Earlier this week, we testified at the City Planning Commission's marathon hearing on the proposed City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning reform proposal, which should help alleviate New York City's housing shortage while also putting in place policies that could help reduce driving while promoting the use of public transit and encouraging walking and biking.

Our full testimony follows below, and you can also view StreetsPAC Executive Director Eric McClure's delivery of our remarks on YouTube, beginning roughly at the 11-hour, 37-minute, and 30-second mark (yes, it was a very long hearing!).

On Tuesday, July 9, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., we're hosting a fundraiser for Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, and we hope you'll join us!

As Brooklyn Borough President, and before that, in his eight years in the New York City Council, no one has spoken more clearly than Antonio Reynoso on the need to improve street safety and public transportation.

His Brooklyn Comprehensive Plan prioritizes transit-oriented development, and calls for strengthening the borough's pedestrian, cycling, and bus infrastructure, fostering healthy and active public spaces, better managing curb space, and building a safer and more sustainable freight network.

As Chair of the Council's Sanitation Committee, Antonio led the effort to pass the city's Commercial Waste Zone program, which once fully implemented, will eliminate millions of miles of dangerous truck trips every year.

Antonio was among the first candidates we ever endorsed following our launch in 2013, and from day one, he's been outspoken on the need to reduce the city's reliance on cars, both as a necessary step in making streets safer and a critical piece in the effort to combat climate change.

At the event, we'll have plenty of appetizers to nosh on, and complimentary beer, wine, and soft drinks.

See below for details, and please click on the image to RSVP, or follow this link: https://antonioreynoso.link/streetspac. Hope to see you there!

It was a busy week for StreetsPAC, with Tuesday's state primary election, two relevant City Council committee hearings, and a meeting of the MTA's board at which congestion pricing was in focus.

StreetsPAC's Endorsees Win Six of Nine State Primary Races

Congratulations to Kristen Gonzalez, Jessica González-Rojas, Emily Gallagher, Jo Anne Simon, Claire Valdez, and Chloe Pierce, all of whom won their primary races on Tuesday after earning our endorsement.

They'll be among 13 StreetsPAC-endorsed candidates on the ballot for November's general election, a list that we expect to grow in the coming months as we continue to collect questionnaire responses and interview candidates. Stay tuned!

We also want to thank Eon Tyrell Huntley, Maria Ordoñez, and Jonathan Soto, who all ran competitive primary races against uphill odds while advocating for issues that earned them our endorsement.

Senator Gonzalez and Assemblymembers González-Rojas and Gallagher all won handily against opponents who had campaigned on opposition to programs like Open Streets and safety-focused street redesigns, demonstrating once again that support for making streets safer for walking and biking and improving public transit is both good policy and good politics.

On Tuesday this week, we testified at the New York City Council Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure's oversight hearing on intersections, sidewalks and pedestrian safety. We voiced our support for a bill that would mandate that the city improve paved medians with plantings or other stormwater-retaining infrastructure, and another that would require that the city's news racks be better managed. We offered qualified support for several pieces of legislation, including bills that would decriminalize "jaywalking," improve sidewalk lighting, and require study of a number of types of physical safety treatments in or around intersections.

We also expressed opposition to two proposed bills that appear intended to hamstring certain types of street-safety projects and changes to curbside uses. 

Our full testimony follows below.

Earlier this week, we submitted testimony to the New York City Council Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection relating to a hearing it held on June 21 on several pieces of legislation pertaining to powered micro-mobility devices and the city's food-delivery ecosystem. We offered our support for legislation that would help alleviate the unreasonable demands that delivery-app companies place on workers that in turn lead to unsafe riding behaviors, and voiced qualified support for well intentioned bills that would increase accountability for app companies but could, in our opinion, be improved.

Our full testimony follows below.

This past Wednesday, we testified at the MTA Board meeting to urge them to ignore Governor Hochul's "indefinite pause" of congestion pricing, which had been due to launch on June 30. While we knew that the Board didn't have the legal authority to move forward on its own, we still felt it worthwhile to urge them to do so. And we were heartened to hear the overwhelming commitment among MTA Board members to the implementation of the Central Business District Tolling Program.

You can help keep the pressure on by making phone calls to express your support for congestion pricing. Don't let up until the Governor reverses course!

Governor Hochul: (518) 474-8390

Senator Schumer: (212) 486-4430

Senator Gillibrand: (212) 688-6262

Assembly Speaker Heastie: (518) 455-3791

Our full testimony to the MTA Board follows below.

Today is Primary Day, and polls will be open in New York from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. You can find your polling site, review a sample ballot, confirm your registration status, and see other election-related information at vote.nyc. Outside New York City, visit voterlookup.elections.ny.gov.

We're excited to have endorsed 16 excellent candidates for New York State Senate and Assembly, including nine who have contested primary races. The nine candidates we've endorsed who appear on the ballot today are running in races in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and in a first for us, upstate New York. You can read more about each of them, including important aspects of their records and platforms on street safety and transportation, below. Candidates are listed by legislative body, and in ascending order by district number. You can find information on all 16 of our endorsees here, and we do anticipate making a number of additional endorsements in advance of November's general election. Stay tuned for that.

Turnout in the absence of a contested Presidential or statewide primary is expected to be low, so your vote for a candidate committed to making streets safer and calmer and public transit more reliable and efficient can truly make a difference. Please make a plan to get to the polls, and don't forget that as long as you're in the queue to vote by 9 p.m., you can't be turned away.

Lastly, there were two races in which we interviewed multiple candidates but were unable to come to consensus around an endorsement, which was due to their across-the-board good positions on the issues on which StreetsPAC is focused. We offer a bit more detail about those races at the end.

If you live in one of the nine districts in which we have made an endorsement, we urge you to vote for the StreetsPAC slate!

We're proud today to announce our endorsement of 16 candidates for New York State's Legislature, three for State Senate and 13 for Assembly.

Our 2024 endorsees include 11 incumbents, four candidates running against, or for the right to face, a sitting incumbent, and one candidate vying for an open seat. Seven of our incumbent endorsees do not face primary races, while four do have opponents, which we've noted below. We've endorsed candidates running in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens, and for the first time, upstate New York. We do anticipate making a number of additional endorsements in advance of November's general election, and will continue to seek responses to our questionnaire, and interview candidates, in the coming months.

In-person early voting for the primary begins this Saturday, June 15, which is also the deadline to register if you are not already a registered voter. You can check your registration status, confirm your early-voting and election-day polling locations, and find other important election-related information at vote.nyc. We've included links to district maps for each of the candidates with the individual endorsement statements below.

Early voting will continue daily through Sunday, June 23, with varying hours, in advance of Primary Day, which is Tuesday, June 25, when polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. You can confirm your early-voting and Primary Day voting sites, which may be different, and check early-voting hours using the polling site locator: findmypollsite.vote.nyc.

We're excited about this year's crop of candidates, and invite you to join us in supporting them. Read on to learn more about each of our endorsees, including important aspects of their records on street safety and transportation. Candidates are listed below by legislative body, and in ascending order by district number. For each of our endorsees running in a contested primary, we've included a link that will take you directly to information about volunteering to help their campaigns get out the vote, especially critical in today's low-turnout environment.

Lastly, there were two races in which we interviewed multiple candidates but were unable to come to consensus around an endorsement, which was due to their across-the-board good positions on the issues on which StreetsPAC is focused. We offer a bit more detail about those races at the end.

We testified yesterday at the New York City Council Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure's preliminary hearing on the city's FY2025 budget, focusing on ongoing concerns about the Streets Plan and renewing our call for public investment in bike share and secure bike parking, among other items. Our full testimony follows below.

Yesterday, we testified at the MTA Board's hearing on the Traffic Mobility Review Board's proposed toll structure for congestion pricing. We're strongly supportive of the TMRB's recommendations, which will raise the legally required $1 billion in annual revenue for the MTA capital program while also putting a significant dent in congestion and speeding up trips in the Central Business District.

Our full testimony follows below.