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Calls for Small & Large Fixes to City Congestion, Transit Woes


trottenberg chan mccarten

Cmsr Trottenberg, right (photos: John McCarten/City Council)


The New York City Council Committee on Transportation held a hearing Monday to discuss sources of, and solutions to, traffic congestion in the city.

City Council Member Ydanis Rodríguez, chair of the committee, began the hearing by lamenting New York City’s heavy traffic. “As most New Yorkers can tell you, our streets look like parking lots,” said Rodríguez, a Democrat from upper Manhattan. In addition to economic impediments and general inconvenience, the Council member framed congestion as a safety issue as well. “More cars in our road means more dangerous conditions for cyclists, pedestrians and other street users,” he said -- Rodriguez has been a champion of the city’s Vision Zero street safety program.

Council Member Mark Levine, also an upper Manhattan Democrat, agreed with Rodríguez’s characterization of the situation and highlighted its urgency. “Congestion is at crisis levels in this city,” he said. “This is a threat to our economy, our environment, it is a safety threat and frankly, for drivers, it is driving them crazy to be stuck in traffic.”

The Council members attributed an apparent recent dramatic increase in congestion to the prosperity of various home-delivery and app-based car services alongside longstanding New York City issues such as double parking and placard misuse.

However, a portion of the uptick in clogged New York City streets is a product of some unavoidable, as well as wholly positive, developments, argued new York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, who was the main representative of the de Blasio administration at Monday’s hearing.

In conjunction with population growth, tourism to the city and a booming economy have contributed, Trottenberg said, citing a 68% increase in visitors since 2000 and an addition of 4.3 million jobs in New York City since before the recession. ”While on the one hand, increased congestion is a sign of a thriving economy, we hear loud and clear from community boards, elected officials, businesses, and New Yorkers who drive, are stuck on the bus, or use crowded sidewalks, that they are frustrated by congestion and are asking the city for answers,” Trottenberg said.

Trottenberg discussed the two most impactful ways to address the issue: congestion pricing, which would create a new tolling system to, in part, disincentivize driving in the city, especially into Manhattan, and subway expansion, which would encourage more people to choose a train over a car. The commissioner did not indicate that the de Blasio administration is supportive of a congestion pricing plan -- Mayor de Blasio himself said Monday that it has no hope of passage in Albany, so it is not worth fighting for. The de Blasio administration also has little control over subway expansion, given that the MTA is a state-run authority, but could pursue some additional stops if it chose to make that a priority, which it has not.

With a handful Council members, Trottenberg discussed secondary areas over which the city has direct control, such as car placard abuse, which take up parking spaces or block traffic, large truck deliveries which often block streets, and bus lane enforcement, to prevent slowing MTA buses.

Council Member Margaret Chin, for example, floated the idea of imposing harsher penalties on placard abusers and those that unlawfully veer into bus lanes. NYPD Transportation Chief Thomas M. Chan acknowledged Chin’s concerns, adding that his department is exploring ways to court additional officers to the approximately 3,200 officers tasked with enforcing traffic law. De Blasio recently announced a new crackdown on placard abuse that coincided with his decision to allow tens of thousands of placards to school personnel.

But not all Members were on-board with shifting focus towards small fixes over the meat and potato endeavors to ameliorating New York City’s traffic woes.

Council Member Corey Johnson, a Democrat representing the West Side of Manhattan, said the city’s proposed congestion-fighting efforts to which it has shifted attention amounted to mere “tinkering around the edges.” Council Member Brad Lander, Democrat of Park Slope, Brooklyn, took issue with the less ambitious approach as well, declaring that anything that did not include transportation investment would be “fooling around at the margins.”

Mayor de Blasio, for his part, threw cold water on the city taking action on ambitious as well as extensive and long-term issues, stating that the political climate in Albany is not ripe for passing a congestion pricing program while continually, and accurately, noting that potential MTA augmentations and fixes fall under Governor Andrew Cuomo’s jurisdiction. Instead, on transit the mayor has favored an approach more immediately implementable steps that do not rely on state approval.

When asked at a press conference Monday morning if, absent investment in new subway stations, the city could properly address congestion, de Blasio articulated his approach. “This is going to have to happen in phases over years [in] how we address the problem,” said the mayor. “We need to first think about the things we can do right now…” he said, name-checking expanded ferry service, Select Bus Service, and the BQX lightrail streetcar as the types of New York City mass-transit successes he’s unveiled. “Those are the things that are going to have a big impact for people’s lives right now,” de Blasio said.

Though de Blasio said that there is a “real possibility” that New York City would have to build more subways 10 to 15 years down the road, “The things we’ve done right now, are the things we could do right now,” he said. The Select Bus Service “is a real workhorse,” he said while answering a follow-up question.

In a similar vein, in lieu of congestion pricing, de Blasio favors other measures to free-up traffic. “There are people who double-park in an abusive manner that blocks up the street for everyone else. There should be enforcement of that,” he said. He doesn’t want overly-strict, nit-picking tickets, he said, but “ticketing that is about keeping the flow of traffic...I want to ticket those that are blocking traffic on a  prolonged basis…I want to ticket people who block the box.”

Like for much else in New York City politics, the ongoing feud between de Blasio and Cuomo loomed in the background of the transportation hearing and the mayor’s Monday morning press conference. Although the hearing focused on congestion, the MTA’s woes and traffic issues were treated as inextricably linked even without Cuomo being blamed by name for the MTA’s terrible state of disrepair.

While Council Member Donovan Richards, a Democrat from Southeast Queens, noted that it is indubitably Cuomo’s responsibility to manage and adequately fund the MTA, he stated that finger-pointing would not cut it moving forward. Richards said his constituents call his office about transportation and don’t care about whose jurisdiction the MTA is. Thus, it was his position City Hall must take it upon itself to solve the city's transportation crises.

One way would be to push for a congestion pricing plan without state government approval, by citing a 1957 state law that allows cities home to over a million people to implement their own bridge tolls. This proposal, as reported by the Wall Street Journal Sunday, was brought to the forefront by Move NY, an organization that has the most popular current congestion pricing plan, and New York University Law School Professor Roderick Hills. New York City DOT spokesperson Scott Gastel dismissed the proposal, telling the Journal “...legal experts in both the current and previous administrations determined the city does not have this authority.”

When asked about the idea during a press gaggle following the Monday Council hearing, Trottenberg echoed Gastel, saying, “I think the city has determined it’s a losing legal fight...In this case, unfortunately, we just don’t have that legal authority.”

Furthermore, Trottenberg insisted that piecemeal congestion-fighting proposals have begun to flow from the administration and that more are coming; she did not answer directly whether what she had described reflected the mayor’s anti-congestion positions. She also said that the anti-congestion plan the mayor promised in his February State of the City speech are already partly in process and soon to be more clear.

“It’s one of the first elements of it,” Trottenberg said regarding the enforcement pieces she laid out. “I think the congestion plan, it turns out, is going to be kind of a rolling plan, you’ve heard the first pieces of it today, and there will be more to come in the coming weeks.“

Commissioner Puts Community Development at Forefront of Housing Plan


HPD Maria Torres-Springer

HPD Commissioner Torres-Springer, middle (photo: @MTorresSpringer)


Discussing Mayor Bill de Blasio’s affordable housing plan on Friday, the city’s housing commissioner stressed that it is also a program for community development.

Speaking at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism's Center for Community and Ethnic Media, Commissioner Maria Torres-Springer, head of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, gave an update on the administration’s 10-year 200,000-unit affordable housing plan, and spoke about how the city is working to revitalize communities in the process.

Torres-Springer’s appearance came just after the city released a new plan for Brownsville, Brooklyn that aims to not only add 2,500 units of affordable housing, but address deep-rooted community issues in one of the poorest, resource-starved neighborhoods in the city. The plan, she said, was developed with community input via in-person planning meetings and an online option provided by HPD over the last year.

“We know at HPD that the crisis that we are facing in terms of affordability is much more than just building housing,” Torres-Springer said. Through its housing plan, which includes the potential rezoning of around a dozen neighborhoods, the de Blasio administration is seeking to add affordable housing, overall housing density, and community staples such as parkland and school seats.

Issues brought forth for Brownsville included “better health outcomes, more thriving retail, more job opportunities, [and] better streets,” said Torres-Springer, who has been heading HPD since the beginning of the year after stints leading the city’s department for small business services and the Economic Development Corporation.

The commissioner said Friday that her team will also be actively working to combat resident displacement through preserving current affordable housing and aiding tenant protection and anti-eviction efforts. Sixty percent of De Blasio’s housing plan is preserving currently affordable units, which means incentivizing landlords to keep rent caps in place for tenants. The mayor has also added millions of dollars in funding to provide lawyers to tenants facing unfair eviction.

“I’m happy to report that, a lot due to the efforts of course of my predecessor and the incredible team at HPD, that we’ve made terrific progress toward the plan’s goals,” Torres-Springer said Friday. “We’ve financed 63,398 units -- ahead of schedule and on budget,” she said, referring to the overall plan and both new and preserved units.

According to Torres-Springer, these housing units serve a range of needs, from families of three making $43,000 or less to $26,000 or less annually in an effort to help “preserve the economic diversity that makes our neighborhoods so dynamic.”

Stating that this is not always enough, she went on to praise the mayor’s decision to add $2 billion to HPD’s capital budget, bringing the total to $10 billion, which funds subsidized housing, and allowing for 25 percent of the plan to be dedicated to the lowest income families in the city. De Blasio has received some pushback from locals and community activists who have said that his plan does not provide enough affordable units for those making the least income. He adjusted the plan, which was released in 2014, earlier this year, though his efforts have not completely quieted the protests.

HPD’s goals are not without challenges, some of them new. The executive budget proposal put out by the Trump administration has left Torres-Springer and her team -- who get 86 percent of their funding from the federal government -- uncertain but “optimistic” that they will be able to fight back and continue as planned.

“That is the funding that really helps us advance all of our work to protect the city’s housing stock, to fill gaps in terms of supportive housing, in terms of home ownership -- we’re the fifth largest issuer of Section 8 vouchers -- and we’re living in a world, as many of you know, where the cuts that the president has proposed for the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, [mean] a lot of those programs are really under threat.”

Torres-Springer also stressed that the administration, partnered with different coalitions across the country, will make “sure that Washington D.C. does not walk away from its obligations to the people of this city.”

torres springer cuny jOn Friday, Torres-Springer was questioned by a panel of CUNY Journalism School’s Errol Louis and two other reporters, and then members of the audience, who represented a variety of community and ethnic outlets. When asked how members of a community who might not have been aware of the plans before now might feel about the changes, she admitted to the difficulties of pleasing everybody.

“I am under no illusion that they will approve of everything that we do, and that’s fine, because it's really that type of feedback -- positive or negative -- that ensures that at the end of the day, public servants, public officials, elected officials, who have a more formal role in, say, the public approval process, that we’re all held accountable,” Torres-Springer had told Louis Thursday evening on his NY1 Road to City Hall program in regards to the projected development in Brownsville.

When asked on Friday whether or not the breakdown of affordability will be based on the needs of the individual communities, she said it will be based on the designations of the best submitted proposal while keeping the residents in mind.   

“It’s 100% affordable, but the different levels of affordability for all of those units -- we will wait to see what comes back in terms of the submissions and then consider them based on that. But we always want to reach the deeper levels of affordability,” Torres-Springer said. “The most successful proposals are often the ones that really take into consideration the context in which each and every one of the developments of the projects is happening.”

While the de Blasio administration has made a wide variety of deals to preserve or develop affordable housing across the city, the neighborhood plans that are also a key part of the overall affordable housing plan have moved fairly slowly. Only East New York has had a rezoning move entirely through the lengthy process. A few others have started that process, which includes city studies, community outreach, and review by local officials like the borough president, community board members, and City Council member.

Torres-Springer made sure to emphasise the importance of residents getting involved in the planning process. “For too long, in different administrations, the approach has been, and I think the feeling of residents has been, that projects were happening to them,” Torres-Springer said on NY1. “And in this administration we really wanted to change that.”

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by Jynn Schubert for Gotham Gazette
@JynnWasHere  @GothamGazette

Read more by this writer.

Republican Mayoral Candidates Noncommittal on De Blasio Paris Climate Order


de blasio climate paris

(photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)


Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order Friday affirming New York City’s commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement, from which President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he would withdraw the United States. New York City, the president’s hometown, has terrain that makes the city especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which the Paris agreement seeks to mitigate by limiting global temperature increases. The agreement was signed by 195 countries in December 2015.

De Blasio had, on Wednesday, pledged to sign the executive order after reports came out hinting that Trump would withdraw from the deal, an action he had promised on the campaign trail, part of the president’s “America First” isolationist foreign policy and his long-standing doubts about the reality of climate change.

“The Paris Accord was the biggest step forward we've taken in many, many years, and it's unconscionable for the President of the United States to step away from it,” the Mayor said at a Wednesday press conference in Red Hook, Brooklyn, soon after reports started coming out of Trump’s decision. He added, “This is a dagger aimed straight at the heart of New York City.”

The Mayor has made fighting climate change a priority, pledging in 2014 to reduce city emissions by 80% below 2005 levels by 2050. Known as “80 x 50,” it is part of the Mayor’s larger OneNYC initiative.

In a statement on Thursday following the President’s official withdrawal announcement in the White House Rose Garden, the mayor claimed that that his own coming executive order would be signed so that “New York can remain a home for generations to come.”

De Blasio on Thursday joined more than 80 other "Climate Mayors,” representing more than 40 million Americans, in pledging to “adopt, honor, and uphold the commitments to the goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement.” These goals all serve in the aim of keeping average temperatures from increasing by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. The Paris Accord seeks mitigation of greater than 2 degrees in temperature increases, but describes 1.5 degrees as a goal. These cities will now have to craft policy without the cooperation of the federal government. Some cities will also do it where their state governments are led by climate change deniers, such as in Texas.

Other mayors in New York signing the statement are the mayors of Albany and Syracuse. Governor Andrew Cuomo joined a similar agreement on Thursday, forming the United States Climate Alliance with the Governors of California and Washington State.

Any major action by de Blasio in this election year becomes fodder for the mayoral campaign, of course. The two main Republican candidates for mayor, Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis and real estate sales executive Paul Massey, are engaged in a heated primary where both de Blasio and President Trump loom large. (Before any general election matchup, de Blasio is facing a handful of Democratic primary challengers.)

Gotham Gazette asked both the Malliotakis and Massey campaigns whether the candidates would keep or rescind de Blasio’s Paris accord executive order if they were to win in November. Neither candidate has released a campaign agenda regarding climate change or the environment. Massey has begun releasing issue-based policy plans, while Malliotakis, who entered the race much more recently, has promised to do so soon.

Neither campaign gave a direct answer to the question.

The Massey campaign did affirm his support of the Paris Agreement but stopped short of committing to abide by de Blasio’s executive order were Massey to be elected mayor. The Malliotakis campaign avoided the question almost completely, stating that the mayor should be focusing on issues of local importance rather than national or international concern, on which he has little or no standing, a campaign spokesperson said.

"Bill de Blasio spends way too much time playing in national and now, international politics,” Malliotakis campaign spokesperson Rob Ryan said in a statement to Gotham Gazette. “He needs to address simpler problems far closer to home like schools that don't educate, the homeless crisis, a subway system overloaded with problems and city run hospitals that are hemorrhaging billions of our tax dollars, before he wades into climate diplomacy in Paris."

The mayor’s argument is that climate change and the Paris agreement to fight it are of significant local concern in New York City. The mayor has repeatedly referenced extreme weather, like superstorm Sandy, and the need for action to reduce the changes to the planet and thus their potential dangers.

Massey, who has never held elected office, doesn’t have a voting record on climate change to draw on, but Malliotakis does, having taken votes in the Assembly on environmental matters. She voted in 2014 to “require state funded projects to consider climate change effects” and voted against banning fracking. Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, implemented a fracking ban in 2014 after much deliberation.

Malliotakis also voted against the New York State Climate and Community Protection Act, a landmark climate bill strictly regulating greenhouse gas emissions in the state. It passed the Democratically-controlled Assembly in June 2016 by a 96-43 vote, but has stalled in committee in the Republican-controlled Senate. The version of the bill passed by the Assembly mandates stringent greenhouse gas limitations and, among other things, that 50% of New York State’s energy supply be provided by renewable energy by 2030. Cuomo instructed the Public Service Commission to order the “50 by 30” initiative in August of that year.

In 2016, Malliotakis received a score of 70 from the EPL/Environmental Advocates Scorecard, receiving points for voting for the Child Safe Products Act, a “super bill,” but losing points for voting against the Climate and Community Protection Act and a reduction on mercury in lightbulbs.

Despite her vote against the Climate and Community Protection Act, Malliotakis believes “that global warming is real and humans contribute to it,” Ryan said. “Her Assembly District was devastated by Hurricane Sandy and is still recovering from the damage.”

The Massey campaign followed up with Gotham Gazette to say that Massey "supports the Paris Agreement and believes that climate change is real. He is also concerned about the effect on business that such agreements can impose, and would address these issues as mayor with tax abatements and incentives to companies that are following best practice regarding the environment."

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by Ben Brachfeld, Gotham Gazette

Read more by this writer.

Note: this story has been updated with further comment from the Massey campaign.



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