Our own Ben Turner was just interviewed on New York 1, talking about the value a Northern Queens Waterfront Greenway would bring to local residents. “It’s good for people’s health, it’s good for the environment, and it’s good for people’s pocketbooks,” he said. We couldn’t agree more. Thanks to Ben for speaking some truth about this project.

One of Ben’s neighbor’s Councilmember Vickie Paladino had a different opinion, when she sent a letter asking the Federal Government to stop sending money to New York City.

In the letter she asks for bike and bus projects to be reviewed and de-funded at the Federal level. Our understanding of the “Streets Master Plan” (Int 1557-2019) is that the NYC DoT is required by the City Council to implement bike and bus lanes and it has not yet met its target. Being on the City Council, we expect she knows this law as well as we do, so our only assumption is that she’d rather these Council mandated lanes be paid for by NYC tax dollars, instead of Federal tax dollars. We can’t support raising local taxes just to protect the Federal Government, which is planning on creating a major deficit due to it’s $4.5 trillion plan that cuts taxes for the richest Americans.

If there is success in deterring bike and bus transportation, presumably with the goal of pushing more people into driving, it would add a massive amount of congestion to the already overcrowded roads. It’s estimated that 762,000 New Yorkers ride a bike regularly and that buses have a daily ridership of 1.4 million. That’s a lot of drivers clogging up the streets, especially since we’ve seen the success of congestion pricing where suburban commuters are saving 20-30 minutes and weekday midtown speeds are up 9% (30% on weekends).