Testimony from Transportation Alternatives and Families for Safe Streets Before the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Hearing on Transportation Equity
New York City Council Hearing Testimony on Transportation Equity
Testimony before the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Danny Harris, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives
Good afternoon Chair Brooks-Powers and members of the Committee. Congratulations on your first hearing of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. We look forward to partnering together in the coming years.
I am Danny Harris, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives. For nearly 50 years, TA has led a grassroots movement for more equitable, accessible, and safe ways to get around our city.
At present, New York City’s streets are failing us all. Buses are stuck in traffic. Children breathe polluted air. Seniors are struck and killed while crossing the street. And when our streets fail, the harm is not equally distributed. In this city, if you are Black or brown, a child, from an immigrant or low-income community, disabled, elderly, or any combination of the above, you bear the brunt of this harm.
Transportation Alternatives believes that there are two key ways that the City Council can help correct these historic inequities. One: Fully fund the New York City Streets Plan, passed by the previous City Council, to ensure that all neighborhoods receive significant investments in safer, healthier, and more accessible streets. And two: Support the NYC 25x25 vision, endorsed by over 200 local organizations, to put people first on our streets by repurposing 25 percent of the space currently devoted to private vehicles and putting it to better, fairer use.
We need change: right now, our congestion is the worst in the nation. Emergency responders and people who need to commute by bus or car are all stuck in gridlock. Summer sun bakes asphalt and creates urban heat islands. Seasonal storms flood basement apartments. Hundreds of New Yorkers are killed each year on our streets, horrible and intangible losses which ripple throughout families and communities forever.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
NYC 25x25 envisions a more equitable city, using just a fraction of our streets. Opening the street in front of every public school would give our kids safer trips to school, more space to play, and cleaner air to breathe. Daylighting every intersection by removing one parking spot closest to each corner would make it much safer to cross the street. On existing road space, we can build 1,000 lane miles of protected bus lanes, providing faster commutes to every neighborhood. With more efficient and reliable transportation options, New Yorkers would shift away from needing to make so many trips by car.
This shift isn’t just good for bus riders. For workers who do need to drive, traffic — and all of the costs and stress it brings — would recede.
To build fairer streets and a fairer transportation system in New York City, we don’t have to look far. Many of these solutions are already here.
On Manhattan’s 14th Street, adding a busway has reduced bus travel times by 47 percent, an invaluable gain for bus riders who are disproportionately low-income, single parents, women, foreign-born, and disabled. And with more bus commuters working in healthcare than any other industry, improving bus speeds is an integral way to support New York City’s invaluable healthcare workforce.
On Manhattan’s Ninth Avenue, adding a protected bike lane reduced injury-risk to people on bicycles by 65 percent. Even though three-quarters of the city’s cyclists live outside of Manhattan, these four boroughs have less than half of the city’s protected bike lanes. The consequences of our inequitable bike infrastructure are deadly: 92 percent of people killed while riding bicycles died on streets where the median income is below the city average. To maintain and grow New York City’s ridership, we must create a network of protected bike lanes that connect every neighborhood, and provide public funding to Citi Bike so it can expand more quickly into transit-starved neighborhoods that still do not have bike share.
It’s time to ensure that opportunity and investment are extended to all corners of our city. We look forward to working with Chair Brooks-Powers, Speaker Adams, and the new City Council to ensure that the NYC Streets Plan is funded and that concrete steps are taken to bring the benefits of NYC 25x25 to all.
No New Yorker should fear death or injury on our streets. No New Yorker should be left behind by our inequitable transportation system. No child should struggle to breathe because endless roads and highways wind through our neighborhoods. With your leadership, an equitable city is possible.
Thank you.
Wendy Feliciano, Families for Safe Streets member
My name is Wendy Feliciano and I recently became a member of Families for Safe Streets. March 4th marked the one month anniversary of my baby sister's sudden and gruesome passing after being hit by a school bus driver while she was riding her e-bike in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Her name is April Damani Reign, and she was 2 months and 12 days shy of her 33rd birthday.
April’s daughter had just celebrated her 16th birthday one week before the crash. She had 2 nephews and a niece (my children) that she helped to raise like they were her own. She has an ailing mother for whom April is the 2nd child gone too soon. She had more friends than I can count and was loved by them all.
My sister was young, but she had what we call an old soul. She wanted to change the world. She wanted to leave as small a footprint on this Earth as possible; that's just one reason why she bought her ebike. She felt more people should ride bikes to avoid hurting the environment. She also rode to save money and stay safe from Covid. She wanted to buy a farm and to build a community around it. She thought she could teach people a better, happier way to live. She wanted this for the world, not just her family. She was also an organ donor and when she passed anything that could save or change a life was given, including her eyes. Even in death, she wanted to help others. She also rode to save money and stay safe from Covid. Her goal was to have another part time job doing deliveries and make enough money to get us out of here.
There is no way to look at this and find the silver lining. My sister died face down in the gutter on a cold, rainy day in Brownsville, Brooklyn. She deserved better. Brownsville deserves better. Every neighborhood in our city deserves better.
That's why I'm here today. If I can help to get safe street infrastructure, including protected bike lanes, in our poorer neighborhoods, where people are less likely to be able to own a car and it can save a life, then it can bring meaning to her tragic death and take her one step closer in her dream to help people.
My sister was love and light. She loved life and had big plans that we’ll never see realized. She was the morning person in our house that would give us the pep to get up and go. The mornings are bleak and quiet now. Her room sits empty, her daughter has chosen to live with her grandmother because our walls shout my sister’s absence. The rooms echo the silence. We've lost 2 people in a way, and the ache is too much for words.
We were not ready; we were not prepared. This was never in the game plan. My sister was supposed to bury me.
Don't let her death be nothing but a number. Don’t let any other family know our pain. Please, I know we have the solutions to prevent deaths like my sisters. We need these solutions without delay – and we need them in all of our neighborhoods.
Elke Weiss, Families for Safe Streets member
My name is Elke Weiss, and I am a member of Families for Safe Streets. My grandfather, Jack Miklincer, was killed last month by the driver of an SUV, in a known dangerous intersection close to his home in South Brooklyn.
I’m still coming to grips that my grandfather will never see me married. He will never again celebrate his favorite holidays. And he will never listen to me and make me feel heard the way no one else could, to love me unconditionally. I miss his voice. I miss his advice.
That dreadful Saturday, my grandfather was using his wheelchair and was on his way to synagogue to lead prayers. He was a devoted servant of his community and the next day, he was excited to celebrate his great-granddaughter’s Bat Mitzvah.
My grandfather loved to travel. He loved his wheelchair. He loved to stroll around the neighborhood with his friends. The neighborhood is full of seniors like my Dad. They walk to enjoy the sea and the boulevards and each other.
To think that my grandfather could survive the terrors of the Holocaust and not be able to safely cross his New York City street is something we will never forget. It terrifies me to think that's what killed him. He was even wearing a reflective vest. While losing him was traumatic, it’s the terrible, preventable manner of his death that has us reeling. I think about Yehuda Lindenblatt, my grandfather’s dearest friend, a fellow Holocaust Survivor who experienced the unthinkable,, who had to watch his best friend die in front of him on a dangerous NYC street at the hands of an SUV driver.
My grandfather was loved and he loved so many. Despite being 99, he was independent and happy and enjoying every day. He could have lived many more years. One more day would have been precious.
If only he could get himself safely across Oriental Boulevard, The closest intersection that felt safer would have meant going six blocks further, which just shouldn’t be necessary for seniors like my grandfather. How can we not have a city that is safe for them? That is safe for everyone?
I ask you to remember my niece, whose Bat Mitzvah will always be tied to the death of her beloved grandfather. Remember my mother, who had to endure getting a phone call no one should receive. Remember his friends and neighbors. Remember every event he will miss. And remember how much we all miss him.
Most importantly, remember the power is in your hands. We aren't asking for you to split
the sea but to think of the seniors, of the children, of all the families, in every neighborhood – to take action to make our streets safe for everyone.
We know it doesn’t have to be this way. I beg of you to think of my grandfather and of your own grandfather. And do everything in your power to get Vision Zero back on track and without delay. We can not lose one more.
