officers’ cars filling the bike lane and the no-parking zones!
To paraphrase “Casablanca,” I was not shocked – not shocked! – to find federal officials’ cars had returned to space they consider a birthright and the rest of us consider a bike lane. I was equally unsurprised, given our prior coverage and my drug taking, to find cyclists – again – forced into traffic.
So I filmed another Old Man Vertical, a format that at once mocks the younger generation’s poor aspect ratio while also mocking agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration for their belief that they can leave their cars wherever they want.
It certainly bolsters the argument – made so recently by a Brooklyn community board committee – that traffic enforcement should indeed be back in the hands of DOT, whose enforcement agents might be – might be – less inclined to give a pass to a “brother” officer, as the NYPD does for all manner of uniformed cronies.
Perhaps that’s what DOT spokesman Vin Barone was trying to tell me when I asked what the agency would do about the latest assault by the feds.
“Have you checked with NYPD?” he wrote. “This agency enforces traffic laws, including parking regulations, in the City of New York.”
Actually, I had checked with the NYPD. The agency that (sort of) enforces traffic laws didn’t bother to respond to my request for comment.
Stay tuned.
In other news:
- The NY Post is in its own bizarre bubble. After we covered over and over and over how drivers have been filling Foley Square with cars every day, the Tabloid of Record decided the real villains are people protesting ICE?! Even the paper’s photo of the damage showed tire tracks! Open your eyes, Rupert!
- Red tape is still snarling outdoor dining. (Hell Gate)
- Another crash at Jerome Avenue and the Moshulu Parkway. (Norwood News)
- The Times is still pushing electric cars – but in this case, op-ed writer Michael Grunwald is really calling for much wider reductions in fuel use and not merely trying to sell Teslas.
- Staten Islanders hate those speed cameras, but cops aren’t doing their job so someone – or in this case, something – has to. (Staten Island Advance)
- Talking about birthrights – beer is back on the boat. (NYDN, NY Post)
- The Post followed our coverage of MTA toll scofflaws from two weeks ago.
- Cops say the arrested the reckless driver who killed a man in a hit-and-run on the Upper East Side. (Our Town)
