Pushing for "New York for All" (photo: Jeff Reed/City Council)

The promise of government is to serve and protect its residents, and to ensure fairness, equity, and justice for all. This year, New York state government in Albany has failed in its duty to deliver on critical issues affecting immigrants, tenants, and those who interface with the criminal justice system.

The lack of progress in implementing key initiatives — such as Good Cause Eviction, the Housing Access Voucher Program, New York for All, and the Access to Representation Act — demonstrates an absence of leadership at a crucial time, with soaring rates of homelessness and tens of thousands of newly-arrived immigrants. The decision to further roll back bail reform measures adds to the list of grave mistakes this year that have undermined the state's commitment to justice and equality. At a time when New York should be moving forward, our leaders appear to be going backwards. 

With New York mired by a generations-long housing crisis, with rents skyrocketing and working class New Yorker’s being pushed to the street, once again Good Cause Eviction was stopped in its tracks. The housing crisis in New York State is well-documented, and leader did nothing to address the deep lack of affordable options.

The failure to implement Good Cause Eviction and the Housing Access Voucher Program is a significant blow to tenants who face arbitrary and unjust evictions, often leading to homelessness. This lack of protection not only undermines the stability of individual households but also erodes the fabric of our communities. Albany's inaction on this front is ensuring that so many of New York’s largest demographic — renters — get pushed further to the margins and continue to be vulnerable.

New York has long prided itself on being a welcoming and inclusive state for immigrants. Yet, we now see a too-familiar reluctance to meet the moment. With over 100,000 recent immigrant arrivals in New York, we expected our government to rise to the occasion — as we have so many times before. Instead, when New York City began resettlement  of migrants to other parts of the state where they face serious risk of negative ICE interactions, the State Legislature failed to pass New York for All, common sense legislation that prevents state and local law enforcement from coordinating with federal immigration authorities. Instead, like so much else, it fell by the wayside.

Additionally, the Access to Representation Act, which would have ensured legal counsel for all individuals facing deportation, was another missed opportunity to provide fairness and due process to immigrants. When our neighbors step into immigration court without an attorney they are set up to fail. Access to legal representation is a fundamental right. Denying this right undermines the principles of justice and equality. By failing to prioritize and allocate adequate resources to this initiative, Albany has hindered the progress of immigrant communities and undermined their potential contributions.

Three years ago, New York State made significant strides in criminal justice reform and the people rejoiced. The most notable of these was long overdue bail reform. This progress has been the subject of unceasing attacks by bad actors who want to continue to double down on carceral solutions and extremism. These attacks were renewed this year as well, and once more a decision was made to roll back key reforms.

Bail reform aimed to rectify the inequities that disproportionately affected low-income individuals, who often languished in jail solely due to their inability to pay bail. Most of those impacted were working class, Black and Latino New Yorkers. By reverting toward a system that perpetuates injustice and inequality, Albany has disregarded the voices of advocates and marginalized communities who called for meaningful change.

New York’s failure to deliver on key initiatives addressing immigrant rights, tenant protections, and criminal justice reforms represents our state ceding leadership. It represents a failure to do right by our communities. It is imperative that our government renews its commitment to these critical issues and constituents, prioritizing the needs and rights of its most vulnerable New Yorkers.

This begs the question: Who are we as New York at this crucial moment? Coming out of a pandemic, a deep affordability crisis, tenants losing their homes, thousands of new immigrants arriving — New York must step up to the plate to lead in this moment. Our State will be judged by the way in which we treat those on the margins and who are most vulnerable.

We must stand in our power and return to the days of being a shining beacon of hope for the marginalized and a northstar for other states to aspire to. We should be applauding our government for being an example of what is possible when leaders lead. 

Our streets should be filled with the thunderous applause of New Yorkers who feel cared for. But instead of a moment of joy, this summer our streets will be filled with New Yorkers fighting for their dignity and survival once more.

***
Claire Cousin is a Member of For the Many and former Executive Director of Hudson Catskills Housing Coalition. Abdullah Younus is Interim Vice President of Advocacy at New York Immigration Coalition. Eddie Taveras is Political Director of Immigration Campaigns at FWD.us. On Twitter @ForTheMany, @thenyic, & @FWDus.

Building upgrades underway (photo: Mike Groll/Governor's Office)

This year, New York became the first state to mandate zero emission construction in new buildings through the enacted state budget for 2024. Starting in 2025, the state building code will prohibit the installation of fossil-fuel equipment in most new construction and as of 2028 for almost all new construction.

This was the third law enacted since 2019 that requires the New York State Building Code Council to update the state’s Building and Energy Codes in order to achieve the State’s carbon emission reduction goals. Buildings are the single greatest source of greenhouse gas pollution in New York State. Reducing greenhouse gas pollution from the building sector is vital to achieving those goals.

The Building Code Council, whose members are appointed by Governor Kathy Hochul, are required by law to periodically update the building code to reflect the new standards and policies established since the last building code update. These updates only happen every five years. 

This year, the Department of State’s Division of Building Codes and Standards (DOS) has been drafting the 2024 Building Code Update, which will go into effect in 2025. The Building Code Council is reviewing DOS’ draft updates to ensure that it includes all the new standards and policies that have been established since the last update in 2020, and they will vote to approve the 2024 Building Code update.

To date, the draft 2024 Building Code Update has failed to comply with New York’s electrification and energy efficiency laws by not including the electrification of new construction as required by the All-Electric Buildings Act nor the requirement that new construction be energy efficient and resilient under the Advanced Building Code and Standards Act.

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 (CLCPA) requires DOS and the Building Code Council to determine if the 2024 Building Code Update will interfere with attaining the State’s greenhouse gas reduction targets. If it will, they must write a detailed statement of justification as to why they are approving a Building Code Update that will interfere with attaining such targets. DOS and the Building Code Council have not made such a determination.

The CLCPA required a report to be created that identifies all of the barriers and opportunities that New York’s disadvantaged communities have to eliminate greenhouse gas pollution. This report identified several barriers and opportunities related to the State’s building code. The Building Code Council is prohibited by law from approving the 2024 Building Code Update if it disproportionately burdens disadvantaged communities with greenhouse gas pollution. DOS and the Building Code Council have not updated the code to reflect the findings of the report.

Electrification is bound to make New York truly light up, creating a win-win-win scenario for renters, landlords, and contractors.

More and more people are renting their homes in New York. A report from the Office of the New York State Comptroller found that the percentage of renters had increased by 5.7 points from 2008 to 2017 – and this number is only growing. Nationwide, rental rates have increased by 31% over 10 years.

This growing rental market is increasingly demanding green housing. Two-thirds of renters say they want green and energy efficient homes, with 40% saying they would not rent a property that does not have green practices.

And it’s clear why. Electrification can save renters money, while also making their living space cleaner and greener.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 51% of a home’s energy consumption each year is for heating and cooling. With energy-efficient heat pumps heating and cooling renters’ spaces, they will automatically see savings on their energy bills. And this is just one example of how electric appliances can improve lives.

Healthwise, switching to an electric induction stove reduces the number of harmful pollutants emitted into the living space. A recent study showed that 35% of U.S. households are at increased risk of asthma due to having gas stoves. Who wouldn’t want to breathe cleaner air day-in and day-out in their home?

Landlords and contractors can now begin to save on purchasing electric appliances for residential spaces. With the federal Inflation Reduction Act, $43 billion in tax breaks and rebates has been set aside to bring down the cost of electric appliances and electric vehicles. This is money that will soon be up for grabs so landlords and contractors can embrace electrification.

Not to mention, with more renters demanding green living spaces, swapping out old appliances for electric ones automatically gives landlords a competitive advantage over rental properties.

Some landlords and contractors are already making the switch over to electric, anticipating this impending transition. Right now, a 110,000-square-foot zero-emission apartment building is being built on Broadway in Albany. Once completed, this space will feature fully electrified systems, including air-source heat pumps for heating and cooling.

It’s obvious why the Council must comply with the state’s electrification and energy efficiency laws to change the building code to reflect what New Yorkers want.

The Council chair has stated that the Council won’t update the code for electrification unless the Legislature requires it to do so. However, there are three laws that require the Council to consider the state’s greenhouse gas reduction targets before updating the building code: N.Y. Energy Law § 11-104 and the Scoping Plan set by the Climate Action Council, mandated by the CLCPA.

We must hold Governor Hochul and the Building Code Council accountable to ensure they include in their 2024 update to state building codes, at a minimum, a prohibition of fossil fuel combustion systems in newly-constructed buildings and a requirement that new construction is energy efficient and resilient. They must also consider if the 2024 Building Code Update will interfere with the State attaining its greenhouse gas reduction goals and, if so, make changes to be in alignment with such targets.

New York cannot wait until the next building code update in 2030. Give New Yorkers what they want. Give them all-electric buildings now.

*** 
Michael Hernandez is the New York policy director for Rewiring America, where he leads efforts to influence state policy initiatives to accelerate the transition to demand-side electrification as the most tangible and common-sense strategy for addressing the climate crisis. On Twitter @rewiringamerica.

Rethinking the curb (photo: Open Plans)

In 2011, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority launched a pilot to implement dynamic pricing at a small portion of the city’s on- and off-street parking spots. The pilot used new parking management technology to set the price of each spot according to its value, i.e. how often the spot is occupied.

Until then, San Francisco’s policy was as straightforward as most of New York City’s: 90% of curb space was free, largely unmanaged, parking. (New York City doesn’t actually know how much curb space is relegated to free parking but it hovers around 95%.) The philosophy behind the demand-responsive model was that the most frequently occupied spots must be the most desirable and coveted spots; therefore they should, and then did, cost more to use than those perceived as less valuable.

Quickly, the pilot showed results—traffic decreased by 8%; double parking by 22%. It took 43% less time for drivers to find a parking space, and the city earned $1.9 million in revenue. 

San Francisco was leaps and bounds ahead of most American cities at the time, and still is. Their groundbreaking efforts to reimagine the city’s curb space have brought order and efficiency to an area that mostly breeds chaos in New York. Acknowledging the high demand and competition for scant curb space has allowed SFMTA to create a holistic Curb Management Strategy that designates every curb section according to land use and context. Designations now prioritize people and active use – like freight, mobility, and public space – over private vehicle storage. The plan, and the underlying philosophy, has completely realigned San Francisco’s relationship to the curb.

Open Plans’ newly-released report, Curb the Chaos: Solutions for Cities at the Curb, explores how New York, and any city, can build upon pioneering curb work like this. 

Most cities aren't so much mismanaging curbs as they are under-managing them. Despite intense demand for this space – from deliveristas, freight, restaurants, mobility, and more – nearly all curb space across American cities is allocated for free car storage. The result is a streetscape that is lawless, unsafe, and suboptimal for every user. 

But there’s a better way. Like San Francisco, there are encouraging and inspiring examples around the country of how cities are wading into curb reform to make their entire city work better.

Seattle has been paving the way for a diverse set of curb uses for decades. They, too, operate with a curb priority framework that decenters private parking. Seattle’s explicit acknowledgement that the curb lane is for more than just parking serves as a foundational lesson in good curb management.

And perhaps surprisingly, Omaha, Nebraska has undertaken an ambitious curb management initiative using new technology to digitize curb uses (we created a sample modeled after their project with BetaNYC to show it is possible in New York City, too).

Engaging in strategic rethinking can reveal opportunities for tweaking existing policies, too. San Francisco realized that its commercial loading zones could double as pick-up/drop-off spots for noncommercial vehicles like Grubhub drivers or taxis; this small change increased productivity, commerce, and user satisfaction.

Technology is creating new possibilities, if cities and states are willing to use it. Lack of enforcement is a major barrier to effective curb reform; it doesn’t matter how many new loading zones a city designates if there’s always a car parked in them. Cameras can enforce those violations, as well as blocked bike lanes, bus lanes, and bus stops. And it works.

New York City’s own automated enforcement program, the largest in the nation, consistently sees a decrease in violations at each active location. After speed cameras started operating 24/7 in August 2022, speeding in those zones decreased 34%. The possibilities go far beyond red light cameras, but New York City can’t freely pursue them because we don’t have home rule. Every time a new bill proposes the use of technology, we must ask the state for permission.

Often, state government in Albany denies us that permission, like with the recent push to pass Sammy’s Law, which stalled in the Assembly. If we’re going to get serious about real change at the curb, both the City and the State must be willing to think, and operate, in new ways — like by giving the City permission to regulate and manage its own streets and curbs. 

The curb lane is a highly valuable, abundant source of real estate. Yet despite New York’s reputation for squeezing value out of every possible inch of the city, we’ve let this space languish. We’re not alone – curb reform is a relatively new field and, as our report shows, there are just a handful of cities doing transformative work.

But that could change quickly. The federal government recently awarded eight SMART grants to cities for curb-related projects, and the New York City Department of Transportation has also announced the pending release of a city-wide curb management strategy that will put the City in the small minority boldly pursuing holistic curb solutions. 

It’s worth considering that the Open Restaurants program feels like revolutionary reclamation of space, but it has only repurposed about 1% of New York City’s curb space. Imagine the exponential benefits to reimagining the curb at-large.

As New York City and others around the country begin to see the potential in curb lanes, we must learn from each other. Our report is a call for collaboration and shared learning – as well as courage. We have the evidence to show that curb innovations can improve health, happiness, commerce, and city coffers. Now local officials must heed the evidence, work together, and restore order to our curbs.

***
Sara Lind is a co-Executive Director at Open Plans and Michael Sutherland is Policy Analyst at Open Plans. On Twitter, @saraklind & @msuthnyc of @OpenPlansNYC.

Gov. Hochul signs legislation (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)

New York’s clean energy transition is critical for the state’s future, but for it to be successful, we will need to expand our workforce across the city and state. This is proving to be a challenge, driven in part by outdated laws that punish justice-involved individuals long after they have served their sentences. 

That’s why Con Edison supports the Clean Slate Act and applauds its passage through the State Legislature. Now, Governor Kathy Hochul should immediately sign it into law. 

Like so many other employers across the state, we at Con Edison are feeling the brunt of New York’s labor shortage. At this critical moment, we must ensure that we’re reaching every potential employee, even those who may count themselves out because they think that a decent paycheck and a steady job are out of reach because they have a criminal record. 

Research shows that recidivism decreases with the passage of time — and that employment itself is key to reducing recidivism. Once a person is off parole or probation, by sealing misdemeanors after three years and felonies after eight, we can give these New Yorkers the opportunity to leave their past behind and build a new future. They can access job training and education without unnecessary barriers, and transition into the workforce with a record that is sealed. 

At Con Edison, we have made a conscious effort to recruit and hire justice-involved individuals. Every day, we see the impact these employees have on their communities, and the power of a second chance. And we’re not alone. Major companies like National Grid, Verizon, JPMorgan Chase, and Microsoft support Clean Slate, as do the Partnership for New York City, the Business Council of New York State, and many chambers of commerce. 

A larger workforce is not just good for employers, it’s good for the economy. A recent report from the New York City Comptroller estimated that annual wages, in the City alone, would increase by $2.4 billion under Clean Slate. Another study found that the State loses an estimated $7.1 billion in wages because of unemployment and underemployment among people with conviction records.

The Clean Slate Act will also increase employment, wages, and public safety. For example, in Michigan where a similar law was passed, research showed that an individual was 11% more likely to have a job and earned nearly 20% more in wages within two years of expunging their criminal record. 

Our current system of perpetual punishment limits opportunities for a job, a place to live, and an education. Long after a sentence has been served, these essentials should not remain out of reach for a lifetime, especially when their absence reverberates across children, families, and whole communities, and disproportionately impacts Black and Latino New Yorkers. 

But we can change this. The Legislature has now passed the Clean State Act, and we are grateful to the sponsors of the bill, the legislative leaders, members of both chambers who approved it, and the coalition partners behind this hard-fought victory. Now it is time for Governor Hochul to act and sign the bill into law immediately to ensure we can unlock the human and economic potential of New Yorkers with conviction histories. We have too much at stake to wait.

***
Joeann E. Walker is Senior Attorney at Con Edison and a CEO Action for Racial Equity Fellow.

Lifelong learning in action (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photo Office)

As I write this essay, the sky outside my window is a dull, apocalyptic orange. The disorienting sight of wildfire smoke – a familiar scene for many worldwide – is new for most New Yorkers. Perhaps this will become as seasonal as the changing of the leaves, though I hope not.

Three years ago, in March 2020, I recall watching neighbors rush down our street, their arms full of grocery boxes. The SARS-CoV-2 virus was heading from Italy toward our coast. Though few of us knew it, life was about to become unrecognizable.

Years later––this February––I experienced existential awe and fear as I used ChatGPT for the first time. It was as though the science fiction movies of my childhood had come to life (Hello, C-3PO). Undoubtedly, these powerful machines will shape society in unknowable ways.

These three examples demonstrate a few realities about the 21st century: it is characterized by rapid change, complex challenges, and unpredictability. In this social climate, there is a premium on our ability to learn our way through diverse personal and professional challenges. The goal of this learning is adaptation. The format of this learning is self-directed.

For centuries, we have largely conceptualized learning as an early-life endeavor, formally occurring between early childhood and early adulthood; the late adult educator and sociologist Peter Jarvis called this a “front-end” model of education. Jarvis and others criticized this model for its restrictiveness, predicting that it would fail societies as they became increasingly affected by globalization, digitization, inequality/social exclusion, and the evolving nature of knowledge.

Jarvis was right. Look at the state of our politics. Look at the state of our public health. Look at the state of our environment. This is no time to stop learning.

But what does lifelong learning look like? It looks like retraining for the jobs of the future; developing strategies for climate-related disruptions; experimenting with diverse perspectives and worldviews; mastering artificial intelligence technologies; cultivating analytical thinking skills key to media literacy; collectively defining democratic citizenship; understanding the foundations of mental and physical health; learning how to age in place; and much more.

And what does a city with a culture of lifelong learning look like? According to the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, it is one that has inclusive education policies; makes educational technology accessible; sufficiently funds education/learning "ecosystems"; creates multiple spaces for learning; collaborates with social media companies, views education/learning as a social good; promotes a cultural shift towards lifelong learning, and has a strong social fabric.

I’m on a mission to help create a culture of lifelong learning in New York City. Will you join me? Together, we can survive the 21st Century.

***
Ben Jurney is an Ed.D. Student in Adult Learning & Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University, and a former intern for Gotham Gazette.

The Rent Guidelines Board in action (photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council Media Unit)

Last week, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board raised rents by 3% for one-year leases and roughly 4.5% for two-year leases for 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. Meanwhile, the Nassau County, Westchester County, Rockland County, and Kingston Rent Guidelines Boards approved either rent freezes or much smaller increases. What gives?

Part of the answer is that there are unique features to the New York City Rent Guidelines Board structure that need to be rethought.

Every April through June, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) spends three months deciding if, and by how much, rents will go up for 2 million New Yorkers. This decision-making process is punctuated by the publication of eight (dry, data-driven) reports and at least four (boisterous) public hearings. 

These three months uniquely bring the intricacy of government processes to the foreground. There aren’t many institutions like the RGB, which makes major dollars-and-sense deliberations in public each year. And while RGB members and staff work hard to ensure the process is fair, the Board is in dire need of reform.

First, the RGB carries an air of impartiality, with its mission ostensibly to “consider research from staff, and testimony of owners, tenants, advocacy groups and industry experts” to arrive at its decisions. Unfortunately, it is naïve to pretend that any body with decision-making power over real estate profits – and particularly one whose members are selected by a single politician – could function without political influence.

New York City’s RGB is structurally beholden to the mayor, who appoints all nine members. Historical rent adjustments have tracked political allegiances of New York City’s mayors over time. Consider, for example, the cases of the RGB under Mayors Bloomberg and de Blasio: under Bloomberg, the average rent increase for a one-year lease was about 4%; under de Blasio, it was less than 1%.

Second, the Rent Guidelines Board’s staff, advocates (like us at the Community Service Society), and many others generate a ton of data each spring, all to help the Board to make a “fair” call about rent adjustments. But a ton of data doesn’t necessarily yield a better-informed decision, especially when the data is out of date or of questionable provenance. RGB staff are forced to rely on two- to three-year-old data, because of reporting lags.

Last year, the Board agreed to unreasonably high rent hikes, justified by housing market numbers from 2020, underscoring how stale data can lead to questionable decision-making. Further, some of the Board’s most crucial numbers rely on landlord self-reporting. When the Board last audited these filings, in 1992, they found that landlords were inflating their data by 8%. 

Most crucially, the data analyzed by the Board generally skews toward maintaining landlords’ profits. While the RGB’s staff does publish the latest income, employment, and human services data in an annual Income and Affordability Study, that data only has an impressionistic impact on the Board's deliberations. Early in the process, the RGB publishes what are called “commensurate rent adjustment formulas,” based in part on a “price index of operating costs” methodology that no other Rent Guidelines Board in the state uses. This shows what kind of increases are necessary to keep landlords’ net operating income steady compared to the previous year. These formulas set the ground for the conversation, without consideration for tenant conditions. In fact, there is not a comparable, easy to quote, tenant number for Board members, the public, and the press to latch onto.

And while tenant demonstrations at the public RGB hearings generally make the news, how much of an impact do tenants’ testimonies and protests really have on how much their rents will ultimately increase? The public hearings are always scheduled after the Board takes a preliminary vote, where they set the parameters for what the annual rent hikes may be. This year, in early May, the RGB approved a maximum rent increase of between 2% and 5% on one-year leases and 4% and 7% on two-year leases. After they set the parameters for a rent increase, they heard from hundreds of tenants about why the rent shouldn’t rise at all.

Most needed improvements to the New York City RGB require state action. Next year, Albany lawmakers should:

-Institute a measure of checks and balances, by giving the City Council confirmation powers over RGB appointments. The RGB’s set-up is fairly unique. Other Rent Guidelines Boards in other parts of the state and other politically-appointed boards in New York City do not concentrate appointment and oversight power with one individual in the same way.

-Move the RGB process – and therefore also the effective date for rent adjustments – to the fall, when more recent NYC Department of Finance data is available for the Board Staff to analyze.

Meanwhile, the NYC RGB staff should:

-Modernize its commensurate adjustment formulas and develop a comparable tenant formula.

-Regularly audit data provided by landlords and institute tougher penalties for falsifying data or failing to register apartments.

We cannot keep trying the same thing and expecting different results. If the RGB cycle remains the same next year, we will go through the same motions but will face all the same structural challenges. Yes, the data will be different; there may even be some new faces on the Board. But does anyone truly believe the outcome will be dramatically different, as long as all the other conditions remain the same? If lawmakers want a better outcome, they must change the process. 

***
Oksana Mironova and Samuel Stein are Senior Policy Analysts at the Community Service Society. On Twitter @OksanaMironov & @CSSNYOrg.

Lola Pavitt, a graduating fifth-grader at PS110 (photo: ZED Images)

On May 17, 2021, Matthew Jensen greeted my son at the entry to PS110 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and took his temperature, as he did every day during covid. The following afternoon, word started spreading at the playground that Mr. Jensen had died. Kids were saying that this was impossible: he’d just been in their classroom cracking jokes and doing his Donald Duck impersonation the day before. I had the wretched task of explaining to my children that it was true. That their teacher had been violently killed by a speeding car a block from their bedroom while they slept. 

In the days following the crash a pattern of conversation emerged among our community; shock, grief, and then questioning: “Why is McGuinness Boulevard so dangerous? Why is our community tolerating it?” These questions became the foundation of the Make McGuinness Safe coalition. In response to Mr. Jensen’s death — the third death on the boulevard in eight years — we held a rally to raise awareness and hold the City to account. Within weeks, the de Blasio administration announced an allocation of $39 million for a comprehensive redesign of McGuinness Boulevard.

I am a mother, an educator, an architect, a small-business owner, and now a community organizer. I am hardly the first mother to advocate for safety on McGuinness. The archives of the Greenpoint Weekly Star document decades of resistance to the repercussions of the widening of Oakland Street (later renamed McGuinness Boulevard). According to one article from October 1956, “residents drew up a 200-name petition. . .blasting the route as an extreme hazard and a ‘speedway’ for all types of motor vehicles. . .A survey at the time revealed that if no action was taken by the proper authorities, a human roadblock by mothers and housewives might be formed.”

The first person to die on the street was a three-year-old boy named Jimmy Bataglia. Our current fight for a safer McGuinness Boulevard fits firmly within its treacherous history. Matt’s death was our breaking point. 

For two long years, committed volunteers have spent hundreds of hours canvassing for Make McGuinness Safe petition signatures at local farmer’s markets. We’ve held teach-ins and given presentations at our Community Board. We’ve gained the support of 100 local businesses and every single elected official representing Greenpoint at the city, state, and federal levels. Our coalition has evolved to incorporate what we’ve learned from thousands of conversations with neighbors, families, and local businesses. 

Universally, what people want to see is a slower, safer, local street. We have worked with traffic engineers, transportation advocates, and urban planners to establish a design that will achieve this. The foundation of this plan rests on the removal of two automobile travel lanes, transforming this 4-lane highway into a 2-lane local street. The space gained will be reallocated to parking-protected bike lanes, filling a critical gap in the bike lane network. 

The knee-jerk reaction to the removal of two vehicle lanes is often, “Where will the traffic go?” But the facts are with us. According to DOT traffic studies, 30-50% of the vehicles on McGuinness Boulevard are using the road exactly as Robert Moses intended: as a shortcut between the BQE and the LIE, even though it only shaves about 90 seconds of travel time. These are not local drivers, local deliveries, or local pickups. We’ve explained to our neighbors that reducing the capacity of the road will reduce the number of vehicles cutting through the neighborhood. Nearly anyone who is willing to listen signs on, and conversation by conversation we’ve amassed over 5,600 supporters.

You can imagine the celebration that followed DOT’s public presentation in May of a design for McGuinness that largely reflects our community plan, with an implementation date of summer 2023. Fueled by a most unthinkable tragedy, we secured the funding, support, and approval of a plan that will make Greenpoint safer for generations to come.

Yet now, at the eleventh hour, despite a comprehensive engagement process and DOT’s multiple traffic studies, it seems that powerful special interests are trying to undermine the McGuinness Boulevard plan. 

The grassroots, deep, local passion that fuels the Make McGuinness Safe coalition cannot be swayed. We believe in facts. We believe in data. And we believe in Mayor Adams. We believe in his record as a champion of safer streets. We believe that he will be the Mayor who will help us take back McGuinness after years of death, danger, tragedy, and trauma. And when we do this, together, we will never know the names of all the lives that have been saved. 

***
Bronwyn Breitner is a parent and Coordinator for Make McGuinness Safe. On Twitter @mcguinness_safe.

NYC Reads! (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

I spent most of my kindergarten year envious of Gina and Adam. These classmates had found the holy grail of learning: they could read.

Our teacher continually praised them for their intelligence — and dismissed mine. I remember thinking, “If someone would just show me how, I could read, too.”

Thankfully, my first-grade teacher helped me unlock the magic code by explaining that letters stood for sounds that then blended together into words.

Year after year, hundreds of thousands of students in our city’s public schools experience the same frustration I felt decades ago in kindergarten. They want to learn how to read. But many do not get the instruction they need.

Fewer than half of New York City kids are proficient readers, and the percentage dips as low as one in five in some schools. But we finally have a mayor, Eric Adams, and a city schools chancellor, David Banks, with the courage to acknowledge that the city’s reading instruction has been failing for decades. Even better, they plan to fix it. Mayor Adams and Chancellor Banks recently announced they will require all but a handful of schools to use one of three reading curricula that the Department of Education has vetted — all of which include phonics instruction.

Banks is doing what others have been afraid to do, and the city’s young people will benefit, hopefully for decades to come.

That said, although phonics instruction is necessary to teach reading, it alone is not sufficient to develop proficient and engaged readers. 

A decade ago, The New York Community Trust began distributing approximately $35 million from Brooke Astor’s estate to improve reading instruction in early grades. Our investments demonstrated that the city’s teachers can provide excellent reading instruction and that students who are often wrongly written off as incapable can become proficient readers. 

We funded 18 city nonprofits that worked with teachers to improve reading instruction in more than 200 schools and early childhood centers across all five boroughs. An extensive external evaluation by Metis Associates found that, on average, the portion of students reading on grade level in participating schools increased 15 percentage points.

Beyond phonics instruction, several factors contributed to the success of the reading instruction supported by our grants.

First, high-quality reading instruction expands students’ background knowledge (what they know about the world around them), vocabulary (words and their meaning), and oral language skills (speaking and listening). After all, sounding out the word “emergency” does not do much good if you do not know what it means. 

Every person in a child’s life can contribute to these skills.The Trust helped after-school programs provide enriching experiences that improved students’ knowledge and vocabularies.

In the “Ready Readers” program for early elementary students, after-school staff learned to read aloud for at least two hours a week using proven techniques to build students’ skills. They then reinforced students’ knowledge and vocabularies with art, games, and field trips. ReadWorks and New York University developed materials for teachers and students that incorporated rich vocabulary and built students’ knowledge of the world. Fixing reading instruction in our city is an all-hands-on-deck endeavor that should involve every one of the city’s programs for kids. 

Second, reading instruction is a science. We saw success where teachers had opportunities to work together and with expert coaches to learn more about the science and get feedback on what was happening in their classrooms.

Just like any other scientific endeavor, teachers benefitted from resources that allowed them to collect and analyze data about students’ progress. Teaching Matters and New Visions for Public Schools worked together to build a system to help teachers assess students’ progress and figure out where early readers were getting stuck. Regular student assessments, digital tools to track and analyze results, and professional development resources helped teachers design instruction to meet the specific needs of their students.

Finally, nonprofits incorporated the assets that multilingual learners brought to the classroom. And several grantees incorporated literature that reflected the racial and cultural diversity of the city’s public school students. If the city’s chosen curricula do not address the diversity of its students, supplemental programs developed by nonprofit groups and academic experts can help fill the gap.

The Department of Education has started on a systemic path to making sure the city’s kids can read. Ensuring adequate phonics instruction is the first and right step. If the city incorporates phonics into a more comprehensive effort that expands students’ background knowledge, vocabulary, and oral language skills, and gives teachers the time and tools they need to monitor and understand their students’ progress, it will finally prove that all New York’s kids can learn to read well.

We just need to show them how.

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Shawn V. Morehead is vice president for grants at The New York Community Trust. On Twitter @NYCommTrust.

Kids at play (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

If we want to give New York City kids the building blocks to excel academically, we have to invest in physical education — and that means recommitting to the groundbreaking, but now defunct, PE Works program. 

In 2015 then-Comptroller Scott Stringer issued “Dropping the Ball,” a report detailing the many failures of the City’s ability to engage students in physical activity. The report echoed many of the tenets of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign to combat childhood obesity, and pointed out that “active students are better able to engage in the classroom and excel academically.”

Around the same time, the City established the PE Works programs, which had tremendous results. In its initial pilot phase in the 2015-16 school year, it found that “almost all (96 percent) of elementary schools failed to provide the required time and frequency of PE instruction that is necessary for young students to master PE skills according to State standards.”

The program, which rapidly expanded citywide, sought to overcome “historical barriers to physical education by first giving principals the funds and hiring support to re-prioritize PE.” By the time funding ran out after the 2018-19 school year, 78.9 percent of elementary students were meeting PE time requirements and nearly every elementary school had a PE teacher. 

In the four years since, we have not made any further progress. 

In the most recent report for the 2021-22 school year, 77.1 percent students are meeting required PE time, a number that drops to 64 percent for K-5 students. That dropoff is concerning given that preliminary evaluations of the PE Works programs found grade 4 and 5 students in particular showed “larger and steadier” yearly improvements in aerobic capacity compared to students not in the program. 

Shortfalls in activity have significant consequences for our youth, and we know that when physical education is not addressed in schools the physical activity gap starts to look a lot like the income gap. Poorer students cannot afford club sports, which have grown increasingly expensive and elite, and parents often do not have the time or ability to drive them to practices and out-of-town games. As a result, poor children become less physically active, less healthy, and less academically engaged than their peers. 

According to The New York Times, the CDC recently found just 31 percent of kids from families at or below the poverty line were participating in sports, compared to 70 percent of kids from families making at least $105,000 a year, and 51 percent for families in the middle income ranges. Gaps in physical education, like gaps in reading, writing, and math, should not become an accepted outcome of disparities. 

In 2020, faced with the problem of keeping kids active, we launched a platform, Hiveclass, which makes physical education and youth sports training available through remote learning. We started this company and created a standards-based physical education curriculum, based on our own personal experiences and frustrations during the pandemic — but for many kids, COVID-19 was only one barrier to physical activity. 

As we’ve grown, so have our goals. Today we are committed to making quality instruction in physical education accessible, supporting good mental health and providing the building blocks for advanced skills to kids everywhere. 

In New York City, this remains a persistent challenge. 

According to the Physical Activity Alliance, National Report Card, New York ranks 40th out of all states and the District of Columbia when it comes to the percentage of young people active seven days a week, with fewer than 20 percent saying they are active every day. The same report also ranked New York 30th when it comes to obesity rates, with more than 30 percent of students overweight or obese.

Our company is committed to closing these gaps. We offer high-quality sports and physical education instruction, primarily by partnering with school and library systems, to children from all income levels. Our goal is to provide the discovery, joy, curiosity, and freedom to try new things to all students. By combining technology, entertainment, and education we hope to inspire kids to partake in different sports and activities with their peers.

Though our digital platform is designed as a vital resource to deliver standards-based physical wellness education, teachers can use the platform during in-class instruction as well as for less traditional remote learning. Meanwhile, libraries encourage physical activity at home or at the park where access to organized team sports may be limited.

We need the City to do its part and fund our schools so that all of New York public school students, especially our most vulnerable, get the tools they need for a healthy, active, and academically-fulfilling life. 

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Joe Titus is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hiveclass, an online sports and fitness training platform with a goal to make quality instruction in physical education accessible to kids everywhere. On Twitter @hiveclass.

Wildfire smoke upon New York City (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

There is an old expression: “Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them.” As someone who has lived in and around public housing in Western Queens for more than 40 years and has dedicated my life’s work to this special community, we have lived through a very long night, but now we can sense the sunrise, and we are determined not to miss it.

The recent unhealthy air from the smoke of Canadian wildfires have given all New Yorkers a taste of what Western Queens residents have long experienced.

For decades, our communities have lived in the shadows of fossil fuel power plants. These plants, along with other nearby industrial activity, have darkened our skies and poisoned the lungs of thousands of residents who live in public housing developments disproportionately clustered around these noxious polluting facilities.

In the ongoing battle against climate change, the dangerous combination of fossil fuel emissions and wildfires that we have just witnessed has emerged as a formidable threat to public health, particularly in marginalized communities.

I co-founded Urban Upbound with the mission to break cycles of poverty in public housing communities by bringing people together to solve multi-faceted problems ranging from community health to jobs to revitalizations. I know better than most how rare it is to build an alliance that spans community leaders to labor to business, all together behind a comprehensive solution.

The time for urgent action, equity, and environmental justice has never been more pressing — that is why the Renewable Ravenswood and the Attentive Energy One offshore wind projects are critical measures, and state leaders must make sure we don’t miss this opportunity. 

Renewable Ravenswood will be the largest environmental justice project in our state’s history.  It charts a path to transform Ravenswood Generating Station — New York City’s largest fossil fuel power plant — to a state-of-the-art clean energy hub, even resulting in the ultimate shutdown of “Big Allis,” once the largest generator in the world. If you’ve ever spotted the massive smokestacks towering over the neighborhood from the Queensboro Bridge or the N Train, you’ll understand how big of a deal this would be.

The first step in this transformative vision is the proposed Attentive Energy One offshore wind project. By connecting an offshore wind farm to Ravenswood, we will see the retirement of one of Ravenswood’s 1960s-era fossil fuel generators – not just in our lifetime, but in the next decade.

This project would make massive investments in our community, creating good-paying jobs while reducing carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to removing 13% of cars off New York City streets. The project would stabilize energy costs at a time when high electricity bills continue to impact working families and would leverage Ravenswood’s existing energy infrastructure and workforce to reduce construction costs while preserving good-paying union jobs.

The retirement of local fossil fuel infrastructure powered by clean energy is important enough that President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, visited Ravenswood this Spring saying this project is “a fantastic story of transformation” and “an example of what could happen all across the nation.” Importantly, this plan is the product of bottom-up conversations with the community on solutions to uplift us. Between years of transparent engagement by Rise Light & Power, NYCHA residents’ inclusion in Secretary Granholm’s visit, and upcoming community forums, this project has the full backing of the community and we are ready to see it happen.

This is the moment where all New Yorkers can understand the importance of breathing clean air and seeing a bright sunrise.

There is little New Yorkers can do to stop raging wildfires, but our leaders can take immediate action now to help Western Queens and New York City breathe easier by supporting Attentive Energy One -- the clear gateway to clean air for Western Queens and better opportunities for everyone in our community who has lived in the shadow of neglect for far too long.

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Bishop Mitchell G. Taylor is the CEO and co-founder of Urban Upbound.