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Council Tackles City Transportation Issues


counciltrans
Photo by William Alatriste

The City Council approved three bills today to make travel in New York less hazardous for people living with disabilities.

The first bill (Intro 183-A) established an Accessible Pedestrian Signals Program (APS) that will place audible alert systems at pedestrian crossings to let those with impaired vision know when it is safe to cross. The Department of Transportation will be charged with installing these alert systems at the most dangerous pedestrian crossings in the city.

“It’s not easy for a visually impaired person to get around New York City today,” said Councilmember James Vacca, who chairs the Council’s Transportation Committee.

The councilman recalled his blind father listening at street corners for the sound of approaching cars to know when he could cross. Nearly 200,000 New York City residents suffer from visual impairment.

The other bills (Intros 449-A and 745-A) would include the right to a wheel chair accessible car to the livery passenger’s bill of rights and require that the Department of Transportation inform people with disabilities about changes to sidewalks because of construction on its website.

Defying the Mayor

The Council also voted to override the mayor’s veto of two parts of the Fair Parking Legislative Package passed in January. One of the package’s provisions (Intro 490-A) called for traffic enforcement agents to automatically cancel parking tickets issued while the driver was getting a pass from a Muni-Meter.

The mayor contended that the bill would lead to illegally parked drivers trying to cheat their way out of tickets. Council Speaker Christine Quinn said that this would be impossible because those getting a ticket would have to provide a Muni-Meter pass issued no later than five minutes after the ticket.

She added that giving a reprieve to someone ticketed while trying to get a parking pass was simply common sense.

Another of the package’s provisions (Intro 747) prohibited the city’s practice of putting stickers on vehicles in violation of the alternate side parking rules. Mayor Bloomberg said that this practice helps keep New York’s streets clean. But Speaker Quinn said that the mayor’s past Street Cleanliness Scorecards don’t support that claim and added that the hard-to-remove stickers are an unnecessarily harsh punishment.

The mayor is also expected to veto another bill the Council passed today that would require a prevailing wage for maintenance and security employees at certain buildings developed or leased by the city government.

Under the legislation (Intro 18-A) employees at buildings where the city leases a majority of the space and at least 10,000 square feet, and projects that receive at least $1 million in city funding, would be eligible for the prevailing wage. The bill would raise the wages for more than 100 workers by more than 35 percent at qualifying buildings that are not fully unionized.

Speaker Quinn said that the Council was concerned about the possibility of non-unionized workers with lower salaries dragging down the wages of other workers in the building services industry – an industry that provides jobs for the city’s working class people.

“We should be treating workers fairly by paying them a decent wage. Our taxpayer dollars shouldn’t go toward undercutting working families in a race to the bottom,” the speaker said.

The wage increase would come at minimum cost to the city, according to the Council, and would amount to less than one percent of what the city spends on leasing office space.

West Village Redeveloped

The Council also passed the proposed redevelopment plan for the former location of St. Vincent’s hospital in the West Village.

Several residents of the community booed the decision from the upper balcony of the council chambers.

Speaker Quinn said that the redevelopment project would include an intensive care center to replace St. Vinvent’s. But Councilmember Charles Barron said that the facility was not big enough or properly equipped to replace a full service hospital. He called the project a case of the city government capitulating to rich private developers.

“You have a community that now needs to travel too far to get basic medical services. This is a life or death matter,” said Barron, who, along with other council members, was wearing a hoodie in a show of support for the family of Trayvon Martin.

Several members of the Council participated in a remembrance ceremony on the steps of city hall before the council meeting for Martin, an innocent teenager shot in Florida last month by a community patrol officer.

The Council passed a resolution supporting the federal Justice Department’s investigation into Martin’s killing. In addition, the Council also passed two other resolutions urging the state government to pass the Dream Act and the New York Dream Fund Commission for the children of undocumented immigrants.

Selling Discounted Rides on a Metrocard a Fare Practice?


participatory budgeting

Sometimes it’s the little cases that go to the highest courts and establish new and surprising law. That’s what happened last month in the 2009 case of People v Joseph Hightower in which a New York City unlimited MetroCard was actually put to unlimited use. About ten million weekly swipes in the city’s transit system are on monthly unlimited cards, a card can only be used once in an 18 minute period at the same transit stop.

Hightower, a New Jersey resident, then 28, had purchased the unlimited use card but used it to sell discounted rides to travelers other than himself. He was arrested and by pleading guilty was eventually convicted of the misdemeanor of petit larceny. While the use of the card is transferable, selling rides on the card is prohibited.

An interim appellate court had upheld the conviction. But writing for the Court of Appeals, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, rejected the prosecution theory of larceny although conduct of the same type had long been treated as larceny. Citing the state Penal Law, Lippman held that no property or money had been taken from the New York City Transit Authority because they had never actually received money from the purchasing passenger. Had Hightower been charged with accepting money for the use of the card that would have been upheld. Although in addition to the larceny he had been charged with unauthorized sale of transportation services and also illegal access to Transit Authority services, he hadn’t been convicted of the charge of the unauthorized electronic swipe of the card.

The definition of larceny requires a taking. When, with intent to deprive another of property or to appropriate the same to himself or to a third person, he wrongfully takes, obtains or withholds such property from an owner thereof.”

While lawyers for the Manhattan District Attorney argued that the defendant deprived the Transit Authority of a portion of its business, Lippman’s Opinion rejected that theory, citing cases in which unpaid taxes could not be considered property stolen from the state. Here, the judge wrote in the unanimous opinion, “defendant was not in possession...of monies owned by the NYCTA.”

Hightower’s case was dismissed and with it his conviction. He had spent a day in jail. Counsel for him was Adrienne Hall of the Legal Aid Society.

Emily Jane Goodman is a New York State Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman is a New York State Supreme Court Justice

City Council Acts to Slow Transportation Projects


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Photo by New York City Department of Transportation
The transportation department has created pedestrian plazas, like this one on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, throughout the city. The porgrm has won wide praise, but area residents do not always approve.

The City Council yesterday flashed an orange light at a city Department of Transportation that some members see as ignoring warning signs in its push to make city streets more hospitable to pedestrian and bicyclists.

By unanimous votes, the council approved two measures, sponsored by transportation committee chair James Vacca, on projects that reconfigure city streets One measure looks forward, the other back, but both reflect the feeling among some council members and residents that the transportation department under commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan has become an agency with a mission that forges ahead with its plans for plazas and bike lanes without benefit of consultation or facts.

In Vacca's view, these bills would change that. "The days when the Department of Transportation could unilaterally reconfigure our streetscapes are gone," he said.

The first bill -- Intro 626A -- would require the transportation department to consult with other city agencies, including Small Business Services and the police and fire departments, before it reconfigures streets. It also would have to report to the City Council and relevant community board on the results of those talks.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Vacca said the measure was prompted in part by complaints from small businesses.

"Many of the bike paths, many of the pedestrian plazas negatively impact small businesses and their ability to survive in the City of New York," Vacca said.

In addition, people with disabilities -- particularly the visually impaired -- have told council members that "pedestrian plazas have not been constructed in a way so that it is safe for them to move through the plaza," Quinn said.

The second measure – Intro 671 -- requires the transportation department to provide statistics on the effects of the street change within 18 months of when the reconfiguration went into effect. This would include data on traffic flows, accidents and emergency vehicle response times. Quinn said was in part a response to complaints from residents of the Borough Park section of Brooklyn that the establishment of a pedestrian plaza there had slowed response time for emergency vehicles.

The administration has come under fire for its use of data to justify its ambitious street changes. When it announced the establishment of a pedestrian mall around Times Square, the said its would improve traffic flow. While the mall has done many things, it has not, by the city's own account, reduced gridlock or increased traffic speeds. The city first tried to keep that data private and then, when it finally was released, sought to dismiss the importance of its numbers.

Putting on the Brake

Yesterday's votes are the latest in a series of attempts by council members to slow down the transportation department's plans. Earlier this month, the council unanimously passed a bill requiring that the department give community boards advance warning of any planned bike lanes in their area and that the department participate in any hearing on the proposal the community board might wish to hold. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has signed the bill.

In February, council members approved a measure, later signed by the mayor, requiring the city to report on pedestrian and bicycle accidents – including those in which a cyclist struck someone on foot -- as well as automobile related accidents. Those backing the bill, including the widow of a 50-year-old man killed when he was hit by a bike said more accurate figures could help the city craft a better policy on bike lanes.

As the administration has stepped up its effort for pedestrian plazas and especially bike lanes – it has added some 250 miles of the lanes in the last four years -- opposition has increased as well.

Along with taking issue with the street enhancement themselves, opponents have criticized the administration for not adequately consulting with people in neighborhoods about where the bike lanes and plazas should go -– or it they should be there at all.

"Bike lanes drop out of the sky without any notice to the community," Council member Lew Fidler, the sponsor of the bill requiring consultation with community boards, said last year.

While supporters of the recent council bills -- including Fidler -- deny they are anti-bike lane, some doubt it. Bicycle advocates said the measures would subject the lanes to a level of scrutiny not seen on many other projects. "No other safe-street improvement seems to get that kind of treatment," Michael Murphy of Transportation Alternatives told Capital.

As the debate has grown increasingly acrimonious, bike and pedestrian advocates say city residents want to slow traffic and make street safer for those who walk or bike. They cite a poll released in October, which found that 58 percent of New Yorkers support the bike lane program.

"Most New Yorkers like bike lanes," Noah Budnick, deputy director of Transportation Alternatives, has said. "I don't know anyone who s pro-crash or wants to see more injuries and deaths on our roads. Streets with bike lanes in New York City are 40 percent safer than those without."

Murphy expressed concern to a reporter that bills such as those passed yesterday might slow down the installation of new bike lanes. Of course, some council members might say, that's the idea.



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