Exec. Director, @transalt | Formerly: @Cornell, @NYCMayorsOffice | The greatest city in the world should have the greatest streets in the world. Views mine.🗽🚲
NYC
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Incredibly excited and honored to join the amazing team at Transportation Alternatives!
The greatest city in the world should have the greatest streets in the world and New Yorkers deserve safe and convenient ways to get around.
Can’t wait to get to work!
We're so excited to announce that TA is welcoming its next executive director: Ben Furnas!
@bfurnas will join TA in January.
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it’s because of the walking, biking, and public transit
No surprise here!
New York City was just ranked the HAPPIEST city in the U.S. and the ONLY U.S. city in the top 20 of the Institute for Quality of Life's "Happy City Index."
happy-city-index.com/NewYork…
ALT People walking through the park.
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New York’s top ten super speeders and the locations where they terrorize New Yorkers.
Time to stop super speeders.
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If everyone who commutes to Manhattan every day did so by car we would need “48 new eight-lane bridges” and “24 square miles of underground parking that takes up the entire borough.”
vox.com/2014/12/10/7372787/m…
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Believe it or not there are ways to do this - featured on transit systems around the world - that don’t make people who paid the fare late for work.
The NYPD and MTA are ramping up enforcement on fare evasion. Riders are currently being pulled off buses in the Bronx and getting ticketed.
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I really try to stay positive and kind, but it was very hard to sit in a meeting as young parents supporting new homes to help them stay in a neighborhood they love get booed and jeered and told to "just leave the city" or asked accusingly "when did you even move here."
“With my husband and baby, we live in a rent-stabilized 1 bedroom, and I would really love to move out—maybe even into this new building that they’re going to build.”
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“Traditional buttons, knobs, and switches have a tactility that allow drivers to intuitively find and adjust them while keeping their eyes on the road. A slippery touchscreen does not.”
futurism.com/the-byte/study-…
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“Local lawmakers and officials, including Councilman Erik Botcher, state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Comptroller Brad Lander, and mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani, speed-walked across 34th Street from First to Eighth avenues, beating out the M34 bus by seven minutes.”
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Most unrealistic part is the extensive pedestrianization and high density housing in LA 🥹
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Turns out I’m raising a real New Yorker.
My 3.5 year old daughter just looked up while eating a plain white slice of American cheese and said, “I’m glad we live in Brooklyn, daddy, no other city has cheese like this.”
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not sure “bring back the traffic” is the political winner they think it is
'We will get it done': NY Republicans say Trump agreed to help kill congestion pricing
buff.ly/4helaVZ
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Everywhere your dog can pee my toddler can pee.
"'You’re writing me a ticket for what? You cannot have a playground and not have bathrooms.’” nypost.com/2024/04/11/lifest…
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“You expect [Tokyo] to feel messy. What I experienced, however, was a city that felt like a futuristic village. It is utterly calm, in a way that is actually rather strange.
And it took me a little while to realize why. There is simply no traffic noise.” heatmap.news/economy/tokyo-a…
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If umbrellas kept you dry, then places with the highest levels of umbrellas per capita should be the driest places in America, and yet they're some of the wettest.
“If adding new density, new "supply", brought down prices, Vancouver should have the cheapest housing in North America. It has the most expensive.” -Patrick Condon, Professor of Urban Design, University of British Columbia, Canada @IMCLconference #CortonaItaly
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Brutal before and after footage. Why did we do this? They were so nice.
Imagine if during this holiday season NYers could still enjoy outdoor dining! 🎄✨ Help us make it year-round and support local businesses across the city! Support a more equitable, sustainable program and your donation will be MATCHED! openplans.org/support-outdoo…
🎥 @PurpleClarence
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“It’s a choice that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the United States have made for decades: Move from a less welcoming part of the country to one with more protections and a bigger community. The price of tolerance was higher rent.”
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It’s sort of funny the tree just comes from some guys yard in central New York?
Meet the 2023 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree 🌲
This year’s Tree is from Vestal, New York, weighs in at about 12 tons, and stands 80 feet tall. The Tree will arrive on Center Plaza Saturday, November 11. Follow along for more updates right here.
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“The NYPD issued over 100 summonses in a six-hour period in Manhattan Wednesday morning to drivers trying to stiff the newly implemented congestion toll…10 vehicles were seized during the operation.”
nydailynews.com/2025/01/08/n…
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“bring back the traffic” is not good politics
It's been 3 weeks since Congestion Relief Zone tolling went into effect, and the program is working!
We're seeing traffic move quicker into and within Manhattan, which benefits all New Yorkers—drivers, bus riders, emergency vehicle operators, pedestrians, and more.
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“Lower speed limits, smarter street design, upgraded infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, and better enforcement are among the reasons for the success.”
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“While the FDR Drive moves 150,000 vehicles per day, the Lexington Avenue Line 4/5/6 trains, which parallels it in Manhattan, moves 1.3 *million* riders. As a whole, the New York City Subway moves more people every day than all of the airlines in the United States combined.”
Here's to the next 120 years. nyc.streetsblog.org/2024/10/…
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“Our streets are now more safe. There has been a 51% decrease in injuries and a 55% decrease in crashes in the congestion relief zone compared to the same period in January 2024. Calmer streets are a win for parents…”
nydailynews.com/2025/02/22/c…
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People keep pointing this out as a gotcha, but it’s actually an incredible illustration of how relatively efficient and low-emission electric conveyance is?
A huge electric vehicle has the same emissions as a tiny fuel-efficient gas car!
Large electric vehicles produce just as much emissions as smaller gasoline-powered cars (plus they kill more people).
nytimes.com/interactive/2023…
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Congestion pricing has 66% support (!!) among adults who drive into the congestion relief zone a few times per week or more.
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“Vice President Harris is committed to lower housing costs, including by increasing housing supply by building and preserving more homes.”
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“The subways are regularly carrying more than four million people a day – more than the entire U.S. aviation system.” cbsnews.com/newyork/news/mta…
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When NYC installed speed cameras on roads around schools, speeding on those roads dropped 80-90%.
nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/p…
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Incredibly exciting vision to help transform NYC into a truly world-class bicycling city.
“Imagine walking or biking the entire perimeter of Manhattan, or cycling the waterfront from Far Rockaway through Brooklyn and back up to College Point without dodging trucks and cars.”
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“for profit” = you can buy a snack or a drink or a meal 😱🙄
‘Fresh kind of hell:’ NYC’s ‘Open Streets’ revising rules to use public space for profit trib.al/b5D7ADX
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“Looking over the data shows an odd trend: Mamdani's victory was built on the backs of people who don't own cars.” jalopnik.com/1895759/nyc-may…
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“…retail sales south of 60th Street have been $900 million higher in January 2025 compared to the same period last year…restaurant reservations are up 7 percent year over year.” nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/02/…
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Visitors are up, but traffic is flowing more smoothly so honking is down ~70% and the streets are quieter and more calm.
thecity.nyc/2025/03/11/traff…
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Do things that work: “Eventually, New York implemented congestion pricing despite the polling, and it keeps getting more popular over time because it works.”
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In a slightly different world, this week center-right New York Republicans are doing a victory lap celebrating the effectiveness of their market-based mechanism to reduce traffic and improve the efficiency of road infrastructure.
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“If the IBX is built with street running, it will be chronically delayed and overcrowded from day one…But if the IBX is entirely grade-separated, it could run at far higher frequencies, use longer and larger trains, and potentially even be automated.”
etany.org/ibx-all-faiths-tun…
In NYC, we're helping plan the Interborough Express project to bring better light rail to Brooklyn and Queens. Better transit means more options for riders, and with funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we're helping NYC plan for the future. brooklyneagle.com/articles/2…
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Yes instead of nudging people to stay in and order delivery we should encourage folks to go out to eat with friends by, say, making it easy for a restaurant to add tables and chairs out front all year round so there’s more room to eat and the streets are lively and nice.
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New York families are under threat by dangerous super speeders.
This driver had more than 90 tickets - including 13 school zone speeding tickets last year.
1.5% of the worst speeders kill more than 20% of pedestrians.
It’s time for Albany to act.
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Good morning, Councilwoman (I’m also often up early thinking about these issues).
Very nice to hear you’re interested in addressing the problem of people dangerously driving 110mph on the Grand Central.
A few responses to your concerns:
Allow me to explain another scam.
Progressive lawmakers have proliferated speed cameras throughout the city. They’re everywhere now.
At the same time, they’ve drastically lowered speed limits to such a degree that even perfectly safe and reasonable speeds on open thoroughfares and service roads now trigger a violation.
They even have speed cameras on some highway off-ramps specifically to trap drivers as they’re slowing from highway speeds.
Yes, this is about ticket revenue. But it’s not JUST about ticket revenue.
As their ratchet tightens and all these new camera ‘violations’ inevitably rack up, progressive tyrants like Gounardes here get to disingenuously proclaim that we have a ‘stunning’ crisis of ‘maniac reckless drivers’ because the speed cameras say so.
Then the progressives get to do what they REALLY want, which is exert even more control over the people they hate — in this case, regular New Yorkers who dare to own cars.
See, he has a bill which would require any driver who gets six camera tickets a YEAR to have their vehicle modified with an electronic speed limiter. This limiter would prevent your car from moving faster than 5mph over the local speed limit.
Understand the scam? They want to lower the speed limit to the point that it’s very easy to break, put cameras everywhere to catch you, THEN ruin your car with a modification to make driving your own car miserable and dangerous.
Make no mistake — they want this for EVERY car. That’s the actual goal.
The ultimate irony here is that we DO actually have a major problem with reckless drivers now. But it’s not the people getting caught by a camera going 28 in a 20, like Gounardes here wants you to believe.
It’s the lunatics weaving between highway traffic going 110 on the Grand Central. They’re everywhere. And these cameras do NOTHING to stop them. In fact, progressive ‘de-policing’ directives to reduce traffic stops and police pursuits over the last few years actually created and enabled the problem. And it’s getting worse.
But that’s how progressive anarcho-tyranny works. Regular people just trying to exist are demonized by ideologues and get the book thrown at them, while actual criminals are allowed free rein. You’ll end up with a speed limiter on your car because you did six miles over in a 15 zone, while the criminal in a white Altima and no plates makes TikTok videos doing 106 on the Van Wyck because cops aren’t allowed to pursue anymore.
This is the world progressives have built for us in New York. Then they wonder why the rest of the country looked at them and decided to go in the exact opposite direction.
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Looks like a very simple, affordable outdoor dining setup - not totally clear why much of NYC can’t adopt the same.
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Sometimes the job is policy memos, sometimes it's doing the electric slide with @DOEChancellor in front of an all-new electric school bus.
Excited for kids to be riding in this bus next week, with 75 more buses on the way!
Happy Earth Day, everyone!!
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12 months ago this was a few tables where families could have a nice outdoor brunch, now it’s a parking spot for a single (1) BMW.
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President Trump’s 3-point-plan to make NYC traffic worse:
- Get rid of congestion pricing (a sensible program that is saving commuters time)
- Make it harder for people to get around without a car and make streets and sidewalks more dangerous
- Defund the subway
No thanks.
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The moment when the bill ending gas in new buildings in America’s largest city became law.
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“Hey parents - want to keep your kids safe when they’re crossing the street? Sorry to say you’re going to have to come to some meetings around bedtime to advocate for your view - hope that helps!”
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“Greenpoint Crash Kills Cyclist At a Former Open Street that Opponents Dismantled” nyc.streetsblog.org/2023/06/…
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“In the 1920s, Gotham was building housing faster than population growth. Today, the city barely builds. In the 1920s, when immigrants arrived, they found affordable housing and raised their children in the city. Today, housing is a game of musical chairs.”
Check out my latest #Skynomics Blog post.
1921 to 1929 was the greatest #housing boom in #NYC history. It was a time of housing plenty. However, today is a time of housing scarcity. What can we learn from the Roaring Twenties?
buildingtheskyline.org/housi…
@RowenaGray6 @ronanlyons
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Since 2019, the electricity supplying New York City and Long Island has become dirtier and more emission intensive than the electricity system in Texas and the U.S. as a whole.
am.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/…
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Striking evidence that New Yorkers really came together yesterday to avoid a much worse set of outages.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
ALT Graph showing power consumption dropping after NYC issued an alert urging conservation.
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We should not have shut down Indian Point.
Tell your NYC friends to take the ConEd grid emergency texts seriously tomorrow
A 99% Zone J weather event *will cause rolling brownouts*
Mind the air too—dirty, emergency-only oil plants will be on full blast citywide. 4pm-7pm turn your house off & go out for dinner
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New poll shows overwhelming approval among NYC registered voters for the City of Yes housing proposal:
+50% overall
+55% among renters
+63% among under 45
+67% among independents
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You can’t hand a “courtesy card” to a speed camera.
Staten Island cop’s explosive lawsuit pulls back the curtain on an open secret— courtesy cards police give to family & friends so they can get out of a jam when they end up on the wrong side of the law. @rparascandola nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc…
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The proposal being objected to is 123 new deeply affordable apartments targeted to LGBTQ seniors. The project will include 16,000 square feet of publicly accessible open space (open all year round to the public, unlike now…)
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Shockingly, there are some people *still* out there, who think this was a bad idea, and who are fighting to keep things like this from happening again.
Today, Central Park has been permanently car-free for seven years! This was a victory that TA fought for over the course of decades.
When you walk or bike along the Drives now, it's hard to imagine them full of cars. But as recently as 2018, they were:
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What's a high-quality big-city transit system around the world you would point to as a model for that?
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So so excited to get to work!
nydailynews.com/news/politic…
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Neighborhood homeowner uses “housing should be a basic right” to oppose new apartments steps from park and subway.
It would be useful if progressive politicians pushed back on this type of thing instead of letting folks put old exclusionary wine in new left-sounding bottles.
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So, so excited.
We're mobilizing the minds, labs & fields of the university of Carl Sagan to support climate action in this decisive decade.
Big things are happening @cornell, in Ithaca, in NYC, in New York State, and around the world. Let's go!
news.cornell.edu/stories/202…
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A plurality of NYC residents (42% to 35%) and statewide Democrats (49% to 24%) say congestion pricing “should remain.”
This is “the best congestion pricing has done in a Siena College poll.”
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The population density of Hoboken is around ~48k people/square mile - denser than Brooklyn (~37k), the Bronx (~34k), Queens (~21k), or Staten Island (~8k).
Because NYC is a world city and not a little town like this. Too bad this lobbyist thinks like he is in small town USA.
NYC is hustle & bustle & cannot compare to Hoboken
Time to go back to where you came from.
NYC = diversity = busy = success = happiness = love!
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Extremely exciting to see Council Member Chris Marte come out strongly in favor of the pedestrianization of Manhattan’s Financial District.
Let’s go!
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"The city also credits a police crackdown on so-called ghost cars with reducing fatalities...The police have seized more than 20,000 ghost cars since 2022 — cars with fake tags or plates that obscured by camera-proof screens, stickers or tape."
nytimes.com/2025/07/02/nyreg…
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A dark irony of the New Jersey driver opposition to congestion pricing is people driving into Manhattan will feel the benefits of congestion pricing far sooner than subway riders will.
UPDATE: New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy hires lawyers to explore legal options against New York's congestion pricing plan. The feds approved the plan on Monday, setting off heated reactions. @DBrennanTV reports. cbsloc.al/43VZRlW
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“This last minute effort to kill the subway is being undertaken by people who never ride the subway.”
Inbox: Newly-minted mayoral hopeful @zellnor4ny goes after Mayor Adams over congestion pricing, saying he "vocally supported" Hochul's about-face and then stayed silent after she floated a new MTA payroll tax.
"New Yorkers deserve leadership, not silence," he says.
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I’m sympathetic to David Simon. We should probably change the name of the “school zone” automated enforcement program and have the tickets be the full $90-$600 and include points on the license rather than the special “$50, no points” school zone rate.
traffictickets.com/new-york/…
Jesus. Thank you! And what's more, I would argue that misusing a school speed-zone ordinance that way demeans and trivializes the statute itself, which has a very meaningful purpose. Thanks for growing up to not be another internet moron.
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“MTA Chair Janno Lieber said the reduction in traffic has allowed some of the agency’s buses to move faster than their schedules account for. Lieber said he’s considering boosting bus service as a result.”
🚌🚌🥳🥳
gothamist.com/news/manhattan…
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Lorde knows what makes NYC the greatest city in the world: walking around with headphones on, dancing in Washington Square Park, and riding a BIKE.
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“Vienna and Manhattan have similar populations, but Vienna adds private housing units at 10 times the rate of Manhattan over and above its social housing.” slowboring.com/p/what-can-we…
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Amazing findings - traffic down not up in the Bronx, Staten Island, and NJ.
“Far from being a policy to benefit Manhattan at the expense of the region, [congestion pricing] has resulted in less traffic overall, even in some places that models predicted it could increase.”
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“Beloved public pools, when they receive good investment, attract Americans of many backgrounds, creating a space for people to swim and play together who may not otherwise interact…they are an essential piece of social infrastructure in a democracy.” nytimes.com/2023/07/27/opini…
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