John Liu Knows What LL Cool J Knows About What You Can Do With Six Minutes

Of course the lede buried here is that express trains only save you six minutes:

Mets fans can now shave six minutes off their trips home with the service change recently announced by the MTA. Starting last Thursday, the 7 train will now offer express service from the Shea Stadium station.

The move marks the second time in the past few weeks that the MTA has made an effort to improve 7 train service. The first, reported in last week’s paper, was the “Rider Report Cards” that were distributed to riders.

Councilman John Liu, chairperson of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, applauded the change. He called the six minutes “an eternity to any subway riders frustrated by all the local stops on the Number 7 line.”

I Don’t Know About You But That 40-Foot Crater In The Middle Of Lexington Seems Scary Enough As It Is

Bloomberg says it’s “not anything other than a failure of our infrastructure” like that somehow makes it better:

A steam pipe explosion beneath a street near Grand Central Terminal yesterday propelled a giant scalding jet of brownish steam toward the sky, sending commuters who had been heading home stampeding to safety.

Officials said that one person died and more than 30 were hurt, two of them critically. The city said that three firefighters and one police officer were among the injured.

The blast, near 41st Street and Lexington Avenue, raised fears of terrorism, but officials were quick to dismiss that possibility. “There is no reason to believe this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said.

The explosion sent up a foul cloud of hot steam mixed with mud, rust-colored gunk and pieces of pavement just before 6 p.m. in one of the busiest parts of the city. The mayor said that some telephone lines had been knocked out, but that electric power had not been.

As people on the sidewalks scrambled to flee and office workers in the buildings above looked down in horror, debris from the geyser pelted nearby skyscrapers. Then it rained on the streets like a sudden hailstorm. Some witnesses said the jet of steam roared like Niagara Falls.

Some people ran so fast their shoes came off. Others dropped their briefcases and purses. Men in tailored suits were caught in a lapel-singeing cloud. At a health club high up in the Grand Hyatt hotel next to Grand Central Terminal, people working out on the treadmills said the explosion was so powerful they worried the building would collapse. The steam shot up from a crater that looked like that of a volcano, with orange flames and bubbling mud around the edges. The explosion packed enough force to flip over a tow truck that ended up in the crater, which was about 35 by 40 feet. Several hours after the blast, officials said the crater could grow even larger because pavement at the edges was in danger of collapse.

The Coney Island Monorail!

Now that plans for Coney Island’s rejuvenation seem to be moving forward, the streetcar wing of the Lionel-Industrial Complex is trying to get its filthy paws on Coney Island, too:

The Brooklyn City Streetcar Company imagines trolleys rumbling through the seaside streets once more, hearkening to the heyday of an amusement district now set to undergo an over $1 billion redevelopment.

The not-for-profit group has been discussing its proposal with city officials, including the Coney Island Development Corporation, a quasi-public agency working on the area’s rezoning plan.

The group proposes the trolley line to run from Dreier-Offerman Park to the West 8th Street subway station, then to Surf Avenue to Keyspan Park, with an eventual extension to the edge of Sea Gate.

Another route could run from Dreier-Offerman to Cropsey Avenue, then to Neptune Avenue, then south to Stillwell Avenue.

Then they take a page from Mayor Nasonex (since he always sounds so congested) by arguing that it will reduce traffic (and asthma rates?) in the busy corridor between Dreier-Offerman Park and the projects across the street from the baseball field where the Cyclones play:

Aside from adding to the ambiance of the amusement area, trolleys would help reduce area traffic, [Brooklyn City Streetcar Company founder and president Arthur] Melnick said.

Trolleys, which run on electricity, are also environmentally friendly. “They are the greenest form of motorized transportation,” he said.

Chuck Reichenthal, a member of the Coney Island Development Corporation (CIDC) and the district manager of Community Board 13, said the plan merits further study, particularly as a way to “get cars off the street.”

“You could have them park farther away and then trolley people over to Coney Island,” Reichenthal said. “That would be an interesting concept.”

. . .

City Councilmember Domenic Recchia, who represents Coney Island, said he has spoken to Melnick and the plan sounds like “a great idea.”

“I think Coney Island will need some type of trolley service, whether it is his or another proposal,” the city lawmaker said.

“Everyone likes it. The question is, how can we make it happen?” Recchia said.

(Remember this: white elephant transportation projects are a sign of a sick city; maybe by the time it’s up and running Coney Island will be ready for its decline again.)

The Thing About Traffic Is, It’s Just Sooo Boring

The problem with perseverating on traffic issues is that you have to start seriously considering other mitigation schemes — even if they don’t come with a giant pot of money:

Mayor Bloomberg, who once insisted the proposed Cross Harbor Tunnel would “destroy neighborhoods,” said yesterday he would be willing to take another look at the plan.

Bloomberg told U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a proponent of the tunnel, that he and Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff would meet with him to discuss the plan — which would connect Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island with the national railroad freight network.

“I’m not so sure he’s wrong,” Bloomberg said after being quizzed by Nadler during a speech to the New York Building Congress. “It’s not the worst idea. It has some problems and who knows?”

The mayor’s comments came as a surprise to members of a Queens community group who had hailed him as a hero during Bloomberg’s 2005 reelection campaign when he declared, “We should not build this tunnel.”

I Tell You, I Was ConEd Into Thinking Everything Would Be OK . . .

But really, how did you guys find so many quotes in just over half an hour?:

It lasted less than an hour, but a power failure that left big sections of the Upper East Side and the Bronx without electricity yesterday afternoon stirred fears that there may be more dark days ahead this summer for Con Edison and its customers.

The lights flickered and went out shortly before 4 p.m., halting service on several subway lines and reviving memories of the regionwide blackout of August 2003 and the power failure last year that left a large swath of Queens without current for more than a week. With hours of daylight left, some residents rushed out to stock up on candles, water and other emergency supplies.

. . .

At the Family Market on Lexington Avenue near 85th Street, the owners were breaking out an emergency supply of water jugs they kept in the basement. One of the owners, Cindy H. Woo, 48, said that she and her husband were worried that looters might come into the streets if the lights stayed out into the night.

She said that she was not looking forward to a summer that she said could include many more blackouts. “Of course, I was upset,” she said. “It’s not just one time. It’s many.”

A customer in the store, Kariyma Quashie, 21, said that she was unable to go to Brooklyn to pick up her 10-month-old daughter from day care because the trains were not running. She blamed Con Ed.

“They should have learned from the last time this happened,” she said. “They should have had a back-up or something. To be out for an hour!”