Dear friends,
One of the loveliest features of the early pandemic — the wildlife that retook the streets — is a distant memory. In NYC, the streets are again wild, but not in a good way. Streetsblog has analyzed the failure of the NYPD to protect and serve those of us trying to safely walk or cycle; the untamed behavior of city drivers has resulted in the highest number of traffic fatalities in many years.
Ticketing for moving violations is down, and there are other signs that the police are deeply disinterested in the routine enforcement that creates safer streets and has been shown to modify driver behavior. Streetsblog looked at 311 complaints involving illegal parking, abandoned vehicles, and other driver misconduct.
“When vehicles are parked illegally on sidewalks and in crosswalks or bike lanes, pedestrians, cyclists, and wheelchair users are diverted into dangerous traffic,” Council leaders wrote in a letter to Police Commissioner Dermot Shea. “With traffic fatalities at their highest point in nearly a decade, illegal parking violations must be taken seriously.”
But the NYPD indicates that they are resolving thousands of these complaints in under five minutes. This is implausible. The safe streets activist in my household routinely runs downstairs to confirm that there has been no resolution to the matters he reports: blocked bike lanes, vehicles parked at hydrants, etc.
Officers rarely write tickets in response to 311 reports on driver misconduct, and they routinely dismiss driver misconduct reports as outside the police department’s jurisdiction. Attorneys and former city officials said that justification is false, as such issues are clearly the police’s responsibility.
Residents who together have filed more than an estimated 1,000 driver misconduct service requests say those efforts have almost never led to the problems being addressed. Some reported receiving harassing messages after filing complaints.
The City Council has a joint hearing tomorrow of its Committees on Transportation and Oversight and Investigations. They need to hear from us. As it happens, our next Brooklyn Borough President is on the Transportation Committee, so if you live in Brooklyn, copy Antonio Reynoso on your email.
Contact your council member to demand meaningful follow-up on driver misconduct. A sample message is included.
If I’ve been uncharacteristically quiet about mayoral debates, it’s because there is no serious alternative to Eric Adams. Curtis Sliwa has promised to end the imaginary war on cars; he opposes speed cameras, bike lanes, and congestion pricing.
If you are not yet having nightmares about Rikers Island, there are very disturbing pictures. A spokesperson for the Legal Aid Society recently wrote:
“The ongoing collapse in basic jail functions — including the delays at intake — is as alarming as ever. We again demand immediate decarceration before a 15th New Yorker in City custody loses their life.”
As I noted last week, the mandate for all city employees to get COVID vaccines includes a delay for corrections officers. This seems particularly dangerous
at a moment when COVID transmission on Rikers Island is nearing a pandemic peak. Some elected officials and public health experts have questioned the logic of delaying a vaccine requirement for jail staff another six weeks.
Tell the mayor and the governor (again!) to take immediate action to release people from Rikers. The messages have been updated.
Negotiations of the budget reconciliation bill are ongoing. The care agenda is critical and under threat, especially as the bill is being pared back. There are still tens of millions of Americans without health insurance — roughly 10 percent of the population — in large part because twelve states never expanded their Medicaid coverage. Clearly, this human rights issue cannot be left up to the people governing Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
Tell Congress to close the Medicaid coverage gap.
Even some Democrats are reluctant to cap drug prices. Enough already. We need to act as a society to make sure that people are not making impossible choices between meals and necessary medication.
Contact your Congressional delegation and let them know that you want Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices.
Have a great day!
with love,
L