Across the country, cities and transit agencies are taking steps to address violence on their systems — particularly against the people who work to keep our buses and trains clean and safe for everyone. But what are the root causes of that violence — and are strategies like deploying armed police actually addressing them? On today’s episode of The Brake podcast, we speak to Urban Institute Senior Research Associate Lindiwe Rennert about her research into how violence against transit workers correlates with larger problems like police brutality and income inequality — and what that me ..read more

A community board in the Bronx on Wednesday became the first in the Boogie Down to join the growing push to make intersections safer by getting rid of parking. Members of the western Bronx’s Community Board 5 quickly got behind the idea of restricting parking near crosswalks, also known as daylighting, a proven safety measure that makes it easier for drivers and pedestrians to see each other. “I think it’s very hard to argue against it, and the focus was not on parking,” said Lucia Deng, the chair of CB 5’s Municipal Services committee, which handles transportation matters. “The focus was on i ..read more

New York City traffic is choked with congestion from trucks making freight deliveries — and a new coalition wants Mayor Adams to take a big step towards shifting that traffic to the city’s “underused” rivers and waterways. The “Blue Highways” campaign wants Adams to convert the Downtown Manhattan Heliport at Pier 6 into a full-time maritime freight delivery hub. Adams’s Economic Development Corporation is expected to decide on the future of the pier soon. The Move NY Coalition previously pushed a congestion pricing proposal that served as the basis for the one set to launch in Manhattan below ..read more

New York City would be able to put enforcement cameras on street-sweepers to catch illegally parked cars under a state bill that fulfills the Sanitation Department’s longstanding ask for help getting vehicles out of the way of road-cleaning operations. The proposal would give the city the power to catch and fine the all-too-many motorists who don’t move their cars during street cleaning hours — just as bus-mounted cameras nab scofflaws in the way of bus lanes, according to the Brooklyn lawmaker behind the legislation. “Dirty streets are totally unacceptable,” said Brooklyn Assembly Member Bria ..read more

Protected bike lanes have reduced traffic deaths and serious injuries by 18 percent. New York City Department of Transportation, Vision Zero website A mayoral administration that has failed to build the legally required protected bike lane mileage for two consecutive years now must confront some hardly shocking news: 60 people died on New York City roadways in the first quarter of 2024 — the most in the first three months of any year since Vision Zero began in 2014. The gruesome data, crunched by Transportation Alternatives and released on Thursday, reveal that those 60 deaths are 50 percent ..read more

The Department of Transportation will provide financial incentives to trucking companies and business to reduce peak-hour deliveries and the congestion and danger that comes with them — a longtime goal of safety advocates. With the bustling roadways of Downtown Brooklyn’s Albee Square shopping hub as a backdrop, Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez announced that the agency would allocate $6 million from a federal air quality and congestion improvement program and another $5 million in anticipated funds from congestion pricing to upgrade trucks, add security at businesses to enable deliveries without ..read more

New Jersey’s most vociferous opponent of congestion pricing was caught illegally parking on a Lower Manhattan street on Wednesday — allowing reporters to quickly determine that the car was nabbed last month by a city speed camera. Rep. Josh Gottheimer held a press conference in front of MTA headquarters on Wednesday morning to complain that the agency has not responded to his Feb. 22 demand that the MTA provide “the data, calculations, and discussions that went into their congestion tax revenue projections.” At one point after the press conference, Gottheimer’s driver cooled his heels ins ..read more

Do you swear on your mother’s placard? With the Adams administration under fire from the U.S. Department of Justice, Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi on Tuesday made a flat-out promise to eliminate illegal police parking that violates the Americans With Disabilities Act, though she also praised the city’s past accessibility efforts that, um, only came after threats of federal litigation. First, the promise: On Tuesday, after Streetsblog reminded Mayor Adams that the US Attorney for the Southern District called NYPD parking practices a violation of the ADA, Joshi responded for the mayor that the proble ..read more

The MTA risks squandering the potential of the proposed Brooklyn-Queens Interborough Express light rail line if the agency runs part of the route on city streets instead of building a short tunnel under a Middle Village cemetery, argues a new report. The current plan for the IBX light rail to emerge from its underground right-of-way near the boneyard and run on surface streets makes the train “far more vulnerable” to traffic delays than even existing bus routes in the area, the advocacy group Effective Transit Alliance said. A 515-foot tunnel beneath All Faiths Cemetery, meanwhile, would incre ..read more

You may recall previous Streetsblog reporting about how the organizers of the Fifth Avenue open street in Brooklyn had bailed due to a lack of cash, forcing the Department of Transportation to find a new volunteer or business group to run the popular weekend car-free street. The good news? The DOT has inked a deal with the Fifth Avenue Open Streets Merchants Association to operate the open street, which will be in place every Saturday from 11 a.m. until 10 p.m. The bad news? What was once 15 blocks of blissful promenade in 2023 will shrink to just four this year, according to DOT’s&n ..read more