Nothing Distracts More/Than Quirky DOT Signs/’Cause Bad Haikus Stink

Janette Sadik-Khan/Has some ideas about bikes/But haikus are strange:

Paid for with a state grant from DWI funds, the 216 signs feature 12 designs with haiku — Japanese-style short poems that will deliver critical safety messages. The city first unveiled Curbside Haiku on Tuesday in Harlem.

“Adding curbside haiku is really just adding another level of safety to high-crash sites,” DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said.

She said the colorful signs wouldn’t distract drivers because they are small — 8-by-8 inches.

In one, a silhouette of “Walking Man” is paired with the haiku:

“Too averse to risk

To chance the lottery, yet

Steps into traffic.”

Party Like It’s 1994

Squeegee men? The economy (or poll numbers) is (are) that bad, I suppose:

“The Police Department has a lot to do, but we’re not walking away from squeegee guys when they rear their heads … with their buckets and sponge,” he said.

Not Only Is It A $500 Million Memorial . . .

It will also cost $55 million a year to run; no one knows how they’ll pay for it:

The foundation that manages the memorial and museum has raised $412 million from private donors and hopes to collect an additional $17 million by the end of the year. Joseph C. Daniels, the president and chief executive of the memorial, said that sum should cover all costs through the end of 2012.

That calculation, however, does not account for $150 million that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey wants from the foundation as its share of underground construction work. The foundation has so far refused to pay that amount, Port Authority officials say.

But beyond next year, the costs of running the museum and maintaining and protecting the memorial plaza, with its pair of deep, granite-lined pools and grove of swamp white oak trees, will be at least $55 million annually, Mr. Daniels said. He has been lobbying in Washington for federal financing to cover part, if not most, of those expenses.

Meanwhile, the Post reports that New York’s Senators have proposed a bill to have the federal government partially fund the operating costs of the memorial and museum, but only $20 million a year, meaning that there will likely be an admission, only less than the $20-$25 officials are anticipating.

What To Do In Case An Aide Is Arrested

What? Wrong aide? Oh, whatever — domestic violence, racially motivated police brutality, it’s all the same:

“And hopefully every once in a while if there’s a misunderstanding, you have a beer together and work it out.”

Snow Much For That Theory . . .

December’s snow bungling probably didn’t have that much to do with Stephen Goldsmith’s recent resignation:

A powerful aide to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg resigned from City Hall because he was arrested in Washington for his role in a heated altercation with his wife, according to a person familiar with the account.

Stephen Goldsmith, who oversaw the city’s most visible agencies as Mr. Bloomberg’s deputy mayor for operations, was arrested in his town house on July 30 and spent two days in a Washington jail — a series of events that Mr. Goldsmith reported to City Hall almost immediately.

But when the Bloomberg Administration announced Mr. Goldsmith’s resignation five days later, the mayor’s office said that the deputy mayor was leaving the administration “to pursue private-sector opportunities in infrastructure finance.”

Thankfully, there was a hurricane this month . . .