New York City Streets Plan, released without fanfare,
seeks hundreds more miles of bus and bike lanes
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
The Department of Transportation
released its
fi ve-year master plan for
the city’s streets last week, giving
a blueprint of the agency’s goals
for how to manage the Big Apple’s
6,300 miles of streets and 12,000
miles of sidewalks.
The so-called “New York
City Streets Plan,” which offi
cials chose to release without
pomp or press conference just
before 5 p.m., comes as Mayor
Bill de Blasio is about to leave
offi ce, but was required by a
law the City Council passed in
2019 and DOT will have to give
yearly updates on its progress of
the numerous projects starting
in 2023.
“Vision Zero has shown the nation
how to reimagine our streets
for buses, bikes, and pedestrians –
not just private vehicles. This plan
charts a path forward to build on
that progress with innovative
ideas from the lessons we’ve
learned. It will make our streets
safer than ever,” said de Blasio in
a statement Dec. 1.
The 95-page document lists
several benchmarks the city has
to hit by the end of 2026 under
the 2019 legislation including:
150 miles of bus lanes250 miles
of protected bike lanes4,750 intersections
that give signal priority
to public transit2,000 redesigned
intersections1 million square feet
of pedestrian space
FILE PHOTO/KEVIN DUGGAN
For 2022, DOT has to paint at
least 20 miles of new protected
bus lanes, 30 miles of protected
bike lanes, and add 500,000
square feet of new pedestrian
space.
Starting in 2023, the agency
must add 30 miles of protected
bus lanes and 50 miles of protected
bike lanes per year at a
minimum, according to the law,
even though DOT’s new plan lists
those fi gures instead as “average
per year benchmark targets.”
The agency admits that it
does not currently have the staff
or funding to meet these legal
requirements.
“Meeting these benchmarks—
and the other key parts of this
plan—willrequire increased staffing,
funding, facility space, and
new implementation strategies,”
reads the report. “We will work
aggressively towards meeting
these targets, within the limits
of the agency’s resources.”
DOT Commissioner Hank
Gutman noted in an introduction
to the report that it is still very
much a “draft” and will still have
to “balancing the needs of our
diverse communities.”
“This is a ‘draft’ blueprint
for the future of our streets.
The Council’s legislation contemplates,
and the NYC DOT
intends, that this Plan be the
starting point for a robust public
outreach program and that the
fi nal Streets Plan refl ect the concerns
and particular needs of the
various affected communities,”
Gutman wrote.
As de Blasio gets ready to leave
Gracie Mansion at the end of the
year, it will be up to incoming
Mayor Eric Adams, his new DOT
leadership, and the City Council
to actually implement any of these
proposals in the coming years.
The plan also includes previously
set goals that go further into
the future of moving more people
out of private cars and into public
transportation, walking, and
bicycling.
The agency wants to cut personal
driving from 31% in 2015
to only 16% in 2050, cycling from
1% to 10% during that time, and
transit from 28% to 32%.
There are some more delayed
newly-revived projects the agency
plans to bring to the city.
A long awaited proposal to
keep trash in containers rather
than on the sidewalks is set to roll
out as a “small residential pilot”
dubbed Clean Curbs in 2022,
which was fi rst announced in
early 2020.
New York pols rally around Planned Parenthood
BY DEAN MOSES
As a woman’s right to
abortion is threatened in
states across the country,
New York elected offi cials rallied
around Planned Parenthood in
Lower Manhattan Monday.
With abortion swiftly becoming
one of the year’s most contentious
issues and many fearing the
loss of their right to choose, a
gaggle of city and state politicians
are reassuring New Yorkers that
they will not lose access to these
health services.
Touring Planned Parenthood
on 26 Bleecker St., the likes of
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney,
Senator Brian Kavanagh,
Councilwoman Carlina Rivera,
famed journalist and activist
Gloria Steinem, and more touted
the importance of the facility
now more than ever. Maloney explained
that the location is already
seeing an infl ux of patients from
out of state.
“We just toured Planned
Parenthood and already they
are telling us that people are fl ying
in from Texas for treatment.
I am so proud that Planned
Parenthood is in the district I’m
privileged to represent and that
it is doing such good, wonderful
work to support women and
girls,” Maloney said.
“Reproductive rights are no
longer being chipped away. They
were chipped away all the time
I’ve been in Congress. Vote here
and vote there. They’re no longer
chipping away at our rights. They
are bulldozing them into the
ground,” she added.
This infl ux comes alongside the
Dobbs Supreme Court case over
Mississippi’s 15-week abortion
ban, ongoing litigation regarding
Texas’s six-week abortion ban,
and efforts to expand refusals
of health care, including abortion
care and contraception. In
the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s
Health Organization case, the
state of Mississippi argues that
the power to regulate abortions
should be a state issue and not
a federal one. As the battle in
court continues with a ruling
to be made by this summer, 21
states are on the verge of making
abortion illegal or extremely diffi
cult due to strict guidelines like
the “heartbeat laws.”
Chairwoman of the Committee
on Oversight and Reform in
addition to serving in Congress,
Maloney is pushing for a fi ve-part
plan to combat the onslaught on
women’s rights. Citing discussions
she has had with victims of
incest as young as 10-years-old
who have become pregnant,
called the abolishment of abortions
“cruel” and “inhumane.”
Maloney’s initiative includes
cementing the Equal Rights
Amendment into the Constitution
by passing the Women’s Health
Protection Act, which would
establish a statutory right to
abortion across the country while
also pushing against restrictions
to contraceptives.
For Gloria Steinem, this fi ght
As the right to abortion is threatened, elected officials rallied
around Planned Parenthood on Dec. 6.
is all too familiar. Spending decades
battling for women’s rights,
Steinem called this latest controversy
an attack on democracy.
“If we cannot control our
own physical selves, there is no
such thing as democracy. When
Hitler was elected, and he was
PHOTO BY DEAN MOSES
elected, the fi rst thing he did
the very next day was to padlock
the family planning clinics and
declare abortion a crime against
the state. Mussolini did the same
thing. Dictators know that they
have to control reproduction,”
Steinem said.
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