Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pothole purge saw nearly 8,000 craters filled in a single day – the same number that would usually take New York’s Department of Transport (DOT) a week.
EDIT: See Aatube’s comment below for the NYT article link. It’s real.
Okay, makes sense; from the press release:
“NYC DOT crews stepped up yesterday to fill almost a week’s worth of potholes in a single day,” said NYC DOT Commissioner Flynn. “Now that the streets have thawed from a historic winter, we’ve ramped up our pothole-filling efforts and are beginning to fully repave streets across the five boroughs. This year, we’ll repave more than 1,100 lane miles of streets — the best way to help ensure our streets are safe and smooth for all New Yorkers.”
Left with no other data (I’m not thrilled Novara treated this press release totally uncritically), I’m forced to assume they mean “average potholes per week per year”, which is a completely bullshit metric to compare against that you’d only use as an empty boast. A day with just under 7x the efficiency of an average day of the year isn’t all that exceptional when the day is a spring thaw right after a winter that made an exceptional amount of potholes. Pothole filling is not and will never be even close to evenly distributed.
It’s still very good to be taking care of potholes, but Novara seemingly took a standard press release about fixing potholes and turned it into how Mamdani is revolutionizing NYC.
All that aside: what are your thoughts on the article seemingly fabricating a quote from The New York Times?
Oh, thanks! I did search it in quotes. It just didn’t show up for some reason. I guess Bing just doesn’t like this one for some reason (an example substring I chose):
Super my bad. Amended my comments. Very heavily appreciated. I should’ve tried another search engine to be safe.
EDIT: See Aatube’s comment below for the NYT article link. It’s real.
Okay, makes sense; from the press release:
Left with no other data (I’m not thrilled Novara treated this press release totally uncritically), I’m forced to assume they mean “average potholes per week per year”, which is a completely bullshit metric to compare against that you’d only use as an empty boast. A day with just under 7x the efficiency of an average day of the year isn’t all that exceptional when the day is a spring thaw right after a winter that made an exceptional amount of potholes. Pothole filling is not and will never be even close to evenly distributed.
It’s still very good to be taking care of potholes, but Novara seemingly took a standard press release about fixing potholes and turned it into how Mamdani is revolutionizing NYC.
All that aside: what are your thoughts on the article seemingly fabricating a quote from The New York Times?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/nyregion/mamdani-pothole-williamsburg-bridge-bump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.V1A.e_aT.Ra0vREoZDA0U#%3A~%3Atext=long-ignored+street+improvements+—+the+kind+of+meat-and-potatoes+issue+that+some+previous+mayors+have+struggled+to+deliver+on
It’s right here.
When you’re trying to find a quote, try wrapping the literal quoted text in quotation marks and searching to get exact matches: https://www.google.com/search?q=“long+ignored+street+improvements+–+the+kind+of+meat-and-potatoes+issue+that+some+previous+mayors+have+struggled+to+deliver+on”
Oh, thanks! I did search it in quotes. It just didn’t show up for some reason. I guess Bing just doesn’t like this one for some reason (an example substring I chose):
Super my bad. Amended my comments. Very heavily appreciated. I should’ve tried another search engine to be safe.