City Council wants certain street safety improvements. Transportation chief said 'no.'

DOT chief argued against speed bumps and safety signs near schools [FORWARD TO A FRIEND]( [VIEW IN BROWSER]( [DONATE]( [WNYC Politics Brief] DOT chief pushes back on City Council's latest street safety proposals Plus: Mayor Adams named a former transit advocate the new director of the public realms. LIRR ridership and on-time performance went up last year. And the MTA might be spending too much money by building needlessly large subway stations. --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- [Ydanis Rodriguez at a press conference] Catalina Gonella/Gothamist Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez this week [resisted a package of street safety bills]( proposed by the City Council. The proposed measures, which were intended to protect students leaving school and pedestrians on busy streets, included plans to install bollards on certain sidewalks and crosswalks when they’re reconstructed. But Rodriguez said the DOT works with the NYPD to determine where those go, and doesn’t want to be forced to add them anywhere. Another bill called for installing safety signs near schools to alert drivers that students are nearby. "Our research shows that the specific treatments this bill would require are not effective at reducing injuries," Rodriguez said during a hearing Tuesday. "In fact, there is evidence that excessive signage can actually distract drivers from seeing the most important messages." Rodriguez also shot down proposals to require the DOT to install reflective material on some curbs to make them more visible and to add speed bumps near senior centers. The hearing, which was Rodriguez’s first public appearance before the City Council in 2023, came after 255 people were killed by motorists in New York City last year. Rodriguez was also pressed on his department’s failure to make good on the Streets Master Plan, which was passed by the Council in 2019 and requires the city to install 30 miles of new bus lanes and 50 miles of protected bike lanes each year. DOT officials blamed a shortage of workers for the department's failure to meet those goals in 2022, but noted that crews had upgraded more intersections with safety improvements last year than were originally promised. The City Council and transportation officials did agree on one area: a proposed resolution to ask lawmakers in Albany to reduce the speed limit to 5 mph on streets participating in the city's Open Streets Program. Last month, Gov. Kathy Hochul signaled [she would support a law]( to allow the city to reduce its speed limits. — [Reporting by Stephen Nessen]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Mayor Adams appoints former transit advocate to oversee public spaces [portraits of Mayor Eric Adams and Ya-Ting Liu side by side] Lev Radin/Getty Images; NYC Mayor's Office Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday announced that Ya-Ting Liu, a former transit advocate, [will become New York City’s director of the public realms](. Adams first announced the creation of a so-called "public realms czar" in December after the idea was [proposed in a report]( by a civic panel charged with reimagining the city. The panel specifically called for turning commercial districts like Midtown into 24/7 live-and-work spaces that would incorporate a robust public realm. In his State of the City address last month, Adams pledged to invest more than $375 million in new parks, plazas as well as wider sidewalks, safer intersections, and expanded bike lanes. He has also embraced a concept to make Fifth Avenue, one of the city’s iconic commercial corridors, more pedestrian-friendly with fewer cars. Liu, who had worked as a chief strategy officer at City Hall, is well known in transportation and environmental advocacy circles for her work at Transportation Alternatives, a bike and pedestrian advocacy group, and the New York League of Conservation Voters. She told Gothamist her top priority would be pushing the City Council to pass legislation that establishes permanent rules governing outdoor dining. Urban planners, who welcomed Liu's appointment, said they hope to see the city invest more in the management of the city’s Open Streets program, which restricts car traffic on designated streets during certain hours. The program, overseen by the transportation department, has been popular with residents, but city officials have struggled to maintain it, leaving the operation of Open Streets to business improvement districts and, in some cases, volunteers. — [Reporting by Elizabeth Kim]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Here's what else is happening Mayor Eric Adams traveled to Albany yesterday to ask Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers not to force New York City to pay an extra $500 million a year to fund the MTA. The city already provides the MTA with around $2 billion annually in "direct and in-kind" contributions, according to officials. ([Gothamist]( Meanwhile, several Democratic state lawmakers from New York City introduced a bill this week that would fully fund the MTA through 2026. The "Fix the MTA" bill would cost the state $11 billion, and in addition to keeping subway fares steady at $2.75 for a single ride, it would increase bus service by 20% and gradually make all buses free to ride by 2027. ([The Queens Post]( More than 7% of the cars that triggered automated New York City traffic enforcement cameras last August had defaced, covered or otherwise unreadable license plates. Data from the Department of Transportation shows a spike in the number of drivers caught speeding, running red lights or going in designated bus lanes with unreadable plates. In August of 2019, by comparison, 1.26% of license plates were obscured. ([Hell Gate]( The Long Island Rail Road saw a 50% jump in ridership from 2021 to 2022, and on-time performance also nearly set a record last year. Still, 2022's ridership only hit 52.5 million, down from 2019's figure of 91.1 million. ([Newsday]( Part of the reason it's so expensive to build new subway stations is that they're needlessly large and don't stick to a standardized design. A new NYU study found that in addition to the cliche reasons for why the MTA spends so much — union labor is expensive, consultants are expensive — New York City also builds train stations that are way bigger and more individually distinct than what you find in other metro transit systems. ([Curbed]( Yes, almost every car on the road now has blinding headlights. More and more people are driving around in tall SUVs with bluish LED headlights, which is a potentially dangerous annoyance for other drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. ([Business Insider]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- And Finally: Gothamist spotted this sign at the DeKalb Avenue station this week. It's not MTA-sanctioned, nor is it true. [a handwritten sign telling people — falsely — that fare-beaters will be caught with facial recognition software] Stephen Brown/Gothamist --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Support WNYC + Gothamist Make a donation to support local, independent journalism. Your contributions are our largest source of funding and pays for essential election coverage and more. [DONATE]( [Facebook]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [Instagram]( [WNYC]( [WQXR]( [NJPR]( [GOTHAMIST]( [WNYC STUDIOS]( [THE GREENE SPACE]( Copyright © New York Public Radio. 160 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013 All rights reserved. [Terms of Use.]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your [preferences]( or [unsubscribe]( from this list