Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Open Government

Open Government

City Council Transportation Legislation


 

Last year, the New York City Council grappled with an issue whose advocates said went to the heart of religious and ethnic equality - the right to park a car.

Overriding a veto from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the council voted to suspend alternate side of the street parking regulations on Asian Lunar New Year, Purim and Ash Wednesday, adding them to a list of two dozen other holidays when New Yorkers are not required to move their cars.

"It's about recognizing that Asian-Americans have contributed to the city," said Councilmember John Liu, chair of the transportation committee. "We should get the same level of respect and attention that everybody else gets."

In New York, transportation ranks among the top concerns of residents, after education and public safety, according to a survey by the New York City Council. And since taking office in 2002, the council has responded to voters concerns with a slew of transportation legislation.

To appease senior citizens who complained about reckless food deliverymen on bikes, the council made it illegal for anyone over the age of 14 to ride a bike on a New York City sidewalk.

When taxi cab drivers griped about excessive fines for burned-out hazard lights, the council passed a law allowing drivers to replace the bulb before police ticket them.

The council has even tried to increase the amount of space each person gets when walking down the street by giving communities more power in regulating sidewalk cafes and limiting the number of news racks on street corners.

In addition to these new laws, the City Council has also drafted, but has not yet passed, over a dozen other transportation related bills. Many of these bills are "quality of life" measures aimed at improving safety, making transportation more convenient, or reducing noise and pollution.

Here is an overview of some of the lesser-known pieces of transportation legislation still in committee.


TRANSPORTATION BILLS PENDING IN COMMITTEE

Pre-Tax Transit Benefits (Intro 481)
This legislation would require companies with more than 50 employees to offer pre-tax mass transit benefits. The council estimates that if the law passes, a commuter who buys monthly MetroCards could save $288 a year.

Truck Routes (Intro 344)
This bill would require truck drivers to carry a map of designated routes in an effort to prevent them from cutting through neighborhoods where they are not allowed to drive. Council members hope it will reduce noise, street damage and pollution, particularly in high traffic neighborhoods like the South Bronx.

Advisory Board of Drivers (Intro 195)
This legislation would create a 15-member advisory board for the Taxi and Limousine Commission, consisting of drivers, members of the public, owners, organizations advocating for drivers and agencies enforcing commission rules. The mayor and council members would appoint the members and supporters hope that the board would be a constructive way to address taxi issues in the city.

On Demand Taxis (Intro 267)
This bill would establish for-hire taxi stands in each borough. Local council members would suggest and approve the locations based on the proximity to mass transit, local taxi availability, traffic flow and public demand. This legislation aims to improve taxi service in the outer boroughs and diminish the need for illegal livery cabs.

Radios or Cell Phones on School Buses (Intro 16)
This measure would require all drivers who transport children to carry a two-way radio or cell phone at all times. Any person who does not comply will be fined no less than $1,000. Supporters say the bill would ensure that drivers could call for assistance and create safer transportation for children.

Traffic Signals and Schools (Intro 324)
This bill would require the Department of Transportation to install a stop sign or traffic signal at all intersections immediately adjacent to any New York City school.

Prohibiting Mobile Billboards (Intro 157)
This legislation would ban mobile billboards - the trucks or vans that troll city streets advertising movies, soft drinks or music CDs. Supporters argue that mobile billboards add congestion to the city streets, take up parking spaces, and block driver and pedestrians lines of sight.

Staten Island Ferry Service (Intro 56)
This bill would increase the Staten Island Ferry service by mandating a minimum operating schedule. The Staten Island council members who drafted the bill say it would ensure that commuters who are going home late from work still get adequate service. It would also protect ferry service from budget cuts.

Handicap Accessible Ferries (Intro 261)
This legislation would require all piers, ramps and water ferries to comply with American with Disabilities Act regulations. Currently, the majority of the ferryboats are handicap accessible, but many ramps and piers are not.

Sidewalk Damage (Intro 193)
This legislation would make property owners liable for any injury to property or personal injury, including death, caused by the failure of owners to maintain sidewalks in reasonably safe conditions. The purpose of the bill is to place liability for damage and injuries on the owner, not the city. In 2002, the city paid out $53 million in accident claims.

 


RELATED ARTICLES
Moving Around the City -- A Quiz About Transportation in New York
New York's Fight for Transportation Dollars in Congress
A Brief History of New York Transportation
An Appalachian Trail Through The Heart Of NYC



 

New York City Council STATED MEETING - June 05, 2003


New York City Council Stated Meeting Report

Every two weeks the New York City Council meets for its Stated Meeting to introduce and pass legislation. As a regular feature, Searchlight covers these meetings and posts a summary of the bills passed.

STATED MEETING - June 05, 2003

Quote of the Day:
"Today is the date that we were to have adopted a budget for the next fiscal year. We will not meet that goal today... there is still work to be done." - Council Speaker Gifford Miller on missing the deadline for a new city budget.

Meeting Summary:
According to the City Charter, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York City Council were supposed to pass the 2004 budget by June 5. But with negotiations over the final details of the city's $44.5 billion plan still underway, the City Council voted to extend the budget deadline by one week until June 12.

The city's fiscal year begins on July 1 and for the last few months Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council have been trying to close a $3.8 billion budget gap - the largest since the 1970s.

The day before the June 5 deadline, Mayor Bloomberg announced that he would abandon $90.2 million in proposed budget cuts. He said that government aid from Albany and Washington and permission to raise sales and income taxes made it possible to avoid the cuts.

The mayor promised to restore funding for:

  • Park maintenance
  • Senior citizen centers
  • Programs at the Administration for Children's Services
  • Libraries so they stay open five days a week
  • Health programs on asthma and lead poisoning
  • AIDS prevention
  • A fourth Staten Island Ferry during rush hour
  • 40,000 summer youth jobs
  • Subsidies to cultural arts organizations
  • Half of the $200 allowance for teachers to purchase education materials
  • Trash collections in outer boroughs.
  •  

    The timing of the mayor's announcement was unusual since the City Council traditionally takes credit for such restorations at the end of the budget process when a final agreement is reached between the mayor and the council.

    With little else on the Stated Meeting agenda, council members took the opportunity to praise the mayor for his decision, but also to push for more restorations. Some $500 million in budget cuts have already gone into effect or are still being negotiated.

    Council Speaker Gifford Miller vowed to continue to fight for funding for foster care, City University scholarships, and programs on health and infant mortality. And some council members continued to protest the closure of six firehouses.

    "I think it's fair say that if it is possible to do $90 million in restorations, then it is possible to come up with $6 million to reopen the firehouses that have been shut," said Brooklyn Councilmember Bill deBlasio.

    The next Stated Meeting is scheduled for June 12.

     

    Trying To Protect Undocumented Immigrants


     

    When Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently issued an executive order that permitted city employees to report undocumented immigrants to law enforcement authorities, he was reversing a long-standing ban on such a practice by his three predecessors as mayor, Ed Koch, David Dinkins, and Rudy Giuliani. The ban on disclosure had been intended to encourage undocumented immigrants to make use of such city services as health care, social services, and police and fire protection without fear of being detained or deported.

    It would be easy to conclude from his lifting of the ban that the nationwide and federal fear of immigrants has made its way to New York. But earlier last month, on his weekly radio show, Bloomberg expressed the view that all undocumented immigrants should be made American citizens.

    His lifting of the ban was to put him in compliance with a court order. But his view on legalizing the undocumented is more in keeping with the local attitude, one that has resulted in a push for protection of immigrants in several areas.

    Access Without Fear

    While the mayor reversed the ban on disclosure of immigration status, more than 30 members of the New York City Council sponsored an "Access Without Fear" bill (Intro 326) that would turn such a ban into law.

    Many believe that the need for such a law is greater in the post-9/11 New York as incidents of detention and deportation, as well as "special registration" of males from Muslim countries, have concerned tens of thousands of New York residents and have greatly intensified the climate of fear in the Muslim and South Asian communities.

    "Effective law enforcement and public health protection are impossible without the cooperation of New York's immigrant communities," said Margie McHugh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition in a public hearing at the City Council on May 5. "But in order to have cooperation, the city must first establish trust with those communities."

    Language Assistance in Hospitals

    According to the 2000 Census, over 1.1 million New York State residents do not speak English well or at all, and nearly half of New York City residents speak a language other than English at home. Among them, many are undocumented immigrants who receive health care services.

    In an attempt to better serve hospital visitors with limited English proficiency, more than 20 members of the New York State Legislature proposed a bill to require hospitals to provide language assistance services to patients who need them. The bill would also require that frequently used forms essential to a patient's care and treatment be available in all of the primary languages spoken by a hospital's patient population.
    "Ensuring appropriate language access will reduce the number of repeat visits, emergency room visits, misdiagnosis, and uncollectible debts at hospitals," the New York Immigration Coalition has argued.

     

    Dream Act

    To many illegal immigrants and their children, the best way to realize the American dream is through education. However, many of the 50,000 or so undocumented immigrants who graduate from high school in the United States every year face a common dilemma: They cannot apply for college without a green card, or they simply cannot afford the tuition.

    Public officials and immigrant advocates are pushing for a law to help those students.

    "Children don't make decisions about how they come to this country," Rep. Robert Mendendez, D-Union City, New Jersey, told the Bergen County Record. "When good students who want to continue their education and contribute to this country are prevented from reaching their full potential?€?we're all deprived."

    "The situation for theses students is really, really difficult," Claudia Gomez, an advocate with the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights in Oakland, told the San Jose Mercury News. "They can't legalize their status on their own because there's no mechanism for it."

    A bill called the DREAM Act - which stands for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act - would legalize the status of those students who are under 21 years of age, have earned a high school diploma or equivalent, be of "good moral character", and have lived in the United States for at least five years.

    Another proposal, which is called the Student Adjustment Act and is sponsored by many members of the House, offers a similar solution.
    The Dream Act died in the Senate last year but is expected to be reintroduced soon.

    Meanwhile, New York is one of four states to have passed laws to allow undocumented students to pay resident tuition rates. In the City University of New York, undocumented students who have spent a minimum of two years attending high school in the state
    pay the lower in-state tuition.

    These laws were not universally welcomed. "Allowing illegal immigrants to study at CUNY was a national security issue and an insult to every citizen and legal immigrant seeking a higher education," said State Senator Frank Padavan, a Republican from Queens.

    "This is a slap in the face to everyone who believes in the rule of law," Jim Ludwick, President of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, told the Associated Press. "No matter what you do for these people, it's not enough. The sky is the limit."

    But officials at City University itself seem relieved that a law passed a year ago in the New York State Legislature reversed an earlier policy that the educators had said they were forced to implement, hiking tuition for the undocumented in order to comply with federal law.

    "I take great pride in CUNY's historic role as a ladder of upward mobility for many generations of immigrants," Chancellor Matthew Goldstein has said. "Our city, state, and nation have greatly benefited as a result."

    A native of Taipei, Taiwan, Larry Tung is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer and video artist. He also teaches English as a Second Language in Flushing and has been covering the Chinese community in New York City for The Citizen.



    Print Friendly and PDF

    Editor's Choice


    Gotham Gazette: New York Voters Approve $4.2 Billion Environmental Bond Act
    New York Voters Approve $4.2 Billion Environmental Bond Act
    Gotham Gazette: 
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
    New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
    Gotham Gazette: 
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
    Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
    Gotham Gazette: 
City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years