City Council Fighting Wrath Of Khan

The bike lane-loving DOT commissioner may have her wings clipped:

The City Council appears to be trying to stand up to Janette Sadik-Khan, the Bloomberg administration’s relatively radical and innovative transportation commissioner who has rapidly closed down car lanes and replaced them with bike lanes and open space across the city.

. . .

The secret to her magic: the transportation commissioner has broad power to do as he or she likes with the roadways without subjective outside approvals, as, traditionally, such commissioners simply treated roads as roads. But by treating the roads more like canvases of open space that happen to accommodate cars, she is able to achieve quick, tangible results that are relatively low budget, and to go forward without approval from the City Council. (By contrast, the Council must approve any major land-use changes on private or city-owned land, making it far more difficult to quickly implement any major changes.)

. . .

[Two City Council] bills would mandate the community board appearances and add new requirements for timeline (30 to 60 days of review), set up public hearings, and require DOT to provide certain information about its planned projects.

But We’ll Always Have That 60-Foot-High HD Screen In The Outfield . . .

The Yankees broke attendance records last year. This year, not so much:

With decreased capacity and a small percentage of extremely high ticket prices, the Yankees totaled just seven sellouts in the first year of their new stadium and experienced a 13% drop in attendance in 2009.

Location Scout: New Yankee Stadium.

The High Line’s “Shifting Narrative”

Because of course when you open a nice new $150 million park, you want people coming out in droves to enjoy the view:

Grandparent Gwen Barrett said the neighborhood has always been edgy.

“That kind of stuff here is anticipated,” she said.

Still, “I definitely wouldn’t want to bring my grandkids here,” she added.

See Also: “Two Parks” . . .

Location Scout: High Line.

Most Teams Christen A New Ballpark With A Playoff Run, Or At Least A Winning Season . . .

Then there’s the Mets, who instead languish in fourth place. Maybe you can explain why you’d execute a hit and run down by two runs with two runners on and no outs in the ninth inning:

The sight of the Phillies’ Pedro Martinez pitching against his former team was supposed to be the most unusual aspect of the game. But that notion was quickly proved wrong before the top of the first inning was over, only to be reinforced exactly three hours later when the game ended on an unassisted triple play with the potential tying runs in motion. It was the first unassisted triple play to end a game since 1927, and only the 15th in major league history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

As Howard Wolfson Might Say, “It’s Ancient History”

After the Wolfson campaign went after Bill Thompson’s comptrolling, the Observer’s Azi Paybarah points out that not only did Bloomberg endorse him in 2007 but there are also several of the mayor’s appointees on the pension board.