When the current crop of City Council members took office in 2021, WNYC/Gothamist hailed it as “the most progressive” group of city legislators in years. Meanwhile, the right-wing New York Post agreed, though used different lingo for the “woke far-left, one-party City Council.”
But when it transportation policy, this Council, under centrist Speaker Adrienne Adams, is controlled not by progressives, but by supporters of bills that appease car-loving politicians and make it harder for city transportation officials to pursue policies that reduce traffic violence and improve city streets.
Last year, 120 pedestrians and 25 cyclists were killed in traffic crashes, pedestrian injuries soared to more than 9,500 and cyclist injuries topped 5,100. Adding in the more than 37,000 injuries suffered by people inside cars, the carnage amounts to 142 injuries on our streets every single day.
But Speaker Adams and her “progressive” Council are not implementing proven street safety policies in line with those pursued by her most recent predecessors, Corey Johnson and Melissa Mark-Viverito. Instead, Adams has elevated the profile of legislation aimed to slow the growth of cycling in the city and stalled other initiatives aimed to claw back the vast amount of street space devoted to cars.
Roadway safety is simply not a priority, a Streetsblog analysis reveals.
Two bills (Intros 103 and 104) requiring the city to notify Council members every time it repurposes parking spaces passed in late December with the Speaker’s support. That month, the Council also held an epic hearing on Intro 606, which would force the city Department of Transportation to create a DMV-like registration system for all e-bikes. The bills’ most vocal proponents are Council members who also want to get rid of bike lanes as part of a broader opposition to nearly every initiative to redesign streets with safety for pedestrians and cyclists as a priority.
Meanwhile, the Speaker has declined to hold Mayor Adams and the DOT accountable for its failure to implement the Streets Master Plan, which passed under Johnson, and has stalled a bill to require the city to follow a state law prohibiting parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk.
“We’re back to pre Vision Zero levels of traffic deaths, and have been for the past several years. But [the Council] didn’t do anything or hold any hearings on that crisis,” said Eric McClure, the executive director of StreetsPAC, which endorses politicians and policies that improve street safety in the city. “They had a whole year where they could have held the mayor’s feet to the fire on his failure to build the required number of bus lane miles or bike lane miles or daylighting intersections, and they didn’t do any of that.
“The idea that there were hearings on [Intro 103 and 104] — clearly naked attempts to hamstring DOT — it’s just a waste of everybody’s time,” McClure added. “And it’s an obvious attempt to throw roadblocks in front of any attempt to repurpose parking for anything better.”
Asked why the Council took a back seat approach to street safety in 2024 while giving a platform to transportation bills pushed by the body’s right-wing “Common Sense Caucus,” Speaker Adams said she “begs to differ.”
“When it comes to the safety of the people of the city of New York, that is of paramount importance to this body,” Adams told Streetsblog. “I think that we have shown, not just with matters of transportation, but with matters of health, matters of education, and many other matters, that the safety of the people of the city are our remarkable and extraordinary privilege to uphold.”
The Council’s priorities
After Speaker Adams gave her vague response to Streetsblog’s questioning, a spokesperson for the speaker’s office reached out to assert that street safety is, in fact, a priority for the Council’s Transportation Committee, led by Selvena Brooks-Powers (D-Queens). The spokesperson cited Brooks-Powers’s bill to create a streets plan tracker as an example — though that bill never even got a hearing.
Meanwhile, the spokesperson, who requested anonymity, dismissed advocates’ dreams of “big overhauls,” pointing to the difficulty of passing the Mayor’s City of Yes for Housing policy as an example.
But that unwillingness to tackle ambitious policy change marks a shift from Adams’s predecessors, Johnson and Mark-Viverito. Under Johnson, who openly discussed “breaking the car culture,” the Council passed the Streets Master Plan, which set legal benchmarks for City Hall on protected bike lanes, bus lanes, plazas and other transformative transportation policies. Similarly, Mark-Viverito proactively advanced legislation and funding to support then-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Vision Zero initiative to reduce traffic deaths.
Borough President Antonio Reynoso, who served two terms in the City Council under the previous speakers, said that the Council’s record on street safety bills shows a fear promoting policy that may be unpopular at first.
“In my time, the Council members were willing to spend political capital to do things that were publicly unpopular but were the right thing to do,” Reynoso told Streetsblog, adding that this lack of bold transportation policy is a symptom of a vacuum of leadership. During his time in the Council, he said leaders like now-Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, now-comptroller Brad Lander, and now-Borough Presidents Mark Levine and Donovan Richards, showed that Council members could advocate for bold change, like Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, and reforms in policing.
“We were able to push back a bit against public pressure in a different way,” said Reynoso. “We had so many elected officials that already did this work, and kind of set the table on what the expectations were and what the potential was. People like me who might have not had the courage or the willingness to do that because of fear or lack of experience, they emboldened me to also speak up.”
Under Adrienne Adams, transportation policies that could make the city safer for non-drivers and drivers alike are cast aside in favor of … preserving parking.
“We’re reinforcing this idea that parking is a right. That’s what they’re doing. And that is very dangerous, because parking is a privilege, not a right,” said Reynoso.
The record
The Council’s Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure heard 32 bills in 2024, and passed 7. Most of the bills had nothing to do with street safety.
There were hearings about public bathrooms, about minority owned businesses, about re-doing medians for stormwater drainage. One bill, Intro 1745 from Council Member Amanda Farías (D- Bronx), basically requires DOT to … be the DOT — calling on the agency to publish information on its website that is already published.
Of the seven passed, the decriminalization of jaywalking, introduced by Council Member Mercedes Narcisse, did the most to create more equitable enforcement, but did not change the safety equation.
The Common Sense Caucus, known for its pro-law enforcement stances and opposition to housing construction, bike lanes and congestion pricing — whose members did not play a decisive role in electing Adams speaker in 2021 — managed to set the tone for the Council’s transportation agenda in 2024. There were three bills that the committee took up, all from that Caucus, which includes all the Council’s Republicans plus Democrats Bob Holden and Susan Zhuang, that proceeded under the guise of increasing street safety:
- Intro 606: Requires DOT registration of all e-bikes (Including electric Citi Bikes). The bill, which has 28 sponsors, is opposed by DOT, which has questioned whether simple license plates would have any impact on safe streets at all.
- Intro 104: Requires DOT to contact local firehouses before building bike lanes, even though FDNY and DOT already coordinate when such proposals are on the table.
- Intro 103: Forces DOT to notify lawmakers it repurposes parking spots for car-share, bike-share or bike parking.
Intro 606 has not yet been voted on by the committee or the full Council, but the hours-long hearing, packed with opponents of cycling, sent a message.
“[Intro 606] that was brought forth by Bob Holden wouldn’t have seen the light of day and wouldn’t have gotten as many signatures as it has now because the leadership wouldn’t have had it that way. We wouldn’t allow for what I consider his false narrative and public perception to dictate safety and safety policy,” said Reynoso.
Intros 104 and 103 passed. The bills were slightly watered down — the final version of 104 only requires DOT to notify Council members, not community boards. And DOT won’t have to issue notifications if the parking spots are being repurposed for bike lanes or curb extensions, only when a single car-length space is slated to become car-share parking, space for a bicycle corral requested by a local business, or for a dock for Citi Bike
A representative from the Council told Streetsblog that the less-severe end result of Intro 104 and 103 should be seen as a win-win. Advocates don’t see it that way.
“If it’s a compromise, I’d like to know what’s the compromise on the other side,” said McClure.
Speaker Adams defended her decision to advance the three bills to a hearing. Saying simply that the Council’s role is to have hearings for all of the legislation that comes before the body.
“What this Council does in our oversight hearings is to hold the agencies accountable,” she said in December. “We go over each piece of legislation that comes before us in a hearing.”
But that’s a simplification. The Speaker and the committee chair have the power to choose which bills get a hearing, and which don’t. And it is telling that two bills from Republican Council Member Ariola, a member of the Common Sense Caucus, get the Council’s time and energy, when they are a backlash to street safety improvements.
One advocate called that an “unfortunate mindset.”
“There can be this mindset across the city government — disproportionate voices of people who tend to get around by car, even in a city where the overwhelming majority of us get around by subway for most of our trips,” said Ben Furnas, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives.
The Council’s power
Aside from just passing legislation, the Council members can be the drivers of street-level change in their districts, if they push for it.
“Of all of the issues that individual City Council members and the Council as a whole have authority over, the use of our streets is probably one of the most potent and available tools that they have to improve the lives of their constituents,” said Furnas, who worked in City Hall for eight years before taking the helm at Transportation Alternatives earlier this month.
Furnas pointed to Brooklyn Council Member Chi Osse’s successful push for the Bedford Avenue protected bike lane and fellow Brooklyn Council Member Lincoln Restler’s continued support for the McGuinness Boulevard road diet as examples of how Council members can use their influence to change the streets. That contrasts to Council Member Vickie Paladino (R-Queens), for example, who has told DOT that its plan to build even some off-street greenways in her district is dead in the water.
“When a Council Member is interested in [street safety] and working with their neighborhoods and with DOT, there’s just an enormous amount of weight that their voice can carry,” said Furnas.
Reynoso added that in order for the Council to be able to make serious changes regarding street safety, it needs to not be seen as non-negotiable.
“We don’t let community boards dictate the deployment of police officers in a neighborhood. That’s because the safety is left to the professionals,” said Reynoso, adding that street safety projects should be thought of in the same way as public safety policy.
Safety last
Council Members that do push for street safety aren’t always supported by the Council’s leadership.
At the beginning of 2024, Speaker Adams made waves by removing Restler, a staunch bike lane and safe streets proponent, from the influential Transportation Committee. At the same time, Adams also stripped three other progressive Council members who had split with her on an important budget vote — Tiffany Cabán (D-Queens), Shahana Hanif (D-Brooklyn), and Ossé — of their committee chairs.
Restler at the time said he didn’t see his new placement as chair of the Governmental Operations Committee as retribution. But progressives’ reduced presence on Transportation was evident in the committee’s 2024 output. Chair Selvena Brooks-Powers, an ally of Speaker Adams, continued her pattern of not advancing legislation from Restler, including Intro 501 which would let New Yorkers report when vehicles obstruct the bike lane, and others aimed to improve non-auto transportation and traffic safety.
In 2024, two bills noticeably were left on the table:
- Intro 1138 would prohibit parking within 20 feet of all intersections, bringing the city in line with state “daylighting” requirements. The bill has 19 co-sponsors and the support of three borough presidents and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, but has not had a hearing.
- Intro 1105, proposed by Brooks-Powers, would require DOT to publish a tracker that updates the public on its (famously unsatisfactory) compliance with the Streets Master Plan.
Brooks-Powers’s bill is now scheduled to have a hearing on Jan. 21, when the Transportation Committee meets for the first time this year.
The lead sponsor of the Universal Daylighting bill, Julie Won (D-Queens) told Streetsblog she is fighting to get it over the finish line, but wants to make sure it is iron-clad before a hearing so that it can pass intact.
“I would like to see bills that get across the finish line in one piece instead of having it chopped in half,” Won said. “In order to avoid that, it’s better to do the work up front and do a lot of the organizing ahead.”
Unlike Intros 103 and 104, Won’s bill represents constructive transportation policy, McClure said.
“That’s a bill that would make a difference, not waste people’s time,” he told Streetsblog.
Won said she sees bills like Intro 103 and 104 and as examples of a two-pronged problem.
“Those two bills are symptomatic of very systemic issues,” said Won. “One is that these outer borough communities have had a lack of investment in public transportation. They are car-reliant, therefore they are car-centric in their policies. But this is also symptomatic of DOT being a difficult partner to work within a lot of districts. There’s a lot of elected officials who have a bone to pick with DOT at-large.”
Won cited the agency’s failure to complete the long-promised dedicated pedestrian path on the Queensboro Bridge, which DOT has continually delayed since first floating the concept in 2017. Won has been alone in fighting for the World’s Borough’s East River crossing to have more space for bikes. Her fellow Queens Council Members, like Adams and Brooks-Powers, have not joined her in this fight.
“We try our best to have a good relationship with DOT because I think we have aligned interests like expanding bike lanes. But look at the Queensboro Bridge south outer roadway,” she said. “How much do I have to scream and kick and organize for them to move even an inch on what was already committed to, funded, and promised?”
On Friday the Council’s leadership, along with the DOT, made Won’s bill even harder to pass. In a new report, released as the result of a 2023 law introduced by Brooks-Powers, the Transportation Department argues that “universal daylighting … does not have the widespread safety benefits anticipated and may have negative effects on safety.”
Primary elections for the next Council term are in June. Adams and Holden, who have been barriers to street safety will have their seats filled by newcomers. In addition a pool of democratic challengers have lined up to take on Mayor Adams.
“The mayor designates who the commissioner is for DOT,” Won said. “These leadership positions have an immense amount of power especially when it comes to street safety. If we want to achieve the goals that we have set for ourselves as a community we need to get out there and vote.”
