Gov. Cuomo says fixing up the subway is Mayor de Blasio’s responsibility — but it wasn’t something Hizzoner wanted to talk about Friday.
The mayor repeatedly ducked questions about the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Friday, the same day a Q train derailed wrecking morning commutes and a day after Chairman Joe Lhota doubled down on Cuomo’s claim that the city, not the state, has the legal responsible to fund the system’s capital program.
Instead of talking transit, de Blasio continued his campaign-style swing through Queens for his City Hall in Your Borough program — capping the week off with a stroll along the boardwalk that ended in him hastily entering his SUV as reporters peppered him with questions about the state of the MTA, Cuomo and Lhota’s comments and the train derailment.
He didn’t say a word in response, other than to instruct his security detail about which side of the SUV he and Sen. James Sanders should enter.
They stayed inside the car for several minutes. Eventually, Sanders emerged. The mayor rolled down the window to greet somebody else outside, without getting out of the car. Then, the president of the FC Barcelona soccer club, in town to announce a partnership with city schools, hopped inside — a small gift bag in hand.
While the mayor didn’t have time to discuss the MTA or the governor’s assertion he should spend more money on it, he did ride the train Friday — he took the Q train to Jackson Heights for his first event of the day, announcing an expanded Diversity Plaza. His press secretary made sure to tweet a photograph of the ride.
In Far Rockaway, before bolting on reporters, the mayor seemed far removed from the Summer of Hell as he visited a quiet concession stand and sipped a ginger beer with Councilman Donovan Richards (D-Queens). Much of the area was devastated by Hurricane Sandy, but the mayor didn’t make a visit to a home in the city’s beleaguered Build it Back program. Outside the concession stand, John Cori, president of the Rockaway Beach Civic Association, held signs informing the mayor about beach erosion and parks that were destroyed, and have not yet been replaced, by the storm.
The mayor, sporting a suit with the jacket removed and his transition lens sunglasses, thanked Cori for making him aware of the issue.
“There’s a five year old sitting — who was in his mother’s womb the day of Sandy, who has no park,” Cori told the mayor. “There’s something wrong.”
While the mayor didn’t talk transit, he did talk transportation — holding an event in Astoria calling for the state to allow the city to use more speed cameras around schools. He was joined by Transportation Alternatives and the family members of people who were killed by cars.
He noted the opposition to the cameras from some elected officials, who he said had gotten complaints from their constituents. But drivers shouldn’t be pushing for permission to break the city’s laws, he said.
“There’s nothing to complain about if you’re not speeding,” he said.
