There are many important topics that come up each election cycle from jobs to education to housing to crime. However, I personally find none more critical than our streets. The best house in the city, job in the city, school in the city.... they are all worthless if you don't feel safe to cross the street to get there. Streets are are too often thought of as unchangeable strips of asphalt only meant for cars where pedestrians and bicyclists simply don't belong. Well, they may not belong to the streets as we have them now but when space is properly allocated to prioritize people and their safe passage rather than car speeds, then we see a more active, vibrant richer city unfold.
Though less than half of New Yorkers own one, we dedicate nearly 80& of our street space to motor vehicle use alone. Sadly, you don't have to look far to meet someone who has seen firsthand the damage caused by this illogical balance. So many lives are lost and bodies injured that most of us shrug it off as the status quo; But every time I read the news of a crash I put myself in the victims shoes. When a car is up on the curb, a driver is not penalized for blocking the crosswalk, or a police officer immediately declares 'no criminal is suspected' I ask myself what would I do if that were me, or my family, or my friends. Would I simply say 'It Happens?' Would you?
These are OUR streets and we demand OUR safety. The next turn needed to get us off this endless crash course is to elect politicians who will stand up for safety and vocalize the need for improved engineering, education, and enforcement on our roads.
While the Department of Sanitation did its usual yeoman's job of plowing and salting the city's streets, too much of that plowed snow ends up creating headaches for pedestrians, and for less able-bodied New Yorkers, dangerous and impassable obstacles.