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Downloaded from
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Official YIFY movies site:
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- On May 17th, 2021,

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I walked my son Kai to school
and Matt Jensen greeted us.

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He cracked a joke, he smiled,

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said Good morning, and Kai went to school.

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- To our top story, this half hour

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- A hit and run killed a man in Brooklyn.

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It happened overnight and police
say the victim was crossing

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the street when he was hit.

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The driver just kept going.

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- The next day, rumors were flying

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that Mr. Jensen had been killed.

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Kids were arguing, saying
- that's not possible.

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He was teaching me in
my classroom yesterday.

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And I had the wretched job

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of telling my two children that a man

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who taught them yesterday had been killed

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by a speeding car, one
block from their bedroom.

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- When I was informed
that Mr. Jensen was struck

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and killed in a hit and run accident,

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I didn't even need to ask where, I knew.

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Greenpoint has grown, more people,

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more cars, more cyclists,

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and yet the streets haven't changed.

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- There was another hit and run
that just happened on Norman

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and McGuinness Boulevard
about 20 minutes ago.

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- I saw a cyclist get clipped
and knocked off their bike.

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In the very place where
there's a ghost bike already.

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You feel powerless. It's a design issue.

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It's entirely flawed.

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- We have the numbers.

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It's really quite striking. Since 2014,

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1,443 reported crashes injuring 331 people

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and 230

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of those injured people
happened in the last five years,

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suggesting that safety has deteriorated.

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- For years there is a crash

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on McGuinness Boulevard every single week.

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It is wrong. It is shameful.

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The status quo is literally killing us.

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- Enough is enough.

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We're gathered here

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to insist on a comprehensive
infrastructural

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redesign of McGuinness Boulevard

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in honor of our dearly
beloved Matthew Jensen.

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- Friends ask me, oh,
isn't it dangerous riding

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around New York?

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I've been doing that
for about 40 years now.

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Something like that. Kinda lost count.

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Biking in the city has changed a lot

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since I started doing it.

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In the beginning, of course there were,

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I don't think there were any bike lanes.

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I used to live on the lower East side.

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There weren't very many cabs
that would come around there.

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Then I lived in Soho.

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Similar, not too many cabs
in Soho in those days.

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So a bike would get me where
I wanted to go. If I wanted

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to go hear some music, meet
some friends, whatever it was,

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you could just zoom from
one to another very quickly.

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There was not that much
traffic downtown in those

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days, especially at night.

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I find it incredibly
empowering and liberating.

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You feel connected, but watch out.

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I see this one kind of edging over.

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They're going to turn out.

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I find at the present
moment there's an awful lot

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of vehicles sharing the roads.

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You have people going the wrong way.

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You have really fast electric vehicles.

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There's an incredible number
of cars that run red lights,

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trucks that run red lights.

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Even people riding gas powered
motorcycles in the bike lanes

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and there's almost no enforcement.

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- To everyone from PS 110, I'm so sorry

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that you're gathered here
in pain and mourning.

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For years, we have been trying
to undo the car culture,

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laws which favored cars and motorists

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regardless of what happened to people.

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Human life matters a lot more than cars

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and trucks in this city,
so it's time for a change.

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We are putting money in the
budget immediately to redesign

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and fix McGuinness
Boulevard once and for all.

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We're going to just plain
do it. We have to do it now.

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We have to do it now to save lives.

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- Let's hear it again for this redesign

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of McGuinness Boulevard

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and show the Mayor

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that he's doing absolutely
the right thing.

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In that moment,

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I was overwhelmed

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because I had been involved in too many

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advocacy campaigns already to
know that things weren't easy

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and they weren't, even
when they seemed easy,

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something was going to go wrong.

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So I said to DOT when we
first started working on this,

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I said, I want this to
become like the vanguard

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of public input.

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I want there to not just be one meeting

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and I don't want just one community board,

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I want you to do this over
and over and over again.

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And then I had a talk with the advocates

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who were celebrating and I said, look,

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you've gotta make sure
you just shore it up

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because something could go wrong.

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- In New York City, more than
half of the pedestrians killed

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and injured on our roads
are killed on just 7%

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of roads. Wide arterials with
lots of lanes that are moving

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through pedestrian dense areas,

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through shopping centers,

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through areas where there's schools

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and hospitals, where
people live and interact

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and need to cross the street.

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- The idea that these are accidents

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allows people to think,

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oh, well, you know, it couldn't be helped.

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Somebody slipped in the bathtub.

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And they're not, you know.
We know exactly, you know

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what we can do that would
eliminate most of these,

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and to me it's criminal that we don't.

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- It's almost like people
literally have to die for us

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to be able to see changes happen,

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and that's not the way
you want to do things.

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- I always tell people,
don't say accident,

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but also when you hear the word accident,

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let it be an alarm bell.

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Let it raise your antenna.

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Let it be something that makes you ask,

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has this happened before?

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Could it happen again?

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Will it definitely happen
again if we do nothing?

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- When we go back a hundred
years, we see streets

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that were pretty much the
bailiwick of the pedestrian.

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The pedestrian walked every which way.

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If we were in middle of
Park Avenue in Midtown,

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we would see a park with benches.

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We would see the Brooklyn
Bridge had four tracks going

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across, and a little
carriageway and a pedestrian way,

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and was handling 400,000 people a day.

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Kids ran the street. There were no adults.

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It was our meeting place, our playground,

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our football field.

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We had races between sewers.
The curb was our dugout.

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You might see 15 kids waiting
for their turn to bat.

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- Up until the 1920s,

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the streets were also places for commerce.

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They were places where goods were sold.

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They were places where
waste was disposed of.

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They were places where
materials were stored.

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That all kind of gets pushed
aside as the automobile begins

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to take over in the early
part of the 20th century.

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- As more and more people were driving,

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more and more people were
dying, particularly in the teens

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and in the twenties in city after city.

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We saw a death rate in the
1920s that was horrible.

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- With cars going by at
30, 40 miles an hour,

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the street was no longer a place

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where people could gather selling apples

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or sharpening knives.

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So that compelled the
reorganization of streets

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to make official the priority

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of the automobile in
the public right of way.

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In fact, the streets are
in some cases redesigned

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to get rid of a lot of that flexible space

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that had once served other uses.

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The stoops get cut off the buildings so

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that the lanes can be wider.

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The park disappears from Park Avenue so

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that the street can carry more traffic.

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- Prior to 1910,

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every single major bridge had
a bikeway and a pedestrian way

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and had transit.

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Since 1910, none had transit going across

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and some didn't even have
pedestrian or bikeways.

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As a teenager growing up in Bensonhurst,

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we watched the Verrazano Narrows Bridge

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go up in construction.

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And when that bridge
finally was completed,

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I couldn't get more excited.

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We immediately on day one
went to ride across the bridge

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and lo and behold,

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a construction worker
stopped us from going

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across the bridge.

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Bikes were considered kids things

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and not taken seriously as
a form of transportation.

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- Look at this street, it's all cars.

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Look at this beautiful street

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with the London plane trees behind me.

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This was probably the most
gorgeous street in all

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of America in 1850 when it was laid out

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and in 1880 when these
trees got to full height,

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and now all I see are cars
and all I hear are cars,

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- What happened?

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Just a man crossing against the light.

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Here's somebody else.

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He's in a hurry.

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- This could happen to you.

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The automotive industry was
brilliant in creating this idea

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that the pedestrian was the violator.

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The pedestrian was there first,

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and the pedestrian had
claimed all of that space

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for hundreds, thousands of years,

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since they were walking upright.

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Don't cross against a red light.

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Don't cross between parked
cars. Don't jaywalk.

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They came up with this
brilliant pejorative jaywalking

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and criminalized the behavior
that people did for centuries,

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walking in a straight line.

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- Show consideration for the
drivers. Don't be a jaywalker,

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be an A walker.

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- We ride and walk with love
in our hearts with sadness for

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what has been lost,

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with rage that these crashes
did not have to happen

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and with hope that we never
have to do this again.

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We do not know the name of this victim.

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He was in his thirties, he was male

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and he died on October 17th, 2002.

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He was a pedestrian right
here at the traffic signal.

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We can see exactly why this
would be such a dangerous place.

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When I moved to the district in 2010,

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I witnessed some fairly
catastrophic car accidents.

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I just couldn't understand
why this kept happening

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and there was seemingly
like almost no, no reaction.

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There was no infrastructure change.

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This just remained like
a real thorn in my side

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and I was trying to figure out
what was going on politically

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that was disrupting

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what I felt was a common
sense kind of thing.

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I decided to run for office in part

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because another person was
killed on this road in 2019.

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I remember when I was first
running, I was thinking of it,

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I was like, this is like an experiment

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and I'm probably going to lose.

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But I didn't lose. I won by a lot.

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So, because in my last election I won

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by 80%,

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I have to really consider that people want

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what I'm offering them.

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- Even as car ownership
remained the province

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of a relative few in the early
half of the 20th century,

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it was of course the
aspiration of everyone.

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A woman in Muncie, Indiana
said she bought a car

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before she installed indoor
plumbing at her house,

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because you can't go to town in a bathtub.

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In those early days, I
do think that it was kind

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of a miracle to be able to
just go wherever you wanted

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whenever you wanted and
have that total freedom.

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And especially as the highways begin

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to open up the natural resources
around the city, to be able

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to get to the beach or up into
the mountains on the weekend.

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I mean, that is the dream of

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so many working class families
in New York at that time.

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So I think there is a broad feeling

255
00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:41,980
that things are moving in the direction of

256
00:12:41,980 --> 00:12:42,980
progress.

257
00:12:42,980 --> 00:12:44,802
There was a saying when I was a child,

258
00:12:44,802 --> 00:12:47,139
"What's good for GM is
good for the country."

259
00:12:48,399 --> 00:12:49,480
- The car industry

260
00:12:49,480 --> 00:12:52,120
and the corporate sort of influence on

261
00:12:53,590 --> 00:12:55,899
how this country was
shaped was was massive.

262
00:12:55,899 --> 00:12:59,080
It was shaped around cars
entirely. Driving cars

263
00:12:59,080 --> 00:13:00,669
and owning cars and selling cars

264
00:13:00,669 --> 00:13:02,320
and having ample places to stick

265
00:13:02,320 --> 00:13:03,789
the cars when you weren't driving them.

266
00:13:04,779 --> 00:13:07,059
In the 1940s and fifties, wealthy

267
00:13:07,059 --> 00:13:10,720
and even middle class families
are leaving for the suburbs.

268
00:13:10,720 --> 00:13:14,559
It's hard to ignore the role
of racism, both in perpetuating

269
00:13:14,559 --> 00:13:15,759
that movement out of cities

270
00:13:15,759 --> 00:13:16,870
and perpetuating the system

271
00:13:16,870 --> 00:13:18,639
of automobile that accompanies it.

272
00:13:18,639 --> 00:13:20,164
And that's all made possible

273
00:13:20,164 --> 00:13:21,850
by this web of federal subsidies,

274
00:13:21,850 --> 00:13:23,230
both for interstate highways,

275
00:13:23,230 --> 00:13:26,049
for mortgages and everything else.

276
00:13:26,049 --> 00:13:28,690
- There was an attitude that
the city is like a machine.

277
00:13:28,690 --> 00:13:31,870
It's a matter of zooming
from A to B or whatever,

278
00:13:31,870 --> 00:13:34,389
and not really about the quality of life

279
00:13:34,389 --> 00:13:36,639
or enjoying a place.

280
00:13:36,639 --> 00:13:40,659
I think that kind of
overlooks what it means

281
00:13:40,659 --> 00:13:41,919
to be a human being,

282
00:13:41,919 --> 00:13:43,809
what it means to be a social animal.

283
00:13:44,769 --> 00:13:46,840
This is the American dream,

284
00:13:46,840 --> 00:13:50,080
- Traveling on time,
saving super highways,

285
00:13:50,080 --> 00:13:53,289
free flowing channels
of concrete and steel.

286
00:13:54,580 --> 00:13:58,355
- Robert Moses is a world
famous highway planner,

287
00:13:58,355 --> 00:14:00,307
a man who knows his business.

288
00:14:01,929 --> 00:14:04,179
- Robert Moses was a pioneer in ramming

289
00:14:04,179 --> 00:14:05,799
highways through cities.

290
00:14:05,799 --> 00:14:08,379
You know, the United States
embarked on a full scale

291
00:14:08,379 --> 00:14:10,539
campaign of building in post World War II

292
00:14:10,539 --> 00:14:12,039
with the interstate highways,

293
00:14:12,039 --> 00:14:13,720
but Moses was doing that here in New York

294
00:14:13,720 --> 00:14:16,690
before that, during the New
Deal - the parkway system,

295
00:14:16,690 --> 00:14:18,610
the expressways, the Gowanus.

296
00:14:18,610 --> 00:14:21,429
We really chopped up a lot of
the city, especially in Queens

297
00:14:21,429 --> 00:14:23,799
and the Bronx during that period.

298
00:14:23,799 --> 00:14:26,200
- In this jet age, events move fast

299
00:14:26,200 --> 00:14:28,299
and our progress is certain to be steady

300
00:14:28,299 --> 00:14:31,539
as we clear away the
structures that block progress.

301
00:14:33,009 --> 00:14:34,360
- One of Moses' projects

302
00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:36,700
after World War II was
McGuinness Boulevard,

303
00:14:36,700 --> 00:14:38,590
which had been Oakland Street,

304
00:14:38,590 --> 00:14:41,830
a two lane cobblestone
residential corridor,

305
00:14:41,830 --> 00:14:45,190
and that was widened dramatically
with many more car lanes,

306
00:14:45,190 --> 00:14:47,559
really as part of a connecting road

307
00:14:47,559 --> 00:14:49,299
between the Long Island Expressway

308
00:14:49,299 --> 00:14:51,100
and the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.

309
00:14:52,399 --> 00:14:53,809
To really increase that footprint

310
00:14:53,809 --> 00:14:56,750
and create all the new
lanes meant taking out a lot

311
00:14:56,750 --> 00:14:58,700
of homes and other buildings.

312
00:14:58,700 --> 00:15:00,230
So cars came in

313
00:15:00,230 --> 00:15:03,379
and it's a high volume
of cars at higher speeds,

314
00:15:03,379 --> 00:15:06,379
with gas stations and
retail with big parking lots

315
00:15:06,379 --> 00:15:08,179
and the kind of things you tend to see

316
00:15:08,179 --> 00:15:11,090
in you know a totally car
dependent suburban area,

317
00:15:11,090 --> 00:15:13,100
but there is still a
residential neighborhood there.

318
00:15:14,450 --> 00:15:16,399
- I grew up right down
the block from here.

319
00:15:16,399 --> 00:15:18,919
My great-grandmother's house
was knocked down in the

320
00:15:18,919 --> 00:15:21,259
first place to build McGuinness Boulevard.

321
00:15:21,259 --> 00:15:24,230
And my dad when I was growing
up here in Greenpoint,

322
00:15:24,230 --> 00:15:26,149
this is the story of so many parents

323
00:15:26,149 --> 00:15:27,919
that raised children in this neighborhood,

324
00:15:27,919 --> 00:15:29,809
my dad used to wake up in the middle

325
00:15:29,809 --> 00:15:33,620
of the night in a cold sweat
having had the same nightmare

326
00:15:33,620 --> 00:15:36,919
over and over again, which was
that I ran out of the house

327
00:15:36,919 --> 00:15:39,559
and I was hit and killed on the boulevard.

328
00:15:40,789 --> 00:15:43,039
This story has repeated itself over

329
00:15:43,039 --> 00:15:44,690
and over again here in Greenpoint.

330
00:15:53,090 --> 00:15:55,549
- Years ago when I was on music tours,

331
00:15:55,549 --> 00:15:58,039
I started bringing a folding bicycle.

332
00:15:58,039 --> 00:15:59,880
We'd put them in the tour bus

333
00:15:59,880 --> 00:16:01,429
and pull them out in the morning

334
00:16:01,429 --> 00:16:02,629
and explore where we were before

335
00:16:02,629 --> 00:16:05,870
we had to do soundcheck and do a show.

336
00:16:05,870 --> 00:16:07,129
I really enjoyed that

337
00:16:07,129 --> 00:16:09,620
it allowed me to explore all these cities.

338
00:16:09,620 --> 00:16:11,539
I remember riding around Istanbul,

339
00:16:11,539 --> 00:16:14,480
which has terrible traffic,
but I could explore the

340
00:16:14,480 --> 00:16:18,985
whole city, Reykjavic, Rome.

341
00:16:18,985 --> 00:16:21,259
A lot of people are
familiar with Amsterdam

342
00:16:21,259 --> 00:16:24,889
and Copenhagen where everybody
gets around on bicycles.

343
00:16:25,879 --> 00:16:29,629
Oddly enough, some of those
places, I think Copenhagen,

344
00:16:29,629 --> 00:16:31,730
was not always a bike city.

345
00:16:31,730 --> 00:16:35,269
It was given over to cars
like a lot of American cities.

346
00:16:35,269 --> 00:16:39,799
And then little by
little it was taken back.

347
00:16:39,799 --> 00:16:41,269
They took some parking spots

348
00:16:41,269 --> 00:16:43,700
and turned them into public
spaces, which then filled up

349
00:16:43,700 --> 00:16:45,350
with outdoor restaurants.

350
00:16:45,350 --> 00:16:47,029
They put in bike lanes.

351
00:16:47,029 --> 00:16:50,389
And it made it a much more
pleasant place to live and work.

352
00:16:51,379 --> 00:16:53,990
As happens in many other
places, it ends up being good

353
00:16:53,990 --> 00:16:57,379
for business and good for
people's quality of life,

354
00:16:57,379 --> 00:17:00,679
and brings in tourists
and all the rest too.

355
00:17:00,679 --> 00:17:04,700
- I'm seeing a gentleman right
now with two kids on the back

356
00:17:04,700 --> 00:17:06,109
of his bike and here he comes.

357
00:17:07,009 --> 00:17:09,769
It's beautiful, they're
happy, they're smiling,

358
00:17:09,769 --> 00:17:14,494
they're together, going to
camp, school, whatever it is,

359
00:17:14,494 --> 00:17:16,309
and that was my husband and our kids.

360
00:17:16,309 --> 00:17:19,369
We rode them to school on
their bikes almost every day

361
00:17:19,369 --> 00:17:20,839
unless it was pouring or freezing.

362
00:17:21,680 --> 00:17:25,819
And we continued like that

363
00:17:26,779 --> 00:17:31,099
until the summer of 2006.

364
00:17:32,119 --> 00:17:35,150
My husband, Dr. Carl Henry Nacht,

365
00:17:35,150 --> 00:17:38,299
who was a physician on the
upper west side of Manhattan,

366
00:17:38,299 --> 00:17:41,960
serving by this time, thousands of people,

367
00:17:41,960 --> 00:17:46,880
and we decided to try out
the fairly new greenway.

368
00:17:46,880 --> 00:17:49,384
We had a green bicycle light,

369
00:17:49,384 --> 00:17:53,069
it was probably the first
bicycle light in NYC, to go.

370
00:17:53,069 --> 00:17:55,740
And we were riding next to each other

371
00:17:55,740 --> 00:18:00,000
and all of the sudden these
headlights are coming at me

372
00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:03,869
and this truck is swerving
around into the intersection,

373
00:18:03,869 --> 00:18:06,569
missed me by inches, but hit my husband.

374
00:18:07,500 --> 00:18:10,650
And he died three days
later from his injuries.

375
00:18:10,650 --> 00:18:15,359
These are deaths that
create a huge hole in a

376
00:18:15,359 --> 00:18:19,890
community and the ripples out
from it go on and on and on.

377
00:18:19,890 --> 00:18:21,960
And these are violent deaths.

378
00:18:21,960 --> 00:18:24,660
I was there. I know what it looks like,

379
00:18:24,660 --> 00:18:26,549
I know what it sounds like,

380
00:18:26,549 --> 00:18:30,029
and I know the desperation
of sitting in that place

381
00:18:30,930 --> 00:18:34,200
with my husband, still alive,

382
00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:38,700
and hearing the sirens from

383
00:18:38,700 --> 00:18:41,400
Saint Vincent's Hospital coming north

384
00:18:41,400 --> 00:18:44,075
and not able to get to me

385
00:18:44,075 --> 00:18:48,075
because the West Side Highway
is chock-a-block with traffic.

386
00:20:10,944 --> 00:20:11,778
- Oops.

387
00:20:15,060 --> 00:20:16,060
- Hi.

388
00:20:16,060 --> 00:20:17,751
- No motor vehicles.

389
00:20:17,751 --> 00:20:19,268
- On the bike path.

390
00:20:19,268 --> 00:20:22,547
- I know - they should
have done this a while ago.

391
00:20:22,547 --> 00:20:27,025
- Well, we're doing their
job for them. Thank you.

392
00:20:27,025 --> 00:20:29,083
I'm glad you appreciate.

393
00:20:29,083 --> 00:20:30,523
- I'm a bicycle rider.

394
00:20:30,523 --> 00:20:34,116
- There you go. It's not hard.

395
00:20:36,930 --> 00:20:39,269
- A lot of tickets. Yeah,
that's not even readable.

396
00:20:39,269 --> 00:20:40,319
I don't even know what he's thinking.

397
00:20:42,930 --> 00:20:43,762
Hey, it's Gersh Kuntzman,

398
00:20:43,762 --> 00:20:46,238
Still on the criminal mischief
beat. Still got my pen.

399
00:20:46,238 --> 00:20:48,130
Listen, it's not that
often I come along a car

400
00:20:48,130 --> 00:20:50,019
that's so egregiously defaced.

401
00:20:50,019 --> 00:20:52,690
You could ask yourself, is
that just normal wear and tear?

402
00:20:52,690 --> 00:20:55,119
I don't think so, the rest of
the car looks pretty pristine.

403
00:20:55,119 --> 00:20:56,619
So it's time for this
guy to get the special.

404
00:20:56,619 --> 00:20:58,000
I call this the special.

405
00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:01,988
Just a simple free paint job.

406
00:21:05,538 --> 00:21:07,690
I'm not going to say it's
Picasso, but it's not bad.

407
00:21:07,690 --> 00:21:10,840
And now this guy will only
get the tickets he deserves,

408
00:21:10,840 --> 00:21:12,115
and it's a lot.

409
00:21:16,089 --> 00:21:17,089
- In New York City,

410
00:21:17,089 --> 00:21:20,589
bicycles somehow managed to
survive all these decades,

411
00:21:20,589 --> 00:21:22,690
with the automobile coming in.

412
00:21:22,690 --> 00:21:25,750
But it did that the way
cockroaches survive,

413
00:21:25,750 --> 00:21:30,609
it was in the cracks where
nobody could notice it.

414
00:21:30,609 --> 00:21:32,380
- In 1966,

415
00:21:32,380 --> 00:21:36,220
New York City mayor John Lindsay
made Central Park car free

416
00:21:36,220 --> 00:21:37,420
on Sundays.

417
00:21:37,420 --> 00:21:42,420
And that kind of pried
open the door to important

418
00:21:42,519 --> 00:21:45,400
changes, at least changes
in thinking about the place

419
00:21:45,400 --> 00:21:47,410
of the car in the city.

420
00:21:47,410 --> 00:21:50,890
In 1973, there was the deus ex machina

421
00:21:50,890 --> 00:21:54,160
of the Arab oil embargo
and the OPEC price increase

422
00:21:54,160 --> 00:21:57,640
and suddenly overnight
gasoline doubled in price,

423
00:21:57,640 --> 00:21:59,500
when you could buy it.

424
00:21:59,500 --> 00:22:02,559
And that ushered in an overnight boom

425
00:22:02,559 --> 00:22:04,660
in the amount of cycling, not so much

426
00:22:04,660 --> 00:22:06,579
because car drivers switched to bikes, but

427
00:22:06,579 --> 00:22:09,579
because people who had
a bike in the basement

428
00:22:09,579 --> 00:22:12,309
or in the living room felt
emboldened to go on the streets

429
00:22:12,309 --> 00:22:15,519
because they weren't going
to get run over by cars.

430
00:22:15,519 --> 00:22:19,059
It's five o'clock in the
afternoon, there are no other cars

431
00:22:19,059 --> 00:22:22,250
and there may be a
million people on bikes.

432
00:22:22,250 --> 00:22:26,601
In 1980 Ed Koch went to
Beijing and saw so many bikes.

433
00:22:26,601 --> 00:22:29,170
I say, isn't this marvelous?

434
00:22:29,170 --> 00:22:30,700
All these people on bikes -

435
00:22:30,700 --> 00:22:34,509
I gotta do something about
that in New York City.

436
00:22:34,509 --> 00:22:38,650
Then in 1980 we also had a transit strike

437
00:22:38,650 --> 00:22:42,430
and thousands upon
thousands biked to the city.

438
00:22:42,430 --> 00:22:46,210
After those two events, the
Mayor called me into his office

439
00:22:46,210 --> 00:22:49,240
and said, let's build some bike lanes.

440
00:22:49,240 --> 00:22:51,579
So we installed continuous,

441
00:22:51,579 --> 00:22:55,750
physically separated bike lanes
from Washington Square Park

442
00:22:55,750 --> 00:22:59,529
to Central Park on Fifth
Avenue, Sixth Avenue

443
00:22:59,529 --> 00:23:02,170
and Broadway, Seventh Avenue.

444
00:23:02,170 --> 00:23:04,569
We had about an eight foot bike lane

445
00:23:04,569 --> 00:23:07,329
and we thought that was terrific.

446
00:23:07,329 --> 00:23:10,180
I remembered thinking, yeah,
we're not going to get a lot

447
00:23:10,180 --> 00:23:11,440
of bike riders now,

448
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:15,519
but by the year 2000 they'll
say we were geniuses.

449
00:23:15,519 --> 00:23:19,779
Well, after about six weeks
when the bike lanes were in,

450
00:23:19,779 --> 00:23:23,289
I got another call to the Mayor's office

451
00:23:23,289 --> 00:23:27,400
and he said to me, Sam,
rip up those bike lanes.

452
00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:31,299
I can't go anywhere
without people telling me

453
00:23:31,299 --> 00:23:34,779
how pissed they are with those bike lanes.

454
00:23:34,779 --> 00:23:38,319
And we had to call in our bulldozers.

455
00:23:38,319 --> 00:23:40,690
There were some people that
just laid down in the middle

456
00:23:40,690 --> 00:23:43,029
of the road, but it was
really just a handful

457
00:23:43,029 --> 00:23:44,079
of bike riders.

458
00:23:44,079 --> 00:23:47,630
There wasn't much a bike
constituency at the time.

459
00:23:47,630 --> 00:23:49,700
And the bike lanes disappeared

460
00:23:51,740 --> 00:23:53,000
- In 1987,

461
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:56,299
Ed Koch decreed that cyclists
wouldn't be permitted

462
00:23:56,299 --> 00:23:59,000
to ride in Midtown on weekdays,

463
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:02,269
and that became the galvanizing event

464
00:24:02,269 --> 00:24:06,619
that propelled bike activism
from a very moribund

465
00:24:06,619 --> 00:24:11,150
quiescent, nothing into
a vibrant movement.

466
00:24:11,150 --> 00:24:14,420
Bike messengers
spearheaded the resistance,

467
00:24:14,420 --> 00:24:17,269
and, more importantly, established cycling

468
00:24:17,269 --> 00:24:22,160
and cyclists as an environmental
and city friendly vanguard.

469
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:23,089
- Toward the end of the
Dinkins administration,

470
00:24:23,089 --> 00:24:24,710
things started to happen.

471
00:24:24,710 --> 00:24:26,809
We got the city to close
some of the entrances

472
00:24:26,809 --> 00:24:28,789
to Central Park, to get cars out

473
00:24:28,789 --> 00:24:30,109
and the DOT was starting

474
00:24:30,109 --> 00:24:33,019
to use phrases like traffic
calming, which were, you know,

475
00:24:33,019 --> 00:24:35,990
direct imports from
Western Europe at the time.

476
00:24:35,990 --> 00:24:37,609
And then nothing much happened under

477
00:24:37,609 --> 00:24:39,440
eight years of Mayor Giuliani.

478
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:40,880
They were putting bike lanes in places

479
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:41,900
where you didn't really need them and

480
00:24:41,900 --> 00:24:43,519
where they wouldn't get in anyone's way,

481
00:24:43,519 --> 00:24:45,799
so not that useful.

482
00:24:45,799 --> 00:24:49,730
- One thing that happens
in the 1990s and 2000s is

483
00:24:49,730 --> 00:24:53,299
that almost every center
city in the country begins

484
00:24:53,299 --> 00:24:55,190
to recover some of the residents

485
00:24:55,190 --> 00:24:56,690
that it lost in the fifties,

486
00:24:56,690 --> 00:24:58,190
sixties, seventies and eighties.

487
00:24:58,190 --> 00:25:01,430
But this trend is particularly
prominent in New York City,

488
00:25:01,430 --> 00:25:04,099
and one of the reasons for that
is that New York maintained

489
00:25:04,099 --> 00:25:05,539
so much of its urban fabric

490
00:25:05,539 --> 00:25:07,549
and so much of its charm and vitality.

491
00:25:07,549 --> 00:25:11,509
And so New York becomes the
epicenter of this phenomenon

492
00:25:11,509 --> 00:25:13,369
of lots of people moving back into cities.

493
00:25:13,369 --> 00:25:16,910
And certainly this puts
stresses on the usage

494
00:25:16,910 --> 00:25:18,980
of the street. For example,

495
00:25:18,980 --> 00:25:20,960
while most of Fifth
Avenue is in fact made up

496
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:22,970
of the roadway, the vast majority

497
00:25:22,970 --> 00:25:24,710
of people are using its sidewalks.

498
00:25:24,710 --> 00:25:28,609
And that imbalance is what
attracts reformers to thinking,

499
00:25:28,609 --> 00:25:30,740
what if we could reallocate this?

500
00:25:30,740 --> 00:25:33,140
Does the traffic really
need all this space

501
00:25:33,140 --> 00:25:35,240
or is the traffic just
using all this space

502
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:37,849
because that's the space
we've given over to traffic.

503
00:25:37,849 --> 00:25:40,160
And what would it look like if
we were to give over some of

504
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:41,960
that space to other uses?

505
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:48,529
- Critical Mass took root in
New York City very successfully

506
00:25:48,529 --> 00:25:52,279
in the 1990s following San Francisco.

507
00:25:52,279 --> 00:25:55,400
Critical Mass is this
flood tide of cyclists

508
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:57,289
who take over the streets,

509
00:25:57,289 --> 00:26:01,015
not in a possessive way,
but just we are here,

510
00:26:01,015 --> 00:26:02,252
we are traffic.

511
00:26:02,252 --> 00:26:03,653
- It's amazing -

512
00:26:03,653 --> 00:26:06,289
As far as I can see in
either direction is bicycles.

513
00:26:06,289 --> 00:26:08,119
- For the first 10 or 12 years,

514
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:10,819
Critical Mass was growing all the time.

515
00:26:10,819 --> 00:26:12,769
By 2004 there might have been five

516
00:26:12,769 --> 00:26:15,255
or six thousand people
in the monthly rides.

517
00:26:15,255 --> 00:26:19,279
- Who's streets? Our streets!
Who's streets? Our streets!

518
00:26:19,279 --> 00:26:20,509
- The crackdown

519
00:26:20,509 --> 00:26:22,430
during the Republican
National Convention in

520
00:26:22,430 --> 00:26:24,710
2004 put an end to that.

521
00:26:24,710 --> 00:26:27,079
The Mayor of New York
City, Michael Bloomberg,

522
00:26:27,079 --> 00:26:31,640
had a phobia about public
disorder, so his police went in

523
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:32,720
and broke it up.

524
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:34,880
- Do you know why you're
being arrested? I don't know.

525
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:38,059
- The NYPD arrested hundreds of people

526
00:26:38,059 --> 00:26:40,130
and they continued to arrest

527
00:26:40,130 --> 00:26:42,740
and confiscate bikes at most

528
00:26:42,740 --> 00:26:44,970
of the subsequent Critical Mass rides,

529
00:26:44,970 --> 00:26:48,059
so that by '05 and '06
it was a game of cat

530
00:26:48,059 --> 00:26:50,609
and mouse against the police
and it was no longer fun.

531
00:26:50,609 --> 00:26:52,367
It was scary.

532
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,369
Ironically, just two or three years later,

533
00:26:56,369 --> 00:26:59,369
Mayor Bloomberg appointed
Janette Sadik-Khan

534
00:26:59,369 --> 00:27:03,900
to engineer a transportation
and streets revolution.

535
00:27:03,900 --> 00:27:07,440
- My interview with Mike Bloomberg
started with a question -

536
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:10,470
Why do you want to be
Traffic Commissioner?

537
00:27:10,470 --> 00:27:14,220
And I said, I don't want
to be Traffic Commissioner.

538
00:27:14,220 --> 00:27:17,194
I want to be Transportation Commissioner.

539
00:27:17,194 --> 00:27:19,589
And I talked about building bike lanes

540
00:27:19,589 --> 00:27:22,259
and making them a real option
for how people got around.

541
00:27:22,259 --> 00:27:24,869
Building bus lanes, rapid bus lanes.

542
00:27:24,869 --> 00:27:27,539
We talked about congestion
pricing, you know,

543
00:27:27,539 --> 00:27:30,119
talked about making our streets safer,

544
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:32,369
making it easier to walk.

545
00:27:32,369 --> 00:27:35,039
Mike Bloomberg had a big
vision for what the future

546
00:27:35,039 --> 00:27:39,480
of this city could be with a
million more people by 2030.

547
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:43,619
- The Bloomberg administration
was different than the usual

548
00:27:43,619 --> 00:27:47,039
political class in that they watched

549
00:27:47,039 --> 00:27:49,680
what was happening around the world.

550
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:52,859
- It was the first stirrings
of the climate crisis.

551
00:27:52,859 --> 00:27:55,920
He was feeling winds
of change from Europe.

552
00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:57,809
- He was very susceptible to the idea

553
00:27:57,809 --> 00:28:00,450
that other places were
doing it better than us.

554
00:28:00,450 --> 00:28:03,599
You could go in and say, London
just did congestion pricing

555
00:28:03,599 --> 00:28:06,329
and they revamped their bus
system and it's working great.

556
00:28:06,329 --> 00:28:08,490
And Paris is closing waterfront highways

557
00:28:08,490 --> 00:28:09,809
and doing public bikes

558
00:28:09,809 --> 00:28:11,640
and they're using them
to fill up the new bike

559
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:12,960
lanes they just created.

560
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:15,599
Or South American cities with a fraction

561
00:28:15,599 --> 00:28:18,539
of our wealth are kickimg our
ass on bus transportation.

562
00:28:18,539 --> 00:28:20,579
They're making buses
work in a way we're not

563
00:28:20,579 --> 00:28:21,990
even trying to do here.

564
00:28:21,990 --> 00:28:24,269
And he would turn around and
ask the people who worked

565
00:28:24,269 --> 00:28:26,339
for him, why aren't we doing that?

566
00:28:26,339 --> 00:28:27,480
And that mattered to them.

567
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:29,279
I don't think we'd be anywhere if

568
00:28:29,279 --> 00:28:31,230
Bloomberg hadn't been the mayor.

569
00:28:31,230 --> 00:28:34,470
- Early on in my DOT
tenure, I went to Copenhagen

570
00:28:34,470 --> 00:28:36,930
and they had these
parking protected lanes,

571
00:28:36,930 --> 00:28:38,789
where they took the parking lane

572
00:28:38,789 --> 00:28:40,740
and moved it away from the curb.

573
00:28:40,740 --> 00:28:43,140
And then those parked cars served

574
00:28:43,140 --> 00:28:45,630
as this strong barrier for the cyclists.

575
00:28:45,630 --> 00:28:49,109
It also shortened the crossing
distance to make it easier

576
00:28:49,109 --> 00:28:50,940
for people to cross the street,

577
00:28:50,940 --> 00:28:52,589
older people, younger people.

578
00:28:52,589 --> 00:28:55,109
It really improved the
safety of the street.

579
00:28:55,109 --> 00:28:57,420
And so we brought that
back to New York City,

580
00:28:57,420 --> 00:29:00,059
and tried our first protected
bike lane on ninth Avenue.

581
00:29:00,059 --> 00:29:03,390
People said, oh, it's
going to be dangerous.

582
00:29:03,390 --> 00:29:05,309
The cars are going to speed.
Nobody's going to use the bike

583
00:29:05,309 --> 00:29:06,509
lanes, it's not going to work.

584
00:29:06,509 --> 00:29:09,210
And we said we would try
it out with just paint,

585
00:29:09,210 --> 00:29:10,740
and if it worked we would keep it.

586
00:29:10,740 --> 00:29:13,410
And if it didn't work,
okay, we'll put it back.

587
00:29:13,410 --> 00:29:18,000
And, you know, we saw
injuries go down 58%.

588
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:22,019
We saw retail sales, the local
businesses, go up almost 50%.

589
00:29:22,019 --> 00:29:24,720
We saw dramatic increases in cycling.

590
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:26,160
This was a win-win-win.

591
00:29:27,150 --> 00:29:30,900
- We are a city of pedestrians,
cyclists, skaters, drivers

592
00:29:30,900 --> 00:29:32,307
and mass transit.

593
00:29:32,307 --> 00:29:35,640
Under the Bloomberg
administration, it really took off.

594
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:38,430
We need to continue what
was put in place under

595
00:29:38,430 --> 00:29:39,839
the de Blasio administration.

596
00:29:39,839 --> 00:29:41,259
When you go to other cities

597
00:29:41,259 --> 00:29:45,460
and countries across the globe,
they're so far ahead of us.

598
00:29:45,460 --> 00:29:49,059
We don't follow in New York.

599
00:29:49,059 --> 00:29:51,220
We lead in New York.

600
00:29:51,220 --> 00:29:54,339
And so we're going to
regain our leadership

601
00:29:54,339 --> 00:29:57,369
under the next a few years to make sure

602
00:29:57,369 --> 00:30:00,609
that this is the place where
people will come and study

603
00:30:00,609 --> 00:30:03,190
and analyze how we got it right.

604
00:30:03,190 --> 00:30:05,380
- McGuinness Boulevard
will get a different look

605
00:30:05,380 --> 00:30:06,490
in the coming weeks.

606
00:30:06,490 --> 00:30:07,809
It'll have a different flow.

607
00:30:07,809 --> 00:30:09,730
The NYC Department of Transportation is

608
00:30:09,730 --> 00:30:11,019
moving ahead with changes.

609
00:30:11,019 --> 00:30:14,230
- A new plan aims to redesign
the mile long four lane

610
00:30:14,230 --> 00:30:17,200
street, which runs between
the Brooklyn Queens Expressway

611
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:19,329
and the Pulaski Bridge.

612
00:30:19,329 --> 00:30:20,950
The plan would remove one lane

613
00:30:20,950 --> 00:30:22,690
of traffic in either direction

614
00:30:22,690 --> 00:30:25,299
and install parking protected bike lanes,

615
00:30:25,299 --> 00:30:27,910
a project that the DOT
says has worked on other

616
00:30:27,910 --> 00:30:29,109
major streets.

617
00:30:29,109 --> 00:30:31,809
- The DOT says it will
also include delivery zones

618
00:30:31,809 --> 00:30:33,250
along the corridor.

619
00:30:33,250 --> 00:30:35,680
And they will continue
to work with stakeholders

620
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:36,970
and monitor developments.

621
00:30:38,500 --> 00:30:39,579
- Supporters of the plan

622
00:30:39,579 --> 00:30:43,089
say this road diet is necessary
to protect pedestrians

623
00:30:43,089 --> 00:30:46,390
and cyclists from speeding
drivers and large trucks.

624
00:30:46,390 --> 00:30:48,309
Let's give it a chance.
Let's give it a shot.

625
00:30:48,309 --> 00:30:51,137
It's going to work. We know
that it's going to work.

626
00:30:51,137 --> 00:30:53,488
Makes McGuinness safe!
Make McGuinness safe!

627
00:30:53,488 --> 00:30:56,421
Make McGuinness safe!
Make McGuinness safe!

628
00:30:56,421 --> 00:30:58,981
No more deaths! No more deaths!

629
00:30:58,981 --> 00:30:59,972
No more deaths!

630
00:30:59,972 --> 00:31:01,347
- We don't want to hear you!

631
00:31:01,347 --> 00:31:06,012
We're Greenpointers! We're Greenpointers!

632
00:31:06,012 --> 00:31:08,867
- Yeah - get off your phone
when you cross the street!

633
00:31:10,067 --> 00:31:11,633
- We're Greenpoint people!

634
00:31:11,633 --> 00:31:16,464
Make McGuinness safe!
Make McGuinness safe!

635
00:31:16,464 --> 00:31:21,345
Make McGuinness safe!
Make McGuinness safe!

636
00:31:21,345 --> 00:31:24,160
Make McGuinness safe!
Make McGuinness safe!

637
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:27,130
- Now the city's proposed a
road diet for McGuinness Blvd.,

638
00:31:27,130 --> 00:31:30,789
to take that nearly highway back to more

639
00:31:30,789 --> 00:31:33,099
of a neighborhood street,
which makes complete sense

640
00:31:33,099 --> 00:31:34,690
because the neighborhood is growing.

641
00:31:34,690 --> 00:31:36,430
If we didn't do the road diet,

642
00:31:36,430 --> 00:31:38,890
the safety problem is
only going to get worse.

643
00:31:38,890 --> 00:31:42,490
The city's been doing road
diets for about 15 years,

644
00:31:42,490 --> 00:31:46,480
starting in 2007 with
ninth Avenue in Chelsea.

645
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:47,589
And we've done that on a bunch

646
00:31:47,589 --> 00:31:49,599
of overbuilt streets since then -

647
00:31:49,599 --> 00:31:54,279
Broadway, Prospect Park West in Brooklyn

648
00:31:54,279 --> 00:31:56,349
and both of the big avenues
on the east side of Manhattan,

649
00:31:56,349 --> 00:31:58,180
First and Second. And you know,

650
00:31:58,180 --> 00:31:59,799
they've all worked really well.

651
00:31:59,799 --> 00:32:01,690
Traffic calming allows other things

652
00:32:01,690 --> 00:32:03,519
to start happening on the street.

653
00:32:03,519 --> 00:32:05,019
You will get more pedestrians.

654
00:32:05,019 --> 00:32:06,940
You'll get more people
hanging out on the street,

655
00:32:06,940 --> 00:32:08,230
because they can have a conversation

656
00:32:08,230 --> 00:32:09,940
with the people next to them.

657
00:32:09,940 --> 00:32:11,470
Pretty much every great city in the world

658
00:32:11,470 --> 00:32:14,049
except New York has a lot
of pedestrian streets,

659
00:32:14,049 --> 00:32:15,640
and those are great for businesses.

660
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:17,410
The stuff that people buy still gets

661
00:32:17,410 --> 00:32:19,150
to those places overnight,

662
00:32:19,150 --> 00:32:20,288
and then people flockt
there during the day.

663
00:32:23,821 --> 00:32:25,079
- Hey there, have you signed

664
00:32:25,079 --> 00:32:26,323
the Make McGuinness Safe petition?

665
00:32:26,323 --> 00:32:28,450
Thank you. Appreciate
it. Excuse me my friend.

666
00:32:28,450 --> 00:32:30,369
Have you signed the Make
McGuinness Safe petition?

667
00:32:30,369 --> 00:32:32,619
We are going to need
to keep the pressure on

668
00:32:32,619 --> 00:32:34,990
to show the Mayor's office
that there's public support.

669
00:32:34,990 --> 00:32:36,099
- That's what I thought too.

670
00:32:36,099 --> 00:32:37,750
But you know, what I learned is that most

671
00:32:37,750 --> 00:32:39,710
of the traffic on McGuinness is not local.

672
00:32:39,710 --> 00:32:42,019
They're like just using it as a shortcut.

673
00:32:42,019 --> 00:32:45,452
So if they took away a lane,
less cars would come through.

674
00:32:45,452 --> 00:32:49,326
So it would work. Yeah, I
know it's counterintuitive.

675
00:32:49,326 --> 00:32:50,826
- I oppose this plan.

676
00:32:50,826 --> 00:32:51,916
- Tell me why.

677
00:32:51,916 --> 00:32:53,325
- I know it comes from a good...

678
00:32:53,325 --> 00:32:55,182
- I want to hear why.

679
00:32:55,182 --> 00:32:56,532
- I've been here for 15 years,

680
00:32:56,532 --> 00:32:58,519
If you're going to shut down
one lane on the McGuinness,

681
00:32:58,519 --> 00:33:01,099
this whole neighborhood
is going to suffer.

682
00:33:01,099 --> 00:33:04,400
- This plan was such a good
compromise for the neighborhood.

683
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:06,710
You keep parking, you
keep the travel lanes,

684
00:33:06,710 --> 00:33:08,960
you eliminate a lot of cut through traffic

685
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:11,779
and you get protected bike lanes.

686
00:33:11,779 --> 00:33:13,674
What's your hesitation? You're sighing!

687
00:33:13,674 --> 00:33:17,869
- It's just opposite to my,
to my experience, to my logic

688
00:33:17,869 --> 00:33:19,220
or experience or anything.

689
00:33:19,220 --> 00:33:20,509
You know, traffic flows.

690
00:33:20,509 --> 00:33:22,940
If you compare it to water, to oil,

691
00:33:22,940 --> 00:33:24,319
to any, to anything other.

692
00:33:24,319 --> 00:33:27,619
If you clog one way and
don't provide an alternative,

693
00:33:27,619 --> 00:33:29,779
so the other ways are
going get more congested.

694
00:33:29,779 --> 00:33:31,009
- But the difference is choice.

695
00:33:31,009 --> 00:33:34,430
If you cut off one path of water or oil,

696
00:33:34,430 --> 00:33:36,710
that oil or water is not saying,

697
00:33:36,710 --> 00:33:38,960
oh well perhaps I'll ride my bike today.

698
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:41,359
Or perhaps I'll take the train today.

699
00:33:41,359 --> 00:33:44,569
- This is literally paint at
least for the next like decade.

700
00:33:44,569 --> 00:33:46,670
- If it doesn't work, if it is a disaster,

701
00:33:46,670 --> 00:33:47,690
if it all falls apart, which no one...

702
00:33:47,690 --> 00:33:48,980
- It's reversible.

703
00:33:48,980 --> 00:33:49,814
- It's reversible.

704
00:33:49,814 --> 00:33:51,140
- I'd like to hear that.

705
00:33:51,140 --> 00:33:51,972
- That's it.

706
00:33:51,972 --> 00:33:53,913
- Yeah, you should try
everything to make things right,

707
00:33:53,913 --> 00:33:55,039
but also have the option

708
00:33:55,039 --> 00:33:58,460
to reverse if your
calculation were misleading,

709
00:33:58,460 --> 00:33:59,509
- If our calculation

710
00:33:59,509 --> 00:34:01,549
and the Department of
Transportation's calculation

711
00:34:01,549 --> 00:34:04,430
and the elected officials'
calculation is wrong,

712
00:34:04,430 --> 00:34:05,779
which I don't believe that it is,

713
00:34:05,779 --> 00:34:07,579
but if it is, then you know,

714
00:34:07,579 --> 00:34:09,889
- We really hope that you know
everybody's going to be safe

715
00:34:09,889 --> 00:34:11,583
and we'll have less traffic.

716
00:34:11,583 --> 00:34:12,666
This is the goal of everyone.

717
00:34:12,666 --> 00:34:13,498
- That's the hope.

718
00:34:13,498 --> 00:34:14,659
- Thanks again.

719
00:34:14,659 --> 00:34:17,599
- You know when it comes
to changes on the street,

720
00:34:18,469 --> 00:34:21,019
sometimes they are seen
as counterintuitive.

721
00:34:21,019 --> 00:34:23,480
For a hundred years
we've looked at the way

722
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:26,960
to improve the streets, to
improve transportation is

723
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:29,659
to build more lanes.
More lanes, more ramps,

724
00:34:29,659 --> 00:34:32,360
more signals, that'll get us there, right?

725
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:36,949
And actually we've got almost
a hundred years of data

726
00:34:36,949 --> 00:34:39,079
to show no, that actually isn't right.

727
00:34:39,079 --> 00:34:43,010
- People often think of
traffic flowing like water,

728
00:34:43,010 --> 00:34:45,650
so they have this sort
of hydraulic model of it.

729
00:34:45,650 --> 00:34:47,900
But it's not, it's a set of human choices.

730
00:34:47,900 --> 00:34:49,039
- I think the best example

731
00:34:49,039 --> 00:34:52,280
of this was in Los Angeles
when they were adding another

732
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:56,840
lane on Interstate 405.
They spent $1.6 billion

733
00:34:56,840 --> 00:34:58,519
and, at the end of the project,

734
00:34:58,519 --> 00:35:00,380
traffic didn't move any better.

735
00:35:00,380 --> 00:35:03,139
In fact, in part of the rush
hour, it was actually worse.

736
00:35:03,139 --> 00:35:05,269
So it is kind of
counterintuitive. Actually,

737
00:35:05,269 --> 00:35:08,389
the way to improve traffic
is to give people options

738
00:35:08,389 --> 00:35:11,840
for getting around that
don't involve driving.

739
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:14,059
Making it easier to bike,
making it easier to walk,

740
00:35:14,059 --> 00:35:15,829
making it easier to take the bus.

741
00:35:15,829 --> 00:35:17,630
People aren't just going to take the bus

742
00:35:17,630 --> 00:35:20,630
because they think it's, you
know, the right thing to do.

743
00:35:20,630 --> 00:35:21,679
People are going to take the bus

744
00:35:21,679 --> 00:35:23,090
because it's the faster thing to do,

745
00:35:23,090 --> 00:35:24,679
it's the easier thing to do.

746
00:35:24,679 --> 00:35:27,110
There is no question that
you get what you build for.

747
00:35:30,769 --> 00:35:33,019
- When I came to New
York in the seventies,

748
00:35:33,019 --> 00:35:37,949
we had people selling heroin
on the street, publicly,

749
00:35:37,949 --> 00:35:39,900
graffiti everywhere.

750
00:35:39,900 --> 00:35:43,769
And to my surprise, Bloomberg
with Janette Sadik-Khan,

751
00:35:43,769 --> 00:35:48,059
they really did tame the
beast to some degree,

752
00:35:48,059 --> 00:35:50,789
with the bike lanes and
the pedestrian areas.

753
00:35:51,659 --> 00:35:53,010
But we have a snake!

754
00:35:53,969 --> 00:35:57,300
I have never seen this level of civil

755
00:35:59,219 --> 00:36:03,000
misbehavior as much as the
mopeds in the bike path.

756
00:36:04,019 --> 00:36:08,610
It's the speed that is
the danger here and their

757
00:36:08,610 --> 00:36:12,269
unpredictability. It's
just right in your face.

758
00:36:12,269 --> 00:36:15,510
It's physically scary and it's
an affront to our dignity.

759
00:36:16,619 --> 00:36:17,940
I believe strongly

760
00:36:17,940 --> 00:36:20,969
that what's happening here
is an injustice against

761
00:36:20,969 --> 00:36:24,809
bicyclists, pedestrians,
wheelchair users, old ladies,

762
00:36:24,809 --> 00:36:27,389
old men, babies, people walking dogs,

763
00:36:27,389 --> 00:36:29,550
everybody who has to put up with this now.

764
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:32,429
Help protect our sidewalks,

765
00:36:32,429 --> 00:36:35,969
help protect our streets! Make them safer!

766
00:36:35,969 --> 00:36:39,750
- Once COVID hit, people in
large numbers were switching

767
00:36:39,750 --> 00:36:41,670
to e-bikes, scooters

768
00:36:41,670 --> 00:36:44,219
and other forms of private transportation

769
00:36:44,219 --> 00:36:47,039
that they didn't have to
share with anyone else.

770
00:36:47,039 --> 00:36:48,119
- The food delivery

771
00:36:49,079 --> 00:36:53,849
that the pandemic required
ensured that electric assist

772
00:36:53,849 --> 00:36:56,039
and motor assisted bicycles,

773
00:36:56,039 --> 00:36:58,079
and now of course mopeds as well,

774
00:36:58,079 --> 00:37:01,710
were not going to be barred
from the streets of the city

775
00:37:01,710 --> 00:37:04,170
because they were providing
this essential service.

776
00:37:04,170 --> 00:37:07,050
And now that they've gotten
their foothold, they're here

777
00:37:07,050 --> 00:37:08,250
and they're here to stay.

778
00:37:08,250 --> 00:37:10,079
- If you look at the
actual device, the moped

779
00:37:10,079 --> 00:37:12,389
or the electric bike is
one of the great inventions

780
00:37:12,389 --> 00:37:14,849
because it's very low
impact on the environment.

781
00:37:14,849 --> 00:37:17,219
It allows you to cover
really long distance,

782
00:37:17,219 --> 00:37:19,670
relatively safely.

783
00:37:19,670 --> 00:37:22,199
And also they're relatively inexpensive.

784
00:37:22,199 --> 00:37:23,699
The problem with the electric bike

785
00:37:23,699 --> 00:37:25,440
and the moped is we haven't created safe

786
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:26,579
infrastructure around them.

787
00:37:26,579 --> 00:37:28,199
- So in New York fashion, they kind

788
00:37:28,199 --> 00:37:29,699
of like just opened the floodgates

789
00:37:29,699 --> 00:37:31,980
and now you are relying on cops

790
00:37:31,980 --> 00:37:33,869
who really don't do this anyway,

791
00:37:33,869 --> 00:37:36,420
to think about like is it a moped?

792
00:37:36,420 --> 00:37:40,289
Is it an e-bike, is it a, like what is it?

793
00:37:40,289 --> 00:37:41,400
Is it legal, is it not?

794
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:43,739
And they don't know! And
they don't get trained

795
00:37:43,739 --> 00:37:44,880
really to to know.

796
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:46,710
- When it happens in America,

797
00:37:46,710 --> 00:37:49,230
it seems like it always happens bigger

798
00:37:50,789 --> 00:37:55,248
than you expected and then
it's sort of out of control.

799
00:38:11,956 --> 00:38:14,639
Good afternoon everyone.
Thanks for coming.

800
00:38:14,639 --> 00:38:16,831
We are the Deliveristas Unidos.

801
00:38:16,831 --> 00:38:21,231
And we are fighting to improve
the conditions of this job.

802
00:38:21,231 --> 00:38:24,014
Because delivery work is recognized

803
00:38:24,014 --> 00:38:26,271
as an essential job in New York City,

804
00:38:26,271 --> 00:38:30,646
but the apps don't treat us that way.

805
00:38:30,646 --> 00:38:32,289
Working on the streets everyday

806
00:38:32,289 --> 00:38:34,447
exposes you to accidents,

807
00:38:34,447 --> 00:38:36,530
exposes you to being robbed,

808
00:38:36,530 --> 00:38:37,945
and it is very dangerous.

809
00:38:37,945 --> 00:38:42,021
And it's a job that
deserves to be dignified.

810
00:38:42,021 --> 00:38:46,978
But we must also insist
on and ask for our rights.

811
00:38:46,978 --> 00:38:49,628
We are also an organization

812
00:38:49,628 --> 00:38:53,195
to help you do things the right way.

813
00:38:53,195 --> 00:38:56,143
There are a lot of people
that aren't very happy with

814
00:38:56,143 --> 00:39:00,936
delivery workers because many
don't respect traffic laws.

815
00:39:00,936 --> 00:39:02,585
They ride on sidewalks.

816
00:39:02,585 --> 00:39:05,384
They do whatever they want on the street.

817
00:39:05,384 --> 00:39:10,059
So we have to spread the word:

818
00:39:10,059 --> 00:39:12,610
Let's respect traffic laws.

819
00:39:12,610 --> 00:39:14,958
Let's respect bike lanes.

820
00:39:14,958 --> 00:39:16,307
If you have a motorcycle,

821
00:39:16,307 --> 00:39:18,958
you can't be in the bike lane.

822
00:39:18,958 --> 00:39:20,282
You have to be in the street.

823
00:39:20,282 --> 00:39:22,498
There are things that can be improved

824
00:39:22,498 --> 00:39:24,940
and we need to keep fighting.

825
00:39:31,224 --> 00:39:33,190
- It is something really sad for me

826
00:39:33,190 --> 00:39:35,500
because a lot of people, they say, no,

827
00:39:35,500 --> 00:39:39,039
I hate delivery workers, I
hate bikes, I hate e-bikes,

828
00:39:39,039 --> 00:39:40,059
but they need us.

829
00:39:40,059 --> 00:39:43,059
So that's something crazy about people.

830
00:39:43,059 --> 00:39:44,650
This is the world that we live in.

831
00:39:44,650 --> 00:39:48,010
When you see someone riding a
bike, sometimes it looks easy,

832
00:39:48,010 --> 00:39:50,590
but you never know what's
going to happen to them.

833
00:39:50,590 --> 00:39:53,590
Because during the pandemic in the 2020s,

834
00:39:53,590 --> 00:39:57,760
we lost like 22 or 24 workers,

835
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:00,340
and in those coming years,

836
00:40:00,340 --> 00:40:02,199
the number is almost the same.

837
00:40:02,199 --> 00:40:04,840
And last year we lost 18 workers.

838
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:07,780
So 18 workers was like hit by a car

839
00:40:07,780 --> 00:40:10,719
and then they never came back home.

840
00:40:12,039 --> 00:40:16,965
(Names and ages of cyclists
killed in traffic.)

841
00:40:16,965 --> 00:40:21,922
(Names and ages of cyclists
killed in traffic.)

842
00:40:21,922 --> 00:40:25,838
(Names and ages of cyclists
killed in traffic.)

843
00:40:25,838 --> 00:40:30,822
(Names and ages of cyclists
killed in traffic.)

844
00:40:30,822 --> 00:40:35,773
(Names and ages of cyclists
killed in traffic.)

845
00:40:35,773 --> 00:40:40,697
(Names and ages of cyclists
killed in traffic.)

846
00:40:40,697 --> 00:40:45,646
(Names and ages of cyclists
killed in traffic.)

847
00:40:45,646 --> 00:40:50,621
(Names and ages of cyclists
killed in traffic.)

848
00:41:02,829 --> 00:41:04,059
- In Europe and Japan,

849
00:41:04,059 --> 00:41:07,059
the rate of traffic
fatalities is far lower

850
00:41:07,059 --> 00:41:08,650
than it is in the U.S.

851
00:41:08,650 --> 00:41:11,260
Are Europeans better drivers?

852
00:41:11,260 --> 00:41:15,340
Are people in Japan better
at walking? Of course not.

853
00:41:16,269 --> 00:41:19,150
They face less dangerous conditions.

854
00:41:19,150 --> 00:41:21,869
Their policies and infrastructure

855
00:41:21,869 --> 00:41:25,358
allows them to make mistakes and not die.

856
00:41:25,358 --> 00:41:27,099
By contrast, in the U.S.,

857
00:41:27,099 --> 00:41:29,079
our mistakes are death sentences.

858
00:41:29,079 --> 00:41:32,829
Our systems are built so that
unless we are perfect drivers

859
00:41:32,829 --> 00:41:35,195
and perfect cyclists
and perfect pedestrians,

860
00:41:35,195 --> 00:41:38,947
we risk being killed or killing someone.

861
00:41:38,947 --> 00:41:41,659
If we build our roads so that they're safe

862
00:41:41,659 --> 00:41:44,449
for a drunk person, then
they're safe for everyone.

863
00:41:44,449 --> 00:41:47,422
- Can you paint your way to street safety

864
00:41:47,422 --> 00:41:49,077
in a 9 million person city?

865
00:41:49,077 --> 00:41:50,989
No, you can't. You gotta build stuff.

866
00:41:50,989 --> 00:41:53,150
Well over in Europe, there's
very little of this paint

867
00:41:53,150 --> 00:41:55,500
that's forced to sit here for 15 years.

868
00:41:55,500 --> 00:41:57,440
In London they don't paint
it, they just build it,

869
00:41:57,440 --> 00:41:59,954
but they build it faster
and they build it for real.

870
00:42:00,889 --> 00:42:02,929
- You know, cities around
the country have been

871
00:42:04,789 --> 00:42:08,570
building out protected bike
lanes and that is so important.

872
00:42:08,570 --> 00:42:11,420
But we have this dynamic that's emerged

873
00:42:11,420 --> 00:42:13,579
where being on a bike in New York City

874
00:42:13,579 --> 00:42:17,000
and in cities across
the country is largely a

875
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:18,440
solitary experience.

876
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:20,269
You get a flat tire, you're on your own,

877
00:42:20,269 --> 00:42:22,610
your gear start messing
up, you're on your own.

878
00:42:22,610 --> 00:42:24,530
You're looking for bike
parking, you're on your own.

879
00:42:24,530 --> 00:42:25,730
You need a place to charge your E-bike,

880
00:42:25,730 --> 00:42:27,019
you are on your own.

881
00:42:27,019 --> 00:42:29,599
We have to divorce ourselves
from this road warrior

882
00:42:29,599 --> 00:42:32,719
mentality. Oh, you're going to
ride this beater bike around.

883
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:35,030
And yeah, if it gets stolen, you know...

884
00:42:35,030 --> 00:42:36,650
We've got to get ourselves away from that

885
00:42:36,650 --> 00:42:41,644
if we want to see average
people adopt micro mobility.

886
00:42:41,644 --> 00:42:43,730
Infrastructure is legitimizing.

887
00:42:43,730 --> 00:42:45,556
It's about elevating expectations.

888
00:42:45,556 --> 00:42:48,806
We should expect
world-class infrastructure,

889
00:42:48,806 --> 00:42:52,706
world-class design,
world class technology,

890
00:42:52,706 --> 00:42:54,677
when we think about micro mobility.

891
00:42:56,000 --> 00:43:00,559
- Next is McGuinness Boulevard
design review and discussion

892
00:43:00,559 --> 00:43:02,929
I would like everyone to be
respectful of everyone else.

893
00:43:02,929 --> 00:43:04,849
We're just going to keep it civil.

894
00:43:04,849 --> 00:43:07,969
- Hello everyone. I'm with the
Department of Transportation.

895
00:43:07,969 --> 00:43:10,340
Over the past year we did a bunch

896
00:43:10,340 --> 00:43:12,619
of outreach, three workshops with one

897
00:43:12,619 --> 00:43:14,030
of them being in Polish.

898
00:43:14,030 --> 00:43:16,010
We also sent the street ambassadors out.

899
00:43:16,010 --> 00:43:18,409
We were able to survey pretty
much every business owner

900
00:43:18,409 --> 00:43:20,510
that was capable of talking to us.

901
00:43:20,510 --> 00:43:25,400
We also had this online feedback
map. We got 744 comments.

902
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:27,769
- We've been hearing loud and
clear from community members

903
00:43:27,769 --> 00:43:30,050
and elected officials that
we need to move forward.

904
00:43:30,050 --> 00:43:31,550
We need to make the changes on

905
00:43:31,550 --> 00:43:33,530
McGuinness that will improve safety.

906
00:43:33,530 --> 00:43:35,150
- Leave Greenpoint alone already!

907
00:43:35,150 --> 00:43:37,039
- You're going to get kicked
out if you interrupt again,

908
00:43:37,039 --> 00:43:38,389
just fair warning.

909
00:43:38,389 --> 00:43:40,519
- I'm just against this bike idea.

910
00:43:40,519 --> 00:43:42,800
I don't think we should
mix bikes with cars

911
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:44,179
and trucks and buses.

912
00:43:44,179 --> 00:43:46,550
- This dieting of McGuinness Boulevard,

913
00:43:46,550 --> 00:43:49,190
it's just going to create a traffic havoc.

914
00:43:49,190 --> 00:43:51,280
- This is a crazy idea.

915
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:52,806
- Where does all the traffic go?

916
00:43:52,806 --> 00:43:54,829
- So where are the people
supposed to park their cars?

917
00:43:54,829 --> 00:43:56,480
- As a single mom, I can't make it

918
00:43:56,480 --> 00:43:58,309
to Key Food on a bike with a baby.

919
00:43:58,309 --> 00:44:00,769
- It just makes sense
to not have bike lanes.

920
00:44:00,769 --> 00:44:02,750
I would also recommend getting rid of some

921
00:44:02,750 --> 00:44:04,610
of the greenery, cutting it down.

922
00:44:04,610 --> 00:44:05,780
- Yeah, thanks for your comment, Shannon.

923
00:44:05,780 --> 00:44:08,900
We did a lot of outreach
related to this project

924
00:44:08,900 --> 00:44:11,599
and overwhelmingly,
you know, the bike lane

925
00:44:11,599 --> 00:44:13,760
and safety for cyclists has been something

926
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:15,289
that the community's been asking for.

927
00:44:15,289 --> 00:44:18,139
- Tony Argento, thank
you for giving me time.

928
00:44:18,139 --> 00:44:22,130
I'm a business owner and
a resident of Greenpoint

929
00:44:22,130 --> 00:44:23,599
and a taxpayer.

930
00:44:23,599 --> 00:44:28,369
My company and my clients
are heavy truck users,

931
00:44:28,369 --> 00:44:31,500
and if we can't get our
trucks to our location,

932
00:44:31,500 --> 00:44:33,239
what good is being here anymore?

933
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:35,309
- We Need Trucks will surely go out

934
00:44:35,309 --> 00:44:36,840
of business with this proposal.

935
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:39,900
- You guys gotta get the input
of the longtime residents.

936
00:44:39,900 --> 00:44:42,436
- For the people in
opposition to any of the plans

937
00:44:42,436 --> 00:44:44,880
this evening, safety has gotten
lost in this conversation.

938
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:46,260
- The leading cause of
death in New York City

939
00:44:46,260 --> 00:44:49,632
for children under 14
is being hit by a car.

940
00:44:49,632 --> 00:44:52,112
The leading cause of
death for seniors over 65,

941
00:44:52,112 --> 00:44:54,840
number one is falls, number
two is being hit by a car.

942
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:57,030
If the first thing out of
someone's mouth in this discussion

943
00:44:57,030 --> 00:44:59,909
is about parking and not human lives,

944
00:44:59,909 --> 00:45:00,989
then I think DOT should take

945
00:45:00,989 --> 00:45:02,481
that into consideration.

946
00:45:02,481 --> 00:45:04,795
- That's going to end the public session.

947
00:45:04,795 --> 00:45:06,389
I want to thank DOT...

948
00:45:06,389 --> 00:45:07,679
- You barely public speak.

949
00:45:07,679 --> 00:45:08,980
- Exactly.

950
00:45:08,980 --> 00:45:10,813
- You serve the public, not yourself.

951
00:45:10,813 --> 00:45:14,876
(Many agitated voices
talking over each other.)

952
00:45:14,876 --> 00:45:15,710
- ...stopping the traffic on McGuinness!

953
00:45:15,710 --> 00:45:17,001
- That is not true...

954
00:45:17,001 --> 00:45:18,766
(Many agitated voices talking at once.)

955
00:45:18,766 --> 00:45:20,916
- I want to thank DOT for coming...

956
00:45:20,916 --> 00:45:23,070
- Have the meetings in
person, COVID is over!

957
00:45:23,070 --> 00:45:24,989
- Tney don't want democracy!

958
00:45:24,989 --> 00:45:26,909
- This is a done deal
folks, remember that.

959
00:45:26,909 --> 00:45:28,943
- This is favoritism!

960
00:45:28,943 --> 00:45:29,862
- Reach out to your elected officials -

961
00:45:29,862 --> 00:45:31,519
- How did the StreetsBlog
know about this?!

962
00:45:31,519 --> 00:45:33,052
- Okay, meeting adjourned! Thank you.

963
00:45:35,219 --> 00:45:37,320
- You know, the status quo
is a very powerful thing.

964
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:42,099
And, you know, we've had
our streets be designed

965
00:45:42,099 --> 00:45:45,030
the same way for over a hundred years.

966
00:45:45,030 --> 00:45:48,090
And if you change it, you
know, people get upset.

967
00:45:48,090 --> 00:45:51,539
- So all of a sudden
a new group comes out.

968
00:45:51,539 --> 00:45:55,739
Now this group had been
around for a while,

969
00:45:55,739 --> 00:45:57,719
and they had been making themselves known.

970
00:45:58,619 --> 00:46:00,719
But it was clear in these meetings

971
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:01,920
that they were in the minority

972
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:03,090
and that the questions

973
00:46:03,090 --> 00:46:05,849
that they had actually
had scientific answers.

974
00:46:05,849 --> 00:46:08,400
But with the right kind of backing

975
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:13,110
and money involved in their
campaign, it really took off.

976
00:46:13,110 --> 00:46:15,900
- There are 8.4 million New Yorkers

977
00:46:15,900 --> 00:46:19,139
and there are 8.4 million
traffic engineers.

978
00:46:19,139 --> 00:46:21,570
You know, when we started
putting these bike lanes down,

979
00:46:21,570 --> 00:46:24,210
people thought, what are you doing?!

980
00:46:24,210 --> 00:46:26,369
There was a very powerful backlash

981
00:46:26,369 --> 00:46:29,039
and bikelash. Our streets are for cars,

982
00:46:29,039 --> 00:46:31,230
you're from the government,
you know, I'm not sure

983
00:46:31,230 --> 00:46:33,000
that this is going to go well.

984
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:35,130
So, you know, it got intense.

985
00:46:35,130 --> 00:46:37,409
There were several lawsuits about it.

986
00:46:37,409 --> 00:46:40,230
Prospect Park West was kind of ground zero

987
00:46:40,230 --> 00:46:41,853
in the bike lane battles.

988
00:46:41,853 --> 00:46:44,195
You know, don't be conned by Sadik-Khan,

989
00:46:44,195 --> 00:46:46,570
which I thought was so clever.

990
00:46:46,570 --> 00:46:48,719
- You know, fairly wealthy
people on Prospect Park West

991
00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:51,059
with access to the Mayor
were criticizing him directly

992
00:46:51,059 --> 00:46:52,500
at parties and stuff.

993
00:46:52,500 --> 00:46:54,239
We went in one day to
talk about something else,

994
00:46:54,239 --> 00:46:56,789
he's like, I need to ask you
about Prospect Park West.

995
00:46:56,789 --> 00:47:01,789
And he said, are more
people riding bikes there?

996
00:47:01,980 --> 00:47:05,340
And is it safer? That's all I care about.

997
00:47:05,340 --> 00:47:07,141
And Janette was able to say yes and yes,

998
00:47:07,141 --> 00:47:08,864
I'll get you the numbers
when I get back to work,

999
00:47:08,864 --> 00:47:11,130
to the office.

1000
00:47:11,130 --> 00:47:13,260
But that was the extent
of the conversation.

1001
00:47:13,260 --> 00:47:17,172
- Bloomberg was imperious,
he could be tone deaf,

1002
00:47:17,172 --> 00:47:22,110
but at the same time he wasn't
afraid to try new things.

1003
00:47:22,110 --> 00:47:25,340
- He took a lot of shit for it at the time

1004
00:47:25,340 --> 00:47:30,306
and said, look, the stuff
she's doing is succeeding.

1005
00:47:30,306 --> 00:47:34,179
I don't care what the tabloids
say, I'm looking at the data.

1006
00:47:34,179 --> 00:47:36,250
I'm looking at how these projects work,

1007
00:47:36,250 --> 00:47:37,360
and they are working,

1008
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:38,739
so we're going to keep doing them.

1009
00:47:38,739 --> 00:47:42,190
- We really looked at
the safety of the street

1010
00:47:42,190 --> 00:47:45,849
very much like a scientist
looks at a stream.

1011
00:47:45,849 --> 00:47:48,610
What happened to safety before and after?

1012
00:47:48,610 --> 00:47:51,159
What happened to local
businesses before and after?

1013
00:47:51,159 --> 00:47:54,880
What happened to the number
of cyclists before and after?

1014
00:47:55,929 --> 00:47:57,880
You know, after all of the fighting,

1015
00:47:57,880 --> 00:47:59,050
after all of the backlash,

1016
00:47:59,050 --> 00:48:00,489
after all of the lawsuits,

1017
00:48:00,489 --> 00:48:02,005
the bottom line was that it worked.

1018
00:48:02,005 --> 00:48:03,443
You know, we saw a tripling

1019
00:48:03,443 --> 00:48:05,409
of people in the bike lanes.

1020
00:48:05,409 --> 00:48:07,179
We saw the safest streets

1021
00:48:07,179 --> 00:48:10,929
that New York City had
seen in a hundred years.

1022
00:48:10,929 --> 00:48:15,929
You saw people of all
backgrounds, ages, sizes,

1023
00:48:16,119 --> 00:48:17,469
biking in bike lanes.

1024
00:48:17,469 --> 00:48:20,409
It really was a matter of
affording them the opportunity.

1025
00:48:21,789 --> 00:48:24,849
- You don't think a change is
possible in your own behavior

1026
00:48:24,849 --> 00:48:26,590
until you see somebody else doing it,

1027
00:48:26,590 --> 00:48:28,750
or somebody that you
didn't expect doing it,

1028
00:48:28,750 --> 00:48:31,690
like you see a business person
going to work on a bike.

1029
00:48:31,690 --> 00:48:34,750
That kind of plants a little
seed in people's heads,

1030
00:48:34,750 --> 00:48:37,929
and they realize, oh,
this is a possibility.

1031
00:48:37,929 --> 00:48:41,079
- People became very comfortable
with the new status quo

1032
00:48:41,079 --> 00:48:44,847
and it was a very different
city six and a half years later.

1033
00:48:44,847 --> 00:48:47,769
- Every place in New York where
you create room for people

1034
00:48:47,769 --> 00:48:49,690
and activities that aren't driving

1035
00:48:49,690 --> 00:48:53,864
and parking cars are the most
popular places in the city.

1036
00:48:53,864 --> 00:48:55,400
Central Park.

1037
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:59,440
The West Side Greenway, the
protected bike lane behind us,

1038
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:01,750
which gets 500 bikes an hour.

1039
00:49:01,750 --> 00:49:02,949
We may not be Amsterdam,

1040
00:49:02,949 --> 00:49:04,750
but we're in Williamsburg and it works.

1041
00:49:04,750 --> 00:49:07,869
The same rules of humanity apply.

1042
00:49:07,869 --> 00:49:10,239
No one's talking about
putting traffic lanes back on

1043
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:12,010
First Avenue in Manhattan.

1044
00:49:12,010 --> 00:49:14,949
No one wants to bring
cars back to 14th Street.

1045
00:49:14,949 --> 00:49:17,710
No one wants to reintroduce
two-way traffic on

1046
00:49:17,710 --> 00:49:19,269
Kent Avenue in Brooklyn.

1047
00:49:19,269 --> 00:49:22,179
And in fact, the arguments
are largely forgotten within

1048
00:49:22,179 --> 00:49:23,650
a very short time,

1049
00:49:23,650 --> 00:49:27,070
as people take up the new
space, the buses start to move,

1050
00:49:27,070 --> 00:49:30,670
the bikes lanes attract cyclists,

1051
00:49:30,670 --> 00:49:34,030
and you don't have a high profile
death on that street again.

1052
00:49:34,030 --> 00:49:37,389
- It's astonishing to think that all

1053
00:49:37,389 --> 00:49:38,949
of the sustainable investments

1054
00:49:38,949 --> 00:49:43,900
that we made were less than
2% of the entire DOT budget.

1055
00:49:43,900 --> 00:49:47,110
You can do so much for
pennies on the dollar

1056
00:49:47,110 --> 00:49:49,719
to truly transform your city.

1057
00:49:54,039 --> 00:49:56,769
- A battle in Brooklyn over a busy roadway

1058
00:49:56,769 --> 00:49:58,539
reaches a boiling point.

1059
00:49:58,539 --> 00:50:01,539
Supporters of the DOT plan
are pointing fingers at the

1060
00:50:01,539 --> 00:50:02,650
Argento family,

1061
00:50:02,650 --> 00:50:05,829
which owns the Greenpoint
based company Broadway Stages.

1062
00:50:05,829 --> 00:50:08,199
Some have accused the family
of using their influence

1063
00:50:08,199 --> 00:50:10,659
to drum up opposition to the road diet.

1064
00:50:10,659 --> 00:50:14,110
A spokesperson for Broadway
Stages said the proposed plan

1065
00:50:14,110 --> 00:50:15,670
was based on flawed data

1066
00:50:15,670 --> 00:50:18,849
and poses a catastrophic threat
to the future of Greenpoint.

1067
00:50:30,105 --> 00:50:32,329
- I'm sorry, Kevin, you guys have?

1068
00:50:32,329 --> 00:50:34,592
- Is it a public forum or private forum?

1069
00:50:34,592 --> 00:50:37,092
- I just don't think right now...

1070
00:50:37,092 --> 00:50:38,525
- Is it public or private?

1071
00:50:38,525 --> 00:50:40,014
- It's a public meeting.
Public or private?

1072
00:50:40,014 --> 00:50:43,605
- This is a public meeting.
For DOT, the city right?

1073
00:50:43,605 --> 00:50:45,221
- Is DOT public or or private?

1074
00:50:45,221 --> 00:50:46,561
- This is a public meeting Monica.

1075
00:50:46,561 --> 00:50:47,721
- Monica, I'm registered.

1076
00:50:47,721 --> 00:50:48,559
- Are we closing or opening?

1077
00:50:48,559 --> 00:50:49,905
- I think we're shutting the door.

1078
00:50:49,905 --> 00:50:52,387
- Public meeting! Public meeting!

1079
00:50:53,764 --> 00:50:56,480
- I just want to thank
everyone for coming here today.

1080
00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:59,480
I've been here since 1996.

1081
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:02,989
It was dirt streets full of garbage.

1082
00:51:02,989 --> 00:51:06,695
I've helped clean this
neighborhood up block by block.

1083
00:51:06,695 --> 00:51:08,809
We're a community of
studios where thousands

1084
00:51:08,809 --> 00:51:10,099
of jobs have been created,

1085
00:51:10,099 --> 00:51:12,945
and you know, I think we
should reanalyze the plan,

1086
00:51:12,945 --> 00:51:14,900
and you know, try to get more business

1087
00:51:14,900 --> 00:51:16,795
input and more community input.

1088
00:51:17,989 --> 00:51:21,574
North Brooklyn is the third
largest industrial hub in NYC.

1089
00:51:21,574 --> 00:51:25,940
We're talking thousands of
businesses and thousands of jobs.

1090
00:51:25,940 --> 00:51:27,530
We did some research ourselves

1091
00:51:27,530 --> 00:51:30,322
and I think personally,
this will further bolster

1092
00:51:30,322 --> 00:51:32,420
gentrification in this neighborhood.

1093
00:51:32,420 --> 00:51:34,161
- You have to get this right!

1094
00:51:34,161 --> 00:51:36,001
So I ask that you stop moving forward.

1095
00:51:36,001 --> 00:51:38,733
We're adults, let's act like adults!

1096
00:51:38,733 --> 00:51:41,164
Let's get together and
freaking figure out this thing!

1097
00:51:41,164 --> 00:51:42,855
- I'm so disappointed!

1098
00:51:42,855 --> 00:51:47,775
There was never a time when
we couldn't find solutions!

1099
00:51:47,775 --> 00:51:49,010
We are here this morning

1100
00:51:49,010 --> 00:51:50,449
because we do understand your

1101
00:51:50,449 --> 00:51:51,920
concerns and we're here to listen to them.

1102
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:53,389
We'll listen to them more.

1103
00:51:53,389 --> 00:51:56,389
This is a road diet
again that was proposed,

1104
00:51:56,389 --> 00:51:59,360
that has been done in
many corridors citywide,

1105
00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:01,489
and it has worked and
has made things safer.

1106
00:52:01,489 --> 00:52:04,849
But again, we can absolutely, again,

1107
00:52:04,849 --> 00:52:06,704
have a continued discussion.

1108
00:52:06,704 --> 00:52:08,164
- You show up the CB meeting...

1109
00:52:09,425 --> 00:52:11,789
all of you, and you
never gave us a chance!

1110
00:52:11,789 --> 00:52:13,130
- The Commissioner wants to say a word!

1111
00:52:13,130 --> 00:52:15,289
- Thank you. I know how important it is

1112
00:52:15,289 --> 00:52:17,893
to make our streets safer
for pedestrians and cyclists.

1113
00:52:17,893 --> 00:52:20,842
The Mayor and I, we are very clear.

1114
00:52:20,842 --> 00:52:25,340
Traffic violence is equal to gun violence.

1115
00:52:25,340 --> 00:52:28,460
We know how important it is in this area.

1116
00:52:28,460 --> 00:52:29,840
We know the numbers of crashes,

1117
00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:31,309
we know the numbers of victims.

1118
00:52:31,309 --> 00:52:33,590
We know that we have
to really look at this

1119
00:52:33,590 --> 00:52:36,199
as an important project for our city.

1120
00:52:37,309 --> 00:52:39,619
- I know there are a lot of
strong feelings in this room.

1121
00:52:39,619 --> 00:52:41,570
There's a lot of disappointment, a lot

1122
00:52:41,570 --> 00:52:44,090
of frustration, a lot of concern.

1123
00:52:44,090 --> 00:52:48,469
And frankly, we often see
familiar dividing lines

1124
00:52:48,469 --> 00:52:51,469
between longtime residents,
lifelong residents,

1125
00:52:51,469 --> 00:52:52,789
and some of the newer folks.

1126
00:52:52,789 --> 00:52:54,769
We've been engaging with
the community for close

1127
00:52:54,769 --> 00:52:57,829
to two years around how
to make McGuinness safer,

1128
00:52:57,829 --> 00:52:59,809
and today is yet another opportunity

1129
00:52:59,809 --> 00:53:02,150
to give actionable specific feedback

1130
00:53:02,150 --> 00:53:03,710
for modifications you'd like to see

1131
00:53:03,710 --> 00:53:05,389
to the plan to make it better.

1132
00:53:06,500 --> 00:53:09,199
But what I will tell
you is this, safety has

1133
00:53:09,199 --> 00:53:10,565
to be prioritized.

1134
00:53:10,565 --> 00:53:15,532
(Yelling and screaming.)

1135
00:53:15,532 --> 00:53:17,331
- I'd be happy to chat with you further...

1136
00:53:17,331 --> 00:53:22,322
(More yelling and screaming)

1137
00:53:23,472 --> 00:53:26,681
- Wait stop, I want this to be beneficial!

1138
00:53:26,681 --> 00:53:31,681
(Chaos!)

1139
00:53:32,434 --> 00:53:34,800
Stop being angry, stop being violent!

1140
00:53:36,634 --> 00:53:40,992
- It's against the law, keep
it moving if you're protesting!

1141
00:54:05,820 --> 00:54:08,369
- Broadway Stages bought up a lot

1142
00:54:08,369 --> 00:54:12,780
of Greenpoint's property in
the nineties, so they own

1143
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:16,590
quite a lot of this district.

1144
00:54:17,460 --> 00:54:20,429
And in the past, that meant

1145
00:54:20,429 --> 00:54:23,190
that they had a seat at every decision.

1146
00:54:24,630 --> 00:54:28,230
And they weren't really
invited to the table this time

1147
00:54:28,230 --> 00:54:31,170
as anything more than a community member.

1148
00:54:32,070 --> 00:54:33,900
And I think that's insulting to them.

1149
00:54:33,900 --> 00:54:37,260
And maybe this is getting in
the way of a business plan?

1150
00:54:37,260 --> 00:54:41,057
Sometimes I feel like
it gets into this like

1151
00:54:41,057 --> 00:54:42,960
feudal lord territory.

1152
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:46,110
We're working the land and living on it,

1153
00:54:46,110 --> 00:54:49,530
but we owe deference.

1154
00:54:49,530 --> 00:54:51,269
- Why are you touching my
car? Just don't touch my car.

1155
00:54:51,269 --> 00:54:52,739
But you want us to be like Amsterdam.

1156
00:54:52,739 --> 00:54:56,849
Well, no, I just, I want
us to be like nicer.

1157
00:54:56,849 --> 00:54:58,170
I want people to be nicer.

1158
00:54:58,170 --> 00:54:59,909
And I think a lot of the
reasons why people are

1159
00:54:59,909 --> 00:55:02,400
so un-nice is because the
car turns them into assholes.

1160
00:55:02,400 --> 00:55:05,190
I mean, look, it's well
documented in academia

1161
00:55:05,190 --> 00:55:09,119
that cars, you know,
make you more hostile.

1162
00:55:09,119 --> 00:55:10,590
And when you're in a car, you care about

1163
00:55:10,590 --> 00:55:11,699
your community less.

1164
00:55:11,699 --> 00:55:13,559
They call it moto-normativity.

1165
00:55:13,559 --> 00:55:15,750
It's like that once you're in a car,

1166
00:55:15,750 --> 00:55:17,820
your behavior is normalized,

1167
00:55:17,820 --> 00:55:20,159
well by the fact that we have
roads where you can drive fast

1168
00:55:20,159 --> 00:55:23,429
and highways and the way in
which every supermarket has a

1169
00:55:23,429 --> 00:55:24,929
big parking lot.

1170
00:55:24,929 --> 00:55:27,090
The car companies want you to feel safe

1171
00:55:27,090 --> 00:55:28,440
and they want you to feel powerful,

1172
00:55:28,440 --> 00:55:30,269
I mean, that's what they market.

1173
00:55:30,269 --> 00:55:32,219
And there's no check on that.

1174
00:55:32,219 --> 00:55:36,269
- Look at advertising on
TV now - bigger, faster.

1175
00:55:36,269 --> 00:55:37,860
I mean the size of the vehicles

1176
00:55:37,860 --> 00:55:39,632
that are now coming into the city,

1177
00:55:39,632 --> 00:55:41,969
the size of the trucks that
are coming into the city.

1178
00:55:41,969 --> 00:55:44,070
- The sheer physical power

1179
00:55:44,070 --> 00:55:47,760
and the inertia, the political inertia

1180
00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:50,309
of car ownership and car use

1181
00:55:50,309 --> 00:55:54,059
and car entitlement is
incredibly powerful.

1182
00:55:54,059 --> 00:55:56,010
- Everything becomes a culture war -

1183
00:55:56,010 --> 00:56:00,210
those cyclists want to take all our space.

1184
00:56:00,210 --> 00:56:02,070
Well, in fairness to the drivers,

1185
00:56:02,070 --> 00:56:03,929
they have had a hundred years to believe

1186
00:56:03,929 --> 00:56:05,269
that it is their space.

1187
00:56:05,269 --> 00:56:07,054
- This plan is so flawed.

1188
00:56:07,054 --> 00:56:09,809
It's really just sort of one
big bike lane experiment,

1189
00:56:09,809 --> 00:56:11,070
when we're talking about...

1190
00:56:11,070 --> 00:56:12,103
- You keep coming back to the bike lanes,

1191
00:56:12,103 --> 00:56:13,320
but it is so much more than that, right?

1192
00:56:13,320 --> 00:56:16,139
The changes that are proposed
now are really standard

1193
00:56:16,139 --> 00:56:17,519
traffic calming measures.

1194
00:56:17,519 --> 00:56:19,920
If everybody wants there to be fewer cars

1195
00:56:19,920 --> 00:56:21,599
and fewer accidents and fewer injuries

1196
00:56:21,599 --> 00:56:23,170
and death, what's the division?

1197
00:56:23,170 --> 00:56:24,177
Hpw are there two sides to this?

1198
00:56:24,177 --> 00:56:26,851
- They are going to
push 12,000 vehicles off

1199
00:56:26,851 --> 00:56:28,864
of McGuinness Boulevard daily.

1200
00:56:28,864 --> 00:56:30,789
We do agree though that
we don't necessarily want

1201
00:56:30,789 --> 00:56:32,989
12,000 vehicles on the road.

1202
00:56:32,989 --> 00:56:34,992
These vehicles are going to go onto,

1203
00:56:34,992 --> 00:56:36,159
some of them are going
to go onto local streets,

1204
00:56:36,159 --> 00:56:37,666
some of them are going to go onto the BQE.

1205
00:56:37,666 --> 00:56:39,280
- And some of them are
going to just figure out a

1206
00:56:39,280 --> 00:56:40,570
different way to get
where they're going...

1207
00:56:40,570 --> 00:56:42,699
- But either way you slice
it, it's going to be thousands

1208
00:56:42,699 --> 00:56:46,172
of vehicles pushed onto these
quiet residential side streets

1209
00:56:46,172 --> 00:56:47,612
- Or people will just
make different choices.

1210
00:56:47,612 --> 00:56:48,969
I know I certainly would.

1211
00:56:48,969 --> 00:56:52,659
- Politics are about
feelings and not facts,

1212
00:56:52,659 --> 00:56:54,639
and that's, that's really a problem.

1213
00:56:54,639 --> 00:56:56,980
And it's one of the reasons why

1214
00:56:56,980 --> 00:56:59,469
things have been going
the way they have been.

1215
00:56:59,469 --> 00:57:03,280
- You know, resistance
to change is baked into,

1216
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:05,289
it's always been baked into politics.

1217
00:57:05,289 --> 00:57:08,320
It's baked in even more now.

1218
00:57:08,320 --> 00:57:12,760
- We also have this, this
exceptionalism issue.

1219
00:57:12,760 --> 00:57:14,920
Folks that like to fight
against change always

1220
00:57:14,920 --> 00:57:16,360
say, this is New York.

1221
00:57:16,360 --> 00:57:19,570
It isn't Bogota, it isn't
Spain, it isn't Barcelona.

1222
00:57:19,570 --> 00:57:20,929
You can't...

1223
00:57:20,929 --> 00:57:22,510
Don't compare those cities to New York.

1224
00:57:23,530 --> 00:57:24,789
We can't do what they do.

1225
00:57:25,690 --> 00:57:27,550
But then when it comes to
something else, they'll be like,

1226
00:57:27,550 --> 00:57:29,199
oh, we're the best city in the world.

1227
00:57:29,199 --> 00:57:31,981
We're exceptional. It's
just like they choose when

1228
00:57:31,981 --> 00:57:34,570
New York City is great
and can do amazing things.

1229
00:57:34,570 --> 00:57:38,199
And then other times...

1230
00:57:38,199 --> 00:57:41,530
We can't do what other cities
do because we're different.

1231
00:57:41,530 --> 00:57:46,530
- I think New York City is
exceptionally provincial.

1232
00:57:46,690 --> 00:57:50,289
I really do. It's, it's really incredible.

1233
00:57:50,289 --> 00:57:53,230
Because we are a place where

1234
00:57:53,230 --> 00:57:55,300
people come from all over the world

1235
00:57:55,300 --> 00:58:00,300
and yet we can't seem to
see past our little area.

1236
00:58:01,059 --> 00:58:03,992
- In America right now,
we have a big problem.

1237
00:58:03,992 --> 00:58:08,480
We've let decadence and
we've let greed, you know,

1238
00:58:08,480 --> 00:58:10,929
corruption eat away at our civic soul.

1239
00:58:10,929 --> 00:58:14,349
No country, no society
has ever been wealthier,

1240
00:58:14,349 --> 00:58:16,780
than America is right now.

1241
00:58:16,780 --> 00:58:18,610
And what do we do with it?

1242
00:58:18,610 --> 00:58:21,460
We can't build subways,
we can't build bus lanes.

1243
00:58:21,460 --> 00:58:24,159
We can't build bike parking.
It's incredible to believe!

1244
00:58:35,349 --> 00:58:36,460
- Hey it's Gersh Kuntzman -

1245
00:58:36,460 --> 00:58:37,900
I'm in, as you can see behind me,

1246
00:58:37,900 --> 00:58:41,516
the police parking zone in
front of the 78 Precinct.

1247
00:58:41,516 --> 00:58:45,400
And we got a cop, who's
got an illegal cover.

1248
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:47,110
I'm just going to let
the Mayor know that one

1249
00:58:47,110 --> 00:58:50,079
of his employees is running
around with an illegal cover.

1250
00:58:50,079 --> 00:58:52,239
- The defacement of license plates

1251
00:58:52,239 --> 00:58:54,309
by NYPD on their private cars,

1252
00:58:54,309 --> 00:58:56,829
it's become a thing, so
that maybe, you know,

1253
00:58:56,829 --> 00:58:58,480
one in 50 license plates

1254
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:01,059
that you see are defaced in some way

1255
00:59:01,059 --> 00:59:04,398
that they will evade
automated enforcement,

1256
00:59:04,398 --> 00:59:08,349
as well as tolls, you know,
on the bridges and tunnels,

1257
00:59:08,349 --> 00:59:10,389
- If you've covered or, or defaced

1258
00:59:10,389 --> 00:59:14,856
or foliated your plate, you're
saying to me and my kids,

1259
00:59:14,856 --> 00:59:17,163
I'm claiming the right

1260
00:59:17,163 --> 00:59:19,929
to drive at whatever speed I
want to through a school zone.

1261
00:59:19,929 --> 00:59:21,465
And that's wrong.

1262
00:59:21,465 --> 00:59:24,230
- Most of our cops or a lot of
our cops live in Long Island,

1263
00:59:24,230 --> 00:59:26,570
they live in New Jersey,
they live in Staten Island,

1264
00:59:26,570 --> 00:59:28,760
or they live in the outer
parts of the outer boroughs.

1265
00:59:28,760 --> 00:59:32,690
And when you have cops
that are car-centric,

1266
00:59:32,690 --> 00:59:34,159
you end up getting
folks that don't want to

1267
00:59:34,159 --> 00:59:35,599
enforce things that they are against.

1268
00:59:35,599 --> 00:59:37,699
- They will not get rid of cars

1269
00:59:37,699 --> 00:59:39,739
that are parked in the bike paths,

1270
00:59:39,739 --> 00:59:41,329
often it's their own cars!

1271
00:59:41,329 --> 00:59:43,489
- If you had a mayor
who said, cut the shit,

1272
00:59:43,489 --> 00:59:46,460
we're going to do this for real,
people will get the message

1273
00:59:46,460 --> 00:59:48,530
You know, Mayor Adams
says that once in a while,

1274
00:59:48,530 --> 00:59:50,840
but it, you know, you don't, you know,

1275
00:59:50,840 --> 00:59:51,889
from the city's actions

1276
00:59:51,889 --> 00:59:54,050
and the fact that he lets the cops

1277
00:59:54,050 --> 00:59:55,489
A. not enforce any traffic laws

1278
00:59:55,489 --> 00:59:57,679
and B. Park wherever they
feel like it, you know,

1279
00:59:57,679 --> 00:59:59,637
suggests it's not real.

1280
01:00:13,699 --> 01:00:16,639
- This never used to be such
a crazy committee, right?

1281
01:00:16,639 --> 01:00:20,000
McGuinness has become
bigger than this committee,

1282
01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:21,019
bigger than this community.

1283
01:00:21,019 --> 01:00:24,710
It's become a flashpoint
from a lot of the crazy stuff

1284
01:00:24,710 --> 01:00:27,260
that happened like
leading up to the pandemic

1285
01:00:27,260 --> 01:00:29,989
and the, you know, people
having death threats...

1286
01:00:29,989 --> 01:00:32,269
Like all this crazy shit
about like fucking roads!

1287
01:00:32,269 --> 01:00:35,644
- I make a motion for moratorium.

1288
01:00:36,530 --> 01:00:39,170
Until we can get some kind of compromise

1289
01:00:39,170 --> 01:00:42,500
because the two sides are too far apart

1290
01:00:42,500 --> 01:00:45,139
and nobody's going to be happy.

1291
01:00:45,139 --> 01:00:45,972
We've spent two years

1292
01:00:45,972 --> 01:00:50,090
of community outreach
on this exact proposal.

1293
01:00:51,773 --> 01:00:55,789
To think that at the 11th hour,
after DOT has been studying

1294
01:00:55,789 --> 01:00:58,940
transportation study, multiple
transportation studies

1295
01:00:58,940 --> 01:01:03,829
specific to this redesign
of McGuinness Boulevard,

1296
01:01:03,829 --> 01:01:07,760
and that we're going to ask them to stop?

1297
01:01:07,760 --> 01:01:10,074
after we've been talking about...

1298
01:01:11,210 --> 01:01:15,409
- We talked about this
in August, in May of 23.

1299
01:01:15,409 --> 01:01:17,119
In June of 22.

1300
01:01:17,119 --> 01:01:19,420
In June of 22 in Polish,

1301
01:01:19,420 --> 01:01:20,253
- Where?!

1302
01:01:20,253 --> 01:01:21,494
- It's all on the DOT website...

1303
01:01:21,494 --> 01:01:22,327
Okay, roll call vote.

1304
01:01:22,327 --> 01:01:25,996
Roll call vote, roll call vote!

1305
01:01:25,996 --> 01:01:30,980
- Four for, seven against, one
abstention, the motion fails.

1306
01:01:30,980 --> 01:01:33,199
- People need to recuse
themselves from voting.

1307
01:01:33,199 --> 01:01:34,969
- Why? Did they work for DOT?

1308
01:01:34,969 --> 01:01:39,969
Are they contractors
on the project? No, no.

1309
01:01:40,275 --> 01:01:43,452
Keep organizing, for and against...

1310
01:01:43,452 --> 01:01:47,226
- Keep McGuinness moving!
Keep McGuinness moving!

1311
01:01:47,226 --> 01:01:52,152
Keep McGuinness moving!
Keep McGuinness moving!

1312
01:01:52,152 --> 01:01:53,945
- You will not silence us!

1313
01:01:53,945 --> 01:01:57,144
You will not silence us! Damn straight!

1314
01:01:57,144 --> 01:02:00,409
Anyone who is really from
Green Point knows just

1315
01:02:00,409 --> 01:02:01,969
how much the Argentos

1316
01:02:01,969 --> 01:02:04,820
and Broadway Stages have
given back to this community!

1317
01:02:04,820 --> 01:02:06,860
To the tune of millions of dollars!

1318
01:02:06,860 --> 01:02:07,860
- Broadway stages

1319
01:02:07,860 --> 01:02:11,119
were here taking a chance
on this community at a time

1320
01:02:11,119 --> 01:02:12,677
no one wanted to be here!

1321
01:02:12,677 --> 01:02:16,155
- We are mot the leftovers!
We the belong here!

1322
01:02:16,155 --> 01:02:19,246
- We built this neighborhood!

1323
01:02:22,094 --> 01:02:27,083
- Shame on the DOT! Shame on
the DOT! Shame on the DOT!

1324
01:02:27,083 --> 01:02:32,054
Shame on the DOT! Shame on
the DOT! Shame on the DOT!

1325
01:02:32,054 --> 01:02:33,969
Shame on the DOT!

1326
01:02:33,969 --> 01:02:35,159
- I think we have to be careful,

1327
01:02:35,159 --> 01:02:40,159
because the loudest voices in
communities don't want change.

1328
01:02:40,170 --> 01:02:42,840
And we are being educated

1329
01:02:44,400 --> 01:02:47,550
about the extent to which
baby boomers, you know, people

1330
01:02:47,550 --> 01:02:50,880
of my generation, most
of whom are retired now

1331
01:02:50,880 --> 01:02:52,440
and who are people of means

1332
01:02:53,519 --> 01:02:58,199
and whose affluence is very
much bound up with the property

1333
01:02:58,199 --> 01:03:00,360
that they own in the city,

1334
01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:03,210
or, you know, the below market rate

1335
01:03:03,210 --> 01:03:05,369
apartment that they're able to rent.

1336
01:03:05,369 --> 01:03:07,619
And they are the ones who come out

1337
01:03:07,619 --> 01:03:10,349
to community board meetings and yell

1338
01:03:10,349 --> 01:03:11,969
and scream against change.

1339
01:03:11,969 --> 01:03:14,039
- Especially in
neighborhoods like this one,

1340
01:03:14,039 --> 01:03:16,440
there's always been a narrative

1341
01:03:16,440 --> 01:03:19,440
that if you are a renter
here, you're not part

1342
01:03:19,440 --> 01:03:21,210
of the real community.

1343
01:03:21,210 --> 01:03:24,360
But this district is 80% renter

1344
01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:29,099
and only one out of five people
uses a car in this district.

1345
01:03:29,099 --> 01:03:31,590
- On Thursday, Mayor Eric
Adams ordered the Department

1346
01:03:31,590 --> 01:03:34,739
of Transportation to pump the
brakes on a contentious plan

1347
01:03:34,739 --> 01:03:36,750
to redesign McGuinness Boulevard.

1348
01:03:36,750 --> 01:03:38,639
Some have accused Broadway Stages

1349
01:03:38,639 --> 01:03:40,860
of using their influence
to drum up opposition

1350
01:03:40,860 --> 01:03:42,929
and ultimately get the
Mayor on their side.

1351
01:03:45,719 --> 01:03:48,217
- Listen, I'm a biker,
everyone knows that.

1352
01:03:48,217 --> 01:03:51,987
My desire, we will have
protected bike lanes everywhere,

1353
01:03:51,987 --> 01:03:54,000
but I'm going to respect
the voices of the people

1354
01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:56,489
who live in these communities
and we can find a win.

1355
01:03:56,489 --> 01:03:59,460
You know, it's unfortunate
that we're in a position now

1356
01:03:59,460 --> 01:04:02,730
that everyone feels as
though you must lose

1357
01:04:02,730 --> 01:04:05,108
so I can win. And I
just don't believe that.

1358
01:04:05,108 --> 01:04:07,920
We will find a way, we will
find, don't cut me off!

1359
01:04:07,920 --> 01:04:12,786
We will find a way to get
what we're looking for,

1360
01:04:12,786 --> 01:04:14,119
a safe place.

1361
01:04:14,119 --> 01:04:17,489
And if I decide within
my role as the mayor

1362
01:04:17,489 --> 01:04:20,800
that I want to reexamine and
look at other ways of doing it,

1363
01:04:20,800 --> 01:04:22,146
I'm going to do that.

1364
01:04:22,146 --> 01:04:25,739
- All of the sudden the
brakes were pulled on the plan

1365
01:04:26,789 --> 01:04:28,559
and it was heartbreaking.

1366
01:04:28,559 --> 01:04:31,829
Because honestly for the
first time, this is one

1367
01:04:31,829 --> 01:04:34,769
of the first times that
I think we really saw

1368
01:04:35,639 --> 01:04:39,000
the community participating in
a way that was reflective of

1369
01:04:39,000 --> 01:04:40,619
who lives in the community.

1370
01:04:40,619 --> 01:04:43,320
- I can't imagine who
would want this to stay

1371
01:04:43,320 --> 01:04:44,340
as it is, seriously,

1372
01:04:44,340 --> 01:04:45,719
as somebody who drives
through there a lot.

1373
01:04:45,719 --> 01:04:50,309
- Yeah. What we're really
looking at is a few people

1374
01:04:50,309 --> 01:04:53,429
really getting into the Mayor's ear

1375
01:04:53,429 --> 01:04:56,159
and manipulating the situation,

1376
01:04:56,159 --> 01:05:01,050
because the reality is we did
two years of work with many,

1377
01:05:01,050 --> 01:05:02,519
many community engagements.

1378
01:05:02,519 --> 01:05:03,659
- So when you say two years, it

1379
01:05:03,659 --> 01:05:05,452
predates this administration?

1380
01:05:05,452 --> 01:05:06,284
- Yes.

1381
01:05:06,284 --> 01:05:07,326
- So previous administration,

1382
01:05:07,326 --> 01:05:09,960
DOT, community engagement,
the Mayor liked it

1383
01:05:09,960 --> 01:05:11,010
and then the Mayor changed his mind.

1384
01:05:11,010 --> 01:05:13,949
- And in fact, every
single elected official

1385
01:05:13,949 --> 01:05:16,590
that represents my district,
supports this plan.

1386
01:05:16,590 --> 01:05:18,460
I saw somebody write on Twitter -

1387
01:05:18,460 --> 01:05:22,690
What's the point of voting if
the person that I voted for

1388
01:05:24,010 --> 01:05:27,909
can't actually fix the
material realities of my life.

1389
01:05:28,809 --> 01:05:31,659
It's really, really disempowering.

1390
01:05:31,659 --> 01:05:35,260
And it's actually really
dangerous for democracy.

1391
01:05:37,809 --> 01:05:39,460
- The mayor didn't believe

1392
01:05:39,460 --> 01:05:42,039
that our community supports this plan!

1393
01:05:42,039 --> 01:05:45,940
So we are delivering 7,000
signatures with names and

1394
01:05:45,940 --> 01:05:47,800
addresses to prove it to him!

1395
01:05:47,800 --> 01:05:49,210
- I'm disappointed in the recent

1396
01:05:49,210 --> 01:05:51,010
and confusing decision by the mayor.

1397
01:05:51,010 --> 01:05:54,010
So I'm inviting him to come
spend some time in Greenpoint,

1398
01:05:54,010 --> 01:05:56,927
walk the streets with us,
with our children in tow,

1399
01:05:56,927 --> 01:05:58,929
let him see what we are dealing with,

1400
01:05:58,929 --> 01:06:01,505
how unsafe it is at every intersection,

1401
01:06:01,505 --> 01:06:02,621
especially McGuinness.

1402
01:06:02,621 --> 01:06:06,550
- For a long time we've
been fighting to use data

1403
01:06:06,550 --> 01:06:11,139
and information and experts
to help us build safe streets.

1404
01:06:11,139 --> 01:06:14,128
Bloomberg started the
process of using it...

1405
01:06:14,128 --> 01:06:18,554
(Yelling, booing)

1406
01:06:18,554 --> 01:06:20,380
Leave him there.

1407
01:06:20,380 --> 01:06:23,650
We're going to do the best
we can. He can stay here.

1408
01:06:23,650 --> 01:06:25,166
He can stay here.

1409
01:06:25,166 --> 01:06:29,099
(Yelling)

1410
01:06:29,099 --> 01:06:31,659
Leave him. Leave him.

1411
01:06:31,659 --> 01:06:34,329
- You complain about the mayor
but you're in bed with him!

1412
01:06:34,329 --> 01:06:36,184
- The thing here... This
is a perfect example!

1413
01:06:36,184 --> 01:06:38,168
- You're a clown and we told you before!

1414
01:06:38,168 --> 01:06:39,494
- This is a perfect example!

1415
01:06:39,494 --> 01:06:41,815
- You were a clown as a council
member and you're a clown now!

1416
01:06:41,815 --> 01:06:43,889
- We have individuals, individuals...

1417
01:06:43,889 --> 01:06:48,030
- Clowns like you, puppets
like you, destroying our city!

1418
01:06:48,030 --> 01:06:51,789
I'm a native New Yorker!
You guys are outta line!

1419
01:06:51,789 --> 01:06:53,505
- Don't match that energy!

1420
01:06:53,505 --> 01:06:55,338
We're from Brooklyn - we show love!

1421
01:06:55,338 --> 01:06:59,074
- McGuinness safe now!
McGuinness safe now!

1422
01:06:59,074 --> 01:07:04,059
- Shame on you! You're a clown!

1423
01:07:06,382 --> 01:07:08,668
- This is a perfect example
of what we're talking about -

1424
01:07:08,668 --> 01:07:11,500
He is literally a one man show.

1425
01:07:11,500 --> 01:07:13,750
He has no supporters behind him.

1426
01:07:13,750 --> 01:07:18,369
What we're doing is standing
up for 7,000 people!

1427
01:07:18,369 --> 01:07:21,070
7,000 people saying they want something!

1428
01:07:21,070 --> 01:07:25,420
The Department of Transportation
puts forward a plan

1429
01:07:25,420 --> 01:07:27,827
under the administration of Adams

1430
01:07:27,827 --> 01:07:30,327
and people like that get the mic!

1431
01:07:30,327 --> 01:07:31,619
- Mic check. Mic check!

1432
01:07:31,619 --> 01:07:33,059
- Mic check. Mic check!

1433
01:07:33,059 --> 01:07:35,327
There were two years...

1434
01:07:35,327 --> 01:07:37,452
where research...

1435
01:07:37,452 --> 01:07:38,786
was done....

1436
01:07:38,786 --> 01:07:40,610
to try to solve...

1437
01:07:40,610 --> 01:07:42,393
a problem...

1438
01:07:42,393 --> 01:07:44,039
with safety!

1439
01:07:44,039 --> 01:07:46,420
If there was opposition...

1440
01:07:46,420 --> 01:07:49,333
they should have participated...

1441
01:07:49,333 --> 01:07:51,469
in that process!

1442
01:07:51,469 --> 01:07:53,230
I understand...

1443
01:07:53,230 --> 01:07:55,269
that change is hard!

1444
01:07:55,269 --> 01:07:57,699
That change is difficult!

1445
01:07:57,699 --> 01:08:00,597
But we have to move forward!

1446
01:08:00,597 --> 01:08:03,492
If we don't move forward...

1447
01:08:03,492 --> 01:08:06,492
people will lose their lives!

1448
01:08:06,492 --> 01:08:09,483
And that's what what we have to focus on!

1449
01:08:10,434 --> 01:08:13,699
Let's go to City Hall folks, let's do it!

1450
01:08:13,699 --> 01:08:18,666
McGuinness safe now! McGuinness safe now!

1451
01:08:18,666 --> 01:08:21,198
McGuinness safe now! McGuinness safe now!

1452
01:09:17,420 --> 01:09:20,210
- Traffic safety advocates are fuming

1453
01:09:20,210 --> 01:09:23,930
after they say this city changed
plans to redesign a roadway

1454
01:09:23,930 --> 01:09:25,520
that many people say is dangerous.

1455
01:09:26,569 --> 01:09:28,520
- This plan is not what we fought for.

1456
01:09:28,520 --> 01:09:31,159
And it's confusing because
people see a bike lane,

1457
01:09:31,159 --> 01:09:34,909
but it's really not at all
what we had advocated for,

1458
01:09:34,909 --> 01:09:36,710
because there's still two lanes

1459
01:09:36,710 --> 01:09:38,329
of traffic in both directions.

1460
01:09:38,329 --> 01:09:41,750
So we continue to have
this highway-like culture,

1461
01:09:41,750 --> 01:09:45,199
with cars speeding through,
cut-through traffic.

1462
01:09:45,199 --> 01:09:46,819
It's actually a less safe street.

1463
01:09:47,930 --> 01:09:50,869
- You're creating points
of conflict, whether it's

1464
01:09:50,869 --> 01:09:53,000
between a pedestrian
waiting in the bike lane

1465
01:09:53,000 --> 01:09:56,149
to cross the street, whether
it is for a business, trying

1466
01:09:56,149 --> 01:09:57,949
to get their delivery and then doing

1467
01:09:57,949 --> 01:09:59,270
that delivery in the bike lane.

1468
01:09:59,270 --> 01:10:01,337
Whether it is for a cyclist
that's just trying to get

1469
01:10:01,337 --> 01:10:04,939
safely from the Pulaski Bridge
back home on McGuinness.

1470
01:10:04,939 --> 01:10:08,970
- The neighborhood's pretty
disappointed in it, honestly.

1471
01:10:08,970 --> 01:10:11,029
- You know, there's a really
tragic element to all this.

1472
01:10:11,029 --> 01:10:14,119
This entire process sort of defies belief.

1473
01:10:14,119 --> 01:10:16,802
I don't want to say that
it's incompetence, right?

1474
01:10:16,802 --> 01:10:17,715
- It's not.

1475
01:10:17,715 --> 01:10:19,105
- It's weaponized incompetence.

1476
01:10:19,105 --> 01:10:22,643
I hope with every part of my being,

1477
01:10:22,643 --> 01:10:25,550
that I'm not watching
thisfootage a year from now,

1478
01:10:25,550 --> 01:10:27,949
or two years from now, right?

1479
01:10:27,949 --> 01:10:29,210
And there has been a death in the interim.

1480
01:10:29,210 --> 01:10:31,707
God forbid, there's another
death on my McGuinness Blvd.

1481
01:10:34,920 --> 01:10:39,185
- Why does change happen? I
think about that all the time.

1482
01:10:39,185 --> 01:10:42,340
- We have a natural
tendency to assume that

1483
01:10:43,279 --> 01:10:46,039
the way things are is inevitable.

1484
01:10:46,039 --> 01:10:50,359
They had to be this way.
And that's just not true.

1485
01:10:50,359 --> 01:10:54,037
They can change. And
in some places they do.

1486
01:10:54,037 --> 01:10:56,149
Here's the problem with change in America.

1487
01:10:56,149 --> 01:10:59,539
Change in America is
incredibly slow. It is so slow.

1488
01:10:59,539 --> 01:11:00,869
It's so frustratingly slow.

1489
01:11:00,869 --> 01:11:02,210
And I'll give you the best
example is global warming.

1490
01:11:02,210 --> 01:11:04,100
Everybody in this country is desperate,

1491
01:11:05,000 --> 01:11:07,159
desperate about climate change.

1492
01:11:07,159 --> 01:11:08,300
But what we're really desperate

1493
01:11:08,300 --> 01:11:10,189
of is we don't want to change.

1494
01:11:10,189 --> 01:11:13,260
We, we literally do not
want to change our behavior

1495
01:11:13,260 --> 01:11:15,060
or our lifestyles in any way.

1496
01:11:15,060 --> 01:11:18,899
- We are not in a good
situation right now, right?

1497
01:11:18,899 --> 01:11:21,840
The earth is like literally dying.

1498
01:11:21,840 --> 01:11:25,289
Or at least humankind is,
we're running our course.

1499
01:11:25,289 --> 01:11:29,039
So if we don't start like
really fighting for the facts

1500
01:11:29,039 --> 01:11:32,310
and fighting for them viscerally,

1501
01:11:32,310 --> 01:11:34,020
we're not going to get anywhere.

1502
01:11:34,020 --> 01:11:39,000
- This idea of waiting,
you know, overthinking...

1503
01:11:39,000 --> 01:11:41,460
Every other city has done
these types of things.

1504
01:11:41,460 --> 01:11:42,930
They have been proven to work.

1505
01:11:42,930 --> 01:11:45,000
There's data and science behind it all.

1506
01:11:45,000 --> 01:11:47,340
Why not just move with the
things that we know work?

1507
01:11:47,340 --> 01:11:48,869
And it all comes out to leadership.

1508
01:11:48,869 --> 01:11:51,630
- You know, you've seen
it in London and Paris,

1509
01:11:51,630 --> 01:11:53,699
in Barcelona and Milan.

1510
01:11:53,699 --> 01:11:57,630
Those mayors that made
those most, you know,

1511
01:11:57,630 --> 01:11:59,712
dramatic changes to their streets

1512
01:11:59,712 --> 01:12:01,590
were reelected overwhelmingly.

1513
01:12:01,590 --> 01:12:03,956
Anne Hidalgo in Paris, reelected.

1514
01:12:03,956 --> 01:12:06,055
Sadik-Khan in London, reelected.

1515
01:12:06,055 --> 01:12:07,560
Sala in Milan, reelected.

1516
01:12:07,560 --> 01:12:09,000
Reelected, reelected, reelected.

1517
01:12:09,000 --> 01:12:13,470
So, you know, it's not only
good policy, it's good politics.

1518
01:12:13,470 --> 01:12:17,250
- I would say most change
that I've seen in my career

1519
01:12:18,750 --> 01:12:21,180
occurs through happenstance.

1520
01:12:21,180 --> 01:12:24,750
- I'm kind of heavy on
the deus ex machina,

1521
01:12:24,750 --> 01:12:26,350
the bolt out of the blue,

1522
01:12:26,350 --> 01:12:28,307
the thing that comes out of nowhere.

1523
01:12:28,307 --> 01:12:30,640
Nobody can predict where the next wave

1524
01:12:30,640 --> 01:12:33,029
of change will actually come from.

1525
01:12:33,029 --> 01:12:35,108
All we can do is to be ready

1526
01:12:35,108 --> 01:12:39,516
and to pounce when the opportunity arises.

1527
01:12:41,789 --> 01:12:44,087
- We have some breaking
news this evening -

1528
01:12:44,087 --> 01:12:48,445
NYC Mayor Eric Adams has been
indicted on federal charges.

1529
01:13:23,407 --> 01:13:24,840
- I don't want to connect dots

1530
01:13:24,840 --> 01:13:25,864
that don't need to be connected.

1531
01:13:25,864 --> 01:13:28,470
But did somebody's mind
change at City Hall?

1532
01:13:28,470 --> 01:13:32,552
- You know, the world
moves in mysterious ways...

1533
01:14:29,140 --> 01:14:32,529
- In the words of Jane Jacobs,
cities have the capability

1534
01:14:32,529 --> 01:14:34,869
of providing something for everybody,

1535
01:14:34,869 --> 01:14:37,300
only when they are created by everybody.