Good afternoon. My name is Aaron Naparstek. I am a project coordinator at Transportation Alternatives, a 5,000 member bicycle, pedestrian and mass-transit advocacy organization for New York City.

T.A. strongly supports Intro. 344 and Res. 407-A and commends City Council for bringing this bill forward. We feel, however, that the legislation could be strengthened by including language that compels New York City's Department of Transportation, Police Department and Department of City Planning to create greater transparency and accountability around the issue of truck routes. We have three specific recommendations:

First, DOT should be required by City Council to improve the design of the New York City truck route map. Additionally, this map needs to be made more prominently and easily available for download from City agency web sites. The current truck route map is difficult to read, it is not useful as an actual city street map, and it is not designed in a way that is easy for a truck driver, police officer or citizen to download and print from the web. DOT and the Department of City Planning have done a phenomenal job with the New York City bicycle route map. The truck route map should be of equal quality. In fact, City Council should simply require that DOT and DCP make a new truck route map using the same template that they used for the bike route map.

Second, NYPD should be required by City Council to make statistics on truck route violations available to the public via police web sites. TrafficStat should be made available online by each precinct in the same way that CrimeStat is. We know that NYPD has the data and the processes in place for getting it online. There is no reason why truck route violation data can not be put online as well.

Third, DOT should be required by City Council to create a complaint-and-response log and put this information online as well. A big part of the problem with illegal truck routes is that when a citizen makes a complaint, it is extremely difficult and time-consuming to figure out how the complaint is being responded to by DOT. Requiring DOT to put a complaint-and-response log on their web site would create greater accountability and transparency in the agency.

To conclude, all three of our recommendations aim to foster greater accountability and transparency around the issue of city truck routes, and to do so at a very low cost. Once again, T.A. strongly supports Intro 344 and Resolution 407-A. We are also writing a Memorandum of Support for Assembly 11305 and Senate 7387. We commend City Council for taking action on this issue.