City Council member Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn), would require the DOT to light up the sidewalks of at least 500 blocks of the city annually.

“Lots of regulations and policy-making goes into roadway lighting, but the majority of New Yorkers don’t drive — we walk,” said City Council member Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn). “Better sidewalk lighting will improve the day to day experience for New Yorkers.”

The legislation specifically targets “commercial corridors,” mixed-use blocks with residential and commercial zoning. A spokesperson for Restler estimated there are roughly 10,000 such blocks citywide.

The legislation specifically calls for “pedestrian lighting fixtures,” aimed at sidewalks and not roads.

Kelly Carroll, executive director of Brooklyn’s Atlantic Ave. Business Improvement District, told the Daily News she hoped the legislation becomes law.

“It’s past due for a city like New York,” she said. “Its an economic issue and a public safety issue.”

Carroll said that some business owners in her business improvement district — which extends from the BQE overpass west of Hicks St. to 4th Ave. in parts of Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill — have taken to installing sets of decorative string lights on their storefronts to illuminate the sidewalk in front of their shops.

“It’s woefully under-lit,” Carroll said of the avenue, which includes many historic storefronts.

Jack Chester, owner of Free Range Wine and Spirits on the corner of Atlantic Ave. and Hoyt St., said that while his section of Atlantic Ave. was lined with “type B” lampposts — designed to light up sidewalks rather than roadways — many had been dark for years.

“On our block, they’re almost all burnt out,” Chester told The News.

The vintner said he’d recently moved his shop from to the corner, which has more light, and had seen business improve.

A lamppost near his old shop three doors down towards Smith St. has been burnt out for ten years, he said.

A Transportation Department spokesman said the agency is reviewing the legislation.

Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi, a former chief of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, and city planning head Dan Garodnick, a former City Council member, now await state Senate approval of their new roles.

Joshi and Garodnick are expected to keep their current city government roles. They’ll replace Adams’ current representatives on the board — Sherif Soliman, who resigned from the board in September, and current member Frankie Miranda.

Miranda plans to step down following his replacement’s confirmation, said Adams spokesman Charles Lutvak.

Joshi served as the head of the Taxi and Limousine Commission from 2014 to 2019 under former mayor Bill de Blasio, and then went to work for the U.S. Transportation Department on interstate trucking issues. Adams named her deputy mayor of operations in 2022.

Garodnick represented Manhattan’s East Side on the City Council from 2005 to 2017, before becoming chair of the Department of City Planning in 2022.

Transit advocates welcomed the picks announced Thursday. “These are both smart and responsible choices,” said Danny Pearlstein, spokesman for Riders Alliance. “I think riders will be well-served.”

All MTA board appointees bust be confirmed by the state Senate. It remained unclear Thursday when hearings could be expected.

de Blasio

The MTA’s 23-person board has 13 votes. Five are given to the board’s five gubernatorial appointees, four votes are given to the mayor’s appointees, and one vote each is given to appointees from Westchester, Suffolk and Nassau counties.

Representatives from Dutchess, Orange, Rockland and Putnam counties each receive a quarter of a vote.

Seats on the board representing Gov. Hochul, Rockland County and Orange County are now vacant.

In addition to Soliman’s seat, legislators have yet to replace Robert Mujica, an Andrew Cuomo pick who left the board late in 2022 to become the executive director of Puerto Rico’s fiscal control board.

Orange County’s representative, Harry Porr, resigned in June and has yet to be replaced. Rockland County’s quarter-vote seat, previously occupied by Frank Borelli, is also vacant.

Another vacancy is expected when Suffolk County representative Samuel Chu’s term expires at the end of February.

Legislation working its way through Albany would give voting authority to the board’s three rider representatives who are picked by councils representing the Long Island Rail Road, the Metro-North Railroad and New York City Transit.

The bill is currently before the state Senate Transportation Committee.

With Chris Sommerfeldt

Lawyers for the MTA — which expects to generate $1 billion a year from congestion pricing — told Judge Leo Gordon that tolling is scheduled to begin by mid-June during a status conference Tuesday in Newark Federal Court.

Gordon said he expected to have a ruling on the legality of the congestion pricing plan by early June, and set oral arguments in the case to begin on April 3.

The Garden State sued the federal Transportation Department in July, seeking to halt New York’s plan to charge drivers entering Midtown and lower Manhattan. The tolls would affect vehicles between 60th St. and the Battery.

The suit claims that the Transportation Department and the Federal Highway Administration failed to conduct a “comprehensive” and “complete” environmental review of New York’s plan, which New Jersey claims will cause pollution by changing regional traffic patterns.

MTA officials say traffic patterns were exhaustively studied, and steps will be taken to mitigate pollution where truck traffic may increase.

Transit officials have previously expressed hopes they could begin tolling in May, and have pointed to New Jersey’s lawsuit and similar legal challenges as the primary stumbling block to starting the tolls.

In addition to the suit brought by N.J. Gov. Murphy’s administration, a separate lawsuit brought by politicians and residents of Fort Lee, N.J. alleges similar harms.

Gordon denied a motion Tuesday to consolidate the two suits.

Additionally, public sector unions including the United Federation of Teachers have sued to stop the toll, as has a group of New York City residents and elected officials.

The current congestion pricing plan would charge motorists a base toll of $15 one time each day they drive into the congestion zone.

Drivers entering the city via tolled crossings like the Holland Tunnel or the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel would receive a discount. Drivers who stick to the FDR Drive or West Side Highway before exiting the congestion zone would not be charged.

The MTA will hold state-mandated public hearings on the plan at the end of February. A final version of the plan is then expected to be voted on by the agency’s board in March before the plan receives final sign-off from the Federal Highway Administration.

MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said Wednesday that the agency welcomes an expedited ruling on New Jersey’s suit.

“Congestion pricing can’t come fast enough given the amount of critical investment in mass transit that is ready to proceed,” he said in a statement. “We appreciate the court’s focus on expeditiously resolving the pending litigation.”

The funding — sought under the Biden administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — was not included in a list of awards released by the highway agency in January.

City officials insisted Tuesday the snub is not a fatal blow to the project.

“We are committed to delivering a long-term fix for the city-owned portion of the BQE while developing projects to reconnect communities along the highway’s entire corridor in Brooklyn,” said Mona Bruno, a city Transportation Department spokeswoman.

Bruno said DOT officials continue to work on plans for the city-owned portion of the highway through Downtown Brooklyn and beneath Brooklyn Heights, and that the agency plans to re-apply for the grant in the future.

“This is only the beginning,” she said.

The city controls 1.5 miles of the BQE that includes the structurally sketchy triple cantilever structure under the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. The remainder of the highway is controlled by the state Department of Transportation.

The triple cantilever — in which northbound and southbound lanes are stacked on top of one another — has long been in need of serious repair.

While interim repairs are ongoing, DOT officials have taken the need for an overhaul as an opportunity to “re-imagine” the highway, and released plans in 2023 that showed the cantilever area covered over with tiered green space.

The triple cantilever sees some 150,000 vehicles a day, according to city data, and its lanes are already narrower than current federal requirements.

DOT officials expect the full cost of rehabbing the central section of the BQE will come to $5.5 billion.

Bruno, the DOT spokesperson, said that the feds’ decision not to fund the grant proposal would not affect the project’s timeline. Critical repairs to to be finished on the city-owned portion of the roadway by 2028, and the entire project is to be done by 2033.

The next application period for this batch of federal funds is expected to open later this year.

The incident unfolded in Brentwood at around 10:35 a.m., when the bus slammed into a guardrail on Express Drive South, just west of Wicks Road. The impact was enough to flip the bus onto its side, and it was ultimately hauled away by a tow truck, WABC reported.

#Developing: Minor injuries reported after school bus crashes with students on board in Commack, Long Island. https://t.co/1UCnWVnU7F

— CBS New York (@CBSNewYork) February 6, 2024

It also forced the closure of the Long Island Expressway Service Road at Exit 52 and Exit 53/Wicks Road and the Sagtikos Parkway. All lanes were reopened about an hour later, after authorities completed their investigative efforts.

All four children onboard — between the ages of 3 and 5, and all students at Building Blocks Preschool in Commack — were taken to a local hospital for evaluation but none sustained any serious injuries, police said in an afternoon update.

Two adults, the bus driver and a woman identified as an aide, were also taken to the hospital, where they received treatment for minor injuries, according to CBS New York.

None of the names of those involved have been released.

As of Tuesday evening, it was unclear what led to the crash. No charges have been filed in connection to the incident.

The $118.6 million job has been in the works since December 2022, but Monday marked the start of work on an access tunnel meant to thread between the station’s web of subterranean tracks and let workers dig a new passage between the Flushing and Lexington Ave. line platforms without shutting down service to either.

A crew of sandhogs — the specialized workers who bore and blast the tunnel networks that undergird New York City — paused for a Catholic blessing Monday morning before descending three long ladders to a depth of 55 feet below the surface of Lexington Ave.

“Heavenly Father, we pray for your blessing upon this worksite and all the people here,” said the Rev. Brendan Fitzgerald, standing among the sandhogs atop a deep shaft cut into the avenue.

The blessing has become a tradition for the sandhogs, who practice the dangerous craft of drilling, digging and exploding the rock, dirt and sand that hold up the city.

But Fitzgerald, who can ordinarily be found running St. Barnabas Parish in the Bronx, said there was more to the ritual than a prayer for safety.

“One of the big things for me as a Catholic is the dignity of human labor,” he said in an Irish lilt. “I truly believe that when people are at work here, they’re giving glory to God — they’re putting their strength and their head toward the betterment of society.”

Down in the shaft, workers stood on a pile of fractured bedrock and readied two pneumatic drills aimed through thick, black Manhattan schist at the No. 7 train platform across the street.

The drills worked with a hiss and a shudder, making a grid of deep holes into the face of the rock.

“You’ve got to hold on tight,” said Kervin Asson, a sandhog of 15 years who was manning one of the drills. “If you don’t hold on tight, it’ll take you somewhere.”

Another set of tools would soon be lowered into the shaft to chip away at the rock between the holes, before the process would begin again, another worker explained.

The plan is to dig a small access tunnel across 42nd St., and from there begin extending the passageway that currently links the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 platform to the No. 7 platform.

The access tunnel begun Monday will allow work crews to remove rock and other debris without having to shut down the station or disrupt the ordinary flow of passengers through the existing passageway, MTA officials said.

When complete, the extension will end in a new staircase on the eastern side of the No. 7 platform, allowing for a better flow of passengers between the train lines. The station sees an average of 500,000 riders a day, according to the MTA.

“With the added staircase down to the platform you’ll have much more comfortable circulation in Grand Central,” said Matthew Zettwoch, head of the stations division for the MTA’s construction and development department.

In addition to the new passageway and staircase, the project will widen the station’s existing stairwells and improve signage and lighting throughout, as well as install a modern fire alarm system.

Of the $118.6 million budgeted for the project, $74.2 million is earmarked for construction costs. Within that, $40 million is expected to cover the tunneling.

Zettwoch said his team is on track to complete the project by the end of this year.

A separate project is scheduled to bring additional escalators to the station as well.

The Federal Transit Administration green-lit the project’s draft environmental impact statement, kicking off a 45-day public comment period and bringing the plans one step closer to federal approval — which could come before the end of 2024, Port Authority officials said.

The entire project should be completed in around eight years, the Port Authority says.

“This really is an exciting day — it’s been a long time coming,” Port Authority executive director Rick Cotton said Thursday. “Time, as we all know, has not been kind to the Port Authority [Bus Terminal],”

The plan is to replace the existing 74-year-old eyesore with a modern, 2.1 million-square foot facility designed with an eye toward the surrounding community.

“Rather than a fortress that fences the community out, we will build outward facing concessions that are inviting and cater to the Hell’s Kitchen community and other communities around the bus terminal,” Cotton said.

The terminal would include an indoor atrium as well as public park space built over the Dyer Ave. cut.

The new facility would consist of three new structures — a new main terminal between Eighth and Ninth Aves., a “staging and storage” facility between Ninth and 10th Aves., and brand new bus ramps leading from the terminal.

Those ramps, Cotton said, will “connect buses directly into the Lincoln Tunnel without a bus ever needing to touch or clog up community streets.”

The new terminal would serve intercity buses that currently make curbside pickups outside the terminal. Idling commuter buses would no longer clog surface streets, but wait for gate space inside the staging and storage building.

The new ramps are slated to be built by 2028. Port Authority officials estimate the total complex will be completed in 2032.

The current $10 billion price tag is $7 billion more than the Port Authority’s current capital plan budgets for the terminal’s replacement.

Cotton addressed that Thursday, saying his agency would cover “a majority” of the costs by stretching the project into the Port Authority’s next capital plan, which is slated to begin in 2026.

The Port Authority will also be applying for federal grants, and plans to build commercial real estate above the completed terminal in order to retroactively fund the project.

Public hearings on the project are scheduled for the end of February.

The crash occurred around 1:40 p.m. in Coatesville, about 40 miles west of Philadelphia, in Chester County.

Skyforce10 was over the scene shortly before 2:30 p.m. on Thursday. https://t.co/uYvvrk0trH pic.twitter.com/vxSuorB08S

— NBC10 Philadelphia (@NBCPhiladelphia) February 1, 2024

Only the pilot was onboard, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. However, officials have not reported if anyone was injured or what caused the crash. None of the nearby homes were damaged.

Patty Mains, a spokeswoman for the Chester County Emergency Services, told Patch the county coroner’s office was called to the scene.

The FAA said the plane was a twin-engine Gulfstream American GA-7. The agency is investigating the crash with the National Transportation Safety Board.

Overhead footage of the crash site showed a crumpled plane with its left wing detached, among other debris in the wreckage.

Chester County Airport is nearby, but it’s unclear if the plane took off from or was headed there.

In December, a pilot was hospitalized after a small plane left the runway at Brandywine Regional Airport in West Chester and crashed into a ditch.

Thursday’s crash also occurred a day after the 39th anniversary of a small plane crash in Coatesville that killed two crew and two passengers.

The Kawasaki-made R211T trains are the only U.S. rolling stock with cars linked by articulated sections, allowing passengers to walk between cars and giving them a clear line of sight the length of the train.

“You can actually move seamlessly from one car to the other,” Gov. Hochul said at a press event at the MTA’s 207th St. Yard in upper Manhattan.

“You’re not trapped — you want to have a different experience. You get up and move around,” she said. “You see someone who looks more interesting to talk to than someone else, just get up and move around.”

Officials hope the train will ease crowding and boarding and also provide safety benefits.

“With open gangways spreading out the crowds and more room by the doors, we’re going to be able to get people on and off trains much faster,” MTA chair Janno Lieber said.

“In my opinion it’s a safer car when it comes to subway surfing,” NYPD Transit Bureau Chief Michael Kemper said.

“Lots of times they’re getting to the top of the train and back down in between the train cars,” he said of subway surfers. “This train doesn’t offer them the exit or the entry that the other ones do.”

The new train entered passenger service on the C line at  W. 168th St. in Washington Heights shortly after 11 a.m. Thursday.

Some regular riders were not as enthused as the governor and MTA officials.

“I feel like, especially for women, it’s not safe,” said Fabiana Masili, a Morningside Heights resident who boarded the downtown train on its inaugural run.

“The idea is amazing,” Masili said. “But the problem is there are a lot of [people with] mental illness issues, a lot of aggression. If some crazy [person] comes in here, there’s nowhere to go. You want the door to keep them out.”

Jason Santos, another regular C rider, agreed.

“It’s a horrible idea,” he said. “Every other train ride, somebody defecates, somebody’s fighting.”

Major violent crimes on the subway system declined last year, with five murders in 2023, down from 10 in 2022. Rapes declined as well, with five reported in 2023 down from 12 in 2022.

But felonious assaults have held largely steady, with 570 reported incidents last year — up from 556 in 2022.

Straphanger Juan Carlos Borbon of Woodside — who told the Daily News he’d specifically sought out the train Thursday morning to be part of its first run — said he’s a fan of the new design.

“I’m really baffled by it,” he said after trying to photograph the seemingly unending train car on his phone.

“It’s really welcoming,” he added. “There’s definitely more room for people to board.”

A variant of the shiny R211 cars that began serving the A line earlier this year, the R211Ts are the first open-gangway sets in the subway system in 59 years.

The last open-gangway cars to run on New York City subway tracks — or any metro tracks in America — were the BMT triplex cars, which carried straphangers from 1925 to 1965.

The MTA bought two open-gangway trains with its current order of ordinary R211 cars. Both open-gangway trains will run on the C line, and the second train is expected to enter service later this month.

NYC Transit president Richard Davey has said nothing about the open gangway cars’ design prevent them from running express, such as on the A line.

But the A includes the longest express stretch in Manhattan, from W. 125th St. down Central Park West to Columbus Circle — a run that takes five to eight minutes without making stops. “For a new car class we just thought it was more prudent to have that car stopping at stations more frequently,” Davey told reporters last week.

“We thought we would give a little love to our C train customers as well,” Davey added.

C train riders can also expect a complement of normal R211s in the future, but MTA officials said they don’t yet know when.

The new gates, installed in December, replaced one bank of turnstiles at the station with motorized, plexiglass gates that move out of the way after a fare is paid.

The system, manufactured by MetroCard contractor Cubic, cost the MTA $700,000.

“Those particular models have come in for some criticism, not unjustifiably,” MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said Wednesday.

Lieber was referring to videos circulating on social media showing some straphangers reaching around the new faregate at the downtown Jamaica station to trip an exit sensor, which opens the gates and lets them enter for free.

“Changes are being made,” Lieber said.

But the MTA boss said even with that free-ride flaw, fare evasion at the station went down — because the new system allowed the agency to remove one of the station’s emergency gates.

“Revenue is up 20% just from not having the gate open as frequently,” he said.

The agency is taking the stat as proof that securing the gates — which Lieber has taken to calling “superhighways” of fare evasion — will begin to stanch the MTA’s $700 million-a-year nonpayment problem.

To that end, the agency plans on placing 15-second delays on the emergency exits at three subway stations in the coming weeks.

The time-delay gates will be installed at Bushwick’s Flushing Ave. station on the J and M lines, Mott Haven’s Third Ave.-138th St. station on the No. 6 train, and the E. 59th St. station serving the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 trains on the Upper East Side.

The time-delay system would keep the gate from unlocking for 15 seconds after a passenger pushed the exit bar, in an effort to discourage the gate’s use as an ordinary, nonemergency exit.

Lieber balked at suggestions Wednesday that the 15-second delay could cause safety issues.

“We’ve gotten approval from the code authorities [and] the fire experts on how to do that, and we’re going to do it,” he said.

“We’re not letting New Yorkers walk up to the turnstile and pay their fare, and look over at somebody who has their MetroCard in their hand or OMNY open on their phone [instead] go for the gate because it’s open,” Lieber added.

An MTA spokesman said that the delayed gates would have signs identifying them as such, and added there are currently no plans to bring the delay to any of the subway system’s 150 wheelchair-accessible stations.

Meanwhile, the agency continues to weigh its options for a wholesale replacement of the turnstile system.

Eight months after holding a showcase of modern faregates at Grand Central Terminal last spring, the agency has finally begun vetting companies as potential vendors to deliver such a system to New York.

Officials said they hope to have that list finalized in a few weeks before starting to solicit formal proposals.

But a farewell to the turnstile — and with it, officials hope, a significant chunk of the fare evasion problem — is likely a long way off.

“We’re going to keep experimenting with new types of fare gates, in part so that we are smarter as we select and design something for the MTA system in a bigger way,” Lieber said Wednesday.

The total amount of money lost to fare evasion in 2023 is not yet available, an MTA spokesman told the Daily News.

In 2022, the MTA lost $690 million lost across the transit system to nonpayment. Of that, $285 million was lost to fare-beating on the subway.

Fare evasion is an even bigger problem on MTA buses, where the agency lost $315 million in 2022.

Officials said Wednesday that buses continue to lead subways in both the percentage of riders who don’t pay and the total dollar amount lost, despite a recent enforcement push on local bus routes.

The MTA’s most recent data estimates that more than 46% of bus riders don’t pay.