Street safety group wants
to partially defund NYPD
traffic enforcement efforts
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
New York City should shift part of
the NYPD’s budget toward creating
street safety improvements
that would reduce the department’s traffi c
enforcement responsibilities, according to
a report released on June 19.
Transportation Alternatives, a street
safety advocacy group, released the report
“The Case for Self-Enforcing Streets”
which declared that police-based approaches
to traffi c enforcement “are ineffective
and put people of color at risk.” The
report further calls on the city to invest
in technology and new infrastructure to
eliminate safety hazards and reduce the
amount of public interaction with police.
“By shifting resources to infrastructural
solutions, which work 24/7, are free from
implicit bias, and are unable to harass
or cause violence, the city can lessen the
need for armed police enforcement (e.g.
all non-civilian members of the NYPD),
reduce traffi c injuries and fatalities, and
save money,” as noted in the executive
summary. “Traffi c crashes cost the city’s
economy $4.29 billion every year and police
misconduct settlements were $237.4
million in 2018.”
The study declared that NYPD enforcement
of traffi c laws has been “unfair and
dangerous to Black New Yorkers” through
“on-the-street harassment, unequal summonsing
and police violence.”
Citing one example, 90% of all New
Yorkers ticketed in 2019 for jaywalking —
the lowest possible traffi c offense — were
either Black or Latinx. In perspective,
Black and Latinx New Yorkers comprise
55% of the city’s entire population.
Even the enforcement of riding bikes
on sidewalks has proven unequal. Transportation
Alternatives reported that more
criminal summonses for this offense were
issued in Black and Latinx neighborhoods
than in white neighborhoods. Also, the occurrence
of bike riding on sidewalks was
more prevalent in communities of color
because there are fewer protected bike
lanes there.
The disparate enforcement of traffi c
laws can be remedied in part through
physical changes to the streetscape to make
roads safer and eliminate hazards.
The report recommended that the
city repurpose part of the NYPD budget
toward “self-enforcing” street designs focused
on calming traffi c. Transportation
Alternatives also want the city to focus on
using technology to automatically enforce
PHOTO BY TODD MAISEL
Street safety advocates want the
NYPD to back off on rigidly enforcing
traffic laws against working cyclists
as part of a report that focuses on
“self-enforcing streets.”
rules related to parking, bus lanes, bike
lanes and intersections.
The organization also wants the city to
end the crackdown on working bicyclists
and delivery workers who use e-bikes,
as they too have been targets of unequal
enforcement.
“It has become abundantly clear that
the NYPD’s approach to traffi c safety is
not working, especially for New Yorkers
of color,” said Marco Conner DiAquoi,
deputy director of Transportation Alternatives.
“We know what works, and that’s
street design that is always on duty, and
automated enforcement technology that
doesn’t discriminate.”
Already, six City Council Members —
Keith Powers, Bill Perkins and Carlina
Rivera of Manhattan, Carlos Menchaca of
Brooklyn, and Costa Constantinides and
Jimmy Van Bramer of Queens —support
these and other recommendations in the
Transportation Alternatives report.
“The more we work to build our transportation
infrastructure and safer streets,
the less need there will be for patrolling
that leads to uneven enforcement,” said
Powers, who chairs the Criminal Justice
Committee.
amNewYork reached out to Mayor’s
offi ce for comment on the report, and is
awaiting a response.
Read the full report on the Transportation
Alternatives website, transalt.org.
HIGHER ED TODAY
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Elvira Mata was born with a physical disability
that causes swelling and pain in the
joints of her fingers. The second-year student
at Hostos Community College works as a senior
nurse attendant, and for months cared for
patients with COVID-19 in a Bronx hospital.
Despite her condition, she was able to lift and
bathe her patients.
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“Before I go to work, I have pain,” says Elvira,
who was diagnosed as a young child with
boutonnière deformity. “But when I see that
the patients need me, I can move more freely.
I love seeing their smiles when I help them and
they feel better.”
Elvira is also dealing with tremendous
personal heartache after her father, a taxi
driver, died of COVID-19 in April. Her mother
was also infected and endured a lengthy period
of recovery.
I am proud to say that Elvira exemplifies
a standard of public service not uncommon
among students at the City University of New
York, an intense drive to help New Yorkers persevere
despite their own challenges and personal
losses. They are nurses and medics, National
Guard members and good Samaritans
who helped shoulder the pain of the pandemic
while they balanced demanding course loads
and caring for their own families.
They are why New York’s recovery goes
hand in hand with CUNY. With campuses
throughout the city that was the pandemic’s
one-time global epicenter, the nation’s largest
urban public university has the intellect
and applied expertise to help chart a course
forward; the capacity to retrain workers, and
equip them with the skills to participate in a
re-invented job market; and the wellspring of
creative capital to help our city and state move
forward in the months and years ahead.
When it comes to our students, Elvira
is not alone. Many others stepped up and did
what they could to help New Yorkers weather
the crisis. Here are just a few examples.
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Anthony Almojera, a Brooklyn College
senior who is also an Emergency Medical Services
lieutenant paramedic in the FDNY and
vice president of the EMS officers’ union, has
always leaned on family and faith to get him
through difficult times. Almojera took off the
spring semester to have surgery on a torn biceps
tendon, an injury he sustained during a
call. When the pandemic surged in March, he
put off the surgery to pitch in, working 16-hour
shifts nearly seven days a week and fielding
some of the more than 7,000 calls that came in
each day requesting emergency medical service
in the city.
Shawna Townsend is pursuing her Ph.D.
in nursing at The Graduate Center while also
serving as a clinical nurse leader at the Hospital
for Special Surgery in Manhattan. When
the pandemic deepened, she helped convert a
hospital that specializes in orthopedic surgery
to one that could treat patients with COVID-19.
In the darkest days when up to four of the
hospital’s floors were filled with coronavirus
patients, she would find inspiration from the
patients who recovered and were showered
with applause from the staffers as they left the
facility.
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Borough of Manhattan Community College
student Fenellah Kargbo is a member of
the New York Army National Guard. She managed
to keep up with her coursework in four
classes even after she was activated in March,
midway through the semester, to load personal
protective equipment at a distribution center
in Albany. For encouragement while separated
from her family, Kargbo, who plans to apply to
the BMCC nursing program, relied on frequent
video chats with her husband and 14-month-old
son.
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As their Chancellor, I am humbled by
the bravery and sacrifice of Elvira, Anthony,
Shawna, and Fenellah, all CUNY heroes. They
are exemplary ambassadors of the University,
embodying the University’s mission to help
one another so we all can move forward together.
They, and many more like them, are the
University’s guardian angels, and on behalf of
the whole CUNY system, I extend the gratitude
of the University community and all New Yorkers.
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16 June 25, 2020 Schneps Media
/transalt.org
