Do endorsements matter? Which ones?
Improvements are being steadily
made to transit accessibility
COURIER L 36 IFE, APRIL 16-22, 2021
OP-ED
BY SARAH E. FEINBERG
With the City’s reopening
now underway, it’s time
for New Yorkers to return to
the transit system. For most
people, this will involve simply
walking into a station
and getting on the train. But
that’s easier said than done for
wheelchair users, parents using
strollers, seniors with mobility
disabilities and so many
others.
While our buses and paratransit
service are both 100 percent
accessible, huge swaths
of our network– more than 70
percent of subway stations– remain
inaccessible according to
the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA).
While even 30 percent of our
stations make up a large number
of stations in pure numbers,
the fact that so much of
the system remains inaccessible
is unacceptable, and something
that our teams at New
York City Transit and MTA
Construction and Development
are working hard to improve–
so that every New Yorker can
take part in the City and subway’s
revival.
The good news is that we
are making strong progress all
the time. At least 10 ADA projects
are set to get underway
this year, with another 67 included
in our current Capital
Program. Our ultimate goal
is for the entire system to be
accessible to anyone. That is
the goal and the vision of the
Americans with Disabilities
Act, and it is our goal as well.
This is also a tall order, but
I think it is achievable. Last
year, MTA Construction and
Development completed ADA
upgrades at 11 stations – despite
a global pandemic and a dire fi -
nancial crisis that rocked the
agency.
We have also recently proposed
a new zoning measure
to the City Council called “Elevate
Transit: Zoning for Accessibility.”
This proposal, if enacted,
would allow the MTA to work
with private developers building
near our stations to incorporate
elevators and other improvements
more easily into
their designs. Of course, these
companies could also build the
upgrades themselves in order
to accommodate their own residents
and the community at
no cost to the MTA. This would
save us money that could be redirected
to additional accessibility
projects elsewhere in the
system.
Putting this proposal together
was a real community
effort. We worked closely
with advocates and developers
alike, as well as our partners at
the New York City Department
of City Planning and the Mayor’s
offi ce to get it right.
New Yorkers need and deserve
a fully inclusive transit
system. It’s something that
will benefi t us all as the City
looks to recover from this unprecedented
crisis. Trust that
we’re doing everything we can
to make our accessibility goals
a reality.
Sarah E. Feinberg is the interim
president of New York City
Transit.
This week featured a number
of new endorsements
in the race to be the
next mayor of New York City.
Whether any of these endorsements
will actually make a
difference is debated.
The vast majority of voters
in this June’s primary
election will likely be paying
a lot more attention to the
mayor’s race than all other
positions on the ballot. This
isn’t unusual: every year, the
campaigns for the largest and
most powerful position —
whether it’s mayor, governor,
or president — spend the most
money and attract the most
attention. What’s unusual
is that this year there are so
many other contested positions,
including comptroller,
the borough presidents in all
fi ve boroughs, and an overwhelming
majority of city
council seats.
One theory of voter choice
is that endorsements make a
big difference in elections for
positions where the voters
aren’t paying much attention
and need extra cues--like judge
or perhaps city council--but for
a marquee race like mayor the
voters examine the candidates
on their own and come to their
own conclusions.
I think this theory is true
to a degree, but I also believe
that most people vote for the
candidate that the people socially
around them are also
voting for. Voting is therefore,
I think increasingly, an act
of tribal self-identifi cation.
Under this theory, a critical
mass of individuals and organizations
endorsing a mayoral
candidate persuade sympathetic
high-information
voters into supporting that
candidate, and those voters
then persuade their friends.
There are really two sorts
of endorsements, individual
endorsements and organizational
endorsements. The individual
endorsements come
from anybody better-known
than average (I believe a majority
of the actors who play
the Avengers have already
endorsed at least four different
candidates for mayor)
and can happen relatively
quickly. The organizational
endorsements take longer because
organizations nearly
always decide amongst more
candidates than individuals
do, and then the organization
must vote or otherwise decide
how it will allocate support.
This week, Ray McGuire
landed the endorsements of
three major New York City
rappers: Jay-Z, Diddy, and
Nas. Meanwhile, the Working
Families Party issued a
ranked choice endorsement:
Scott Stringer fi rst, Dianne
Morales second, and Maya
Wiley third. The organizational
endorsements often go
to candidates who have been
around the longest and who
sometimes spend years or decades
currying favor with the
organization’s membership
and leadership.
Most of Ray McGuire’s endorsers
are individuals, and
that will likely continue in the
future. Andrew Yang is another
outsider candidate who
currently seems to be succeeding
without much organizational
support.
Meanwhile, Scott Stringer
and Eric Adams have lots of
individual endorsers but do
better with organizations, because
they’ve been around so
long. Maybe endorsements
matter more this year, with
the candidates’ messages being
fairly similar.
So right now we have no
idea which endorsements matter,
but by the end of this summer
we’ll be able to look back
and see which endorsements
did in fact matter. It’s not so
far away.
Nick Rizzo is a former Democratic
District Leader and a
political consultant who lives
in Greenpoint. Follow him on
Twitter @NickRizzo.
WORDS OF
RIZZDOM
Nick Rizzo
OPINION
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