The Fix Is In

The morning held promise. The night had not been too crippling with runs, so when the tone alarm went off at 9am we were more bright eyed than usual until we rounded the corner and came to a complete stop, foiled by double parked trucks. It took some time but we managed to make our way through, much like threading a needle. When I returned to the firehouse I went straight up to the office. I sat at the desk contemplating the situation. 

The triangle sitting at the juncture of Greenwich Ave., 6th Avenue and Christopher St. had just been enlarged. We had seen construction work going on there in the last few weeks and had wondered what the final outcome would be. 

Once again, there was no official notification to us about the project. When the project was finally completed, the triangle had expanded in size on all three fronts. There was one problem. The traffic lanes on all sides of the triangle were now narrowed. 

With the project complete, the fire truck would pull out onto Greenwich Avenue only to be held up by pooling traffic. I sat at the desk thinking naively that perhaps the DOT was unaware of the problems we were facing now that the project was complete. I decided to make a call to the DOT office to get information. 

The phone rang and was picked up on the second ring by an actual employee. I introduced myself and reported the problems we were having and asked if the project was in fact complete. It was, came the reply. I asked if the department was aware of the issues with traffic piling up and that a true bottleneck was the result of the expansion of the triangle. “Was a delivery zone planned to alleviate the problem?” I asked. 

The DOT representative, who was very professional, paused for a minute, put me on hold for a bit and then came back on the line and replied that she had no information on the matter, but would transfer me to someone who might be able to address my issues. The phone clicked on again to another attentive DOT employee who listened and had the same reply as the first person. An additional three transfers later I was, unbeknownst to me, transferred to the Manhattan Deputy DOT Commissioner at the time. 

The Deputy Commissioner picked up the phone and addressed himself by name only. I was not sure what strata this individual existed within the DOT but I began, once again, to launch into the subject. The niceties quickly ended there when, after my brief inquiry, he told me his full title. I greeted him and continued with a fuller illustration of the problem at hand and asked if he was aware of the situation. The response I received was rather abrupt and had nothing to do with addressing the issue. 

The Manhattan Deputy Commissioner launched into a diatribe about the chain of command and questioned me as to why was I speaking to him directly. I held the phone away from my ear until he had completed his thought, as one can only do in these circumstances. When he had finished his thought I responded to him, in an even tone, that it was in fact his own employees who had directed my call to him because none of them had any information. I told him that I never directly requested to speak with him on this matter, however, since we were connected, were there any plans to put delivery zones by the curb so that trucks did not have to double park and impede emergency response? There were no real answers from him, so after a rather awkward “uncoupling” on his end of the line, he hung up the phone. 

Two weeks came and went. I was outside the firehouse as one of the neighbors passed by. The community was very active and I would regularly greet and chat with many of them as they went about their day. They were aware of the trouble we were having responding to our calls. One of our neighbors remarked that the DOT had had a meeting with the community just that week. “Did they bring up the triangle extension?” I asked. “No” she said. “It never came up.” 

I thanked her for the information and just shook my head. Not only did the deputy commissioner for the borough have first hand knowledge of a reported issue with emergency service, but it would seem that when a community meeting was called, after he had been informed, the subject never came up. The neighbor also told me that she neither saw, nor heard from anyone who identified themselves as a representative from the fire department at 

the meeting. I have often wondered when the DOT claims it has permission from emergency services to proceed with their projects to what permission are they referring. 

In the end there was never any official response to my inquiry either on the record or off. The triangle remained the size it had become, and no delivery zones were put in place. The triangle extension question was left hanging as many inquiries to the NYC DOT have been since the Bloomberg administration, if you are not on what is considered on the right side of the issue of street reconstruction. 

I have always been skeptical of CEO’s and billionaires flirting with political office. When Michael Bloomberg threw his hat into the ring so many years ago, the idea of a billionaire businessman with no experience in government becoming mayor of one of the largest city’s in the country was, to me, a real risk for democracy. 

Business operates on a far different plane than government. It is interested in its own survival, its profit margins, and the population that will help it achieve those profit margins. The attention span of big business is quarterly, and communication with the “customer” is nonexistent outside the canned script leading the consumer to believe all is well, and to keep buying the product. 

Governance it is not a mandate to be taken lightly. Government at its best, at its most pure, is tasked, and attempts to, make sure that the law is upheld and the needs of all citizens are addressed in as fair and equitable a manner as possible. A government’s mandate is difficult, and can, unfortunately, be glacial in its time table of providing returns. Prolonged response and avoidance of issues due to partisan politics, is not easy to live with. This does not have to be the reality, but often is. It is unfortunate but this is what makes the lure of the business approach appealing, immediate gratification. 

One of the first things Michael Bloomberg did when he got into office was rip out the offices at City Hall and construct the “Bull Pen,” a design he implemented in his own corporate office. It was a very telling move. 

City Hall belongs to the people of the city. It is not a corporate office that must abide by the will and wants of the business owner. The citizens of this city should have had a say if there was even a thought to restructuring City Hall. There hasn’t been a president yet who has ripped out the halls of congress for a more modern look. It was clear to all who took heed, Michael Bloomberg had just become CEO of New York City. 

It was going to be a long four years I thought. In the end for me, it was an interminable twelve year stretch after he allowed himself to run for a third term. An interesting turn of events considering that the voters of this city had just recently voted for term limits. By the end of the second term the democratic process was badly frayed. The third term shred it. 

Mr. Bloomberg’s administration on its outset, did attempt to address some very real concerns, the physical resiliency of the city’s infrastructure, and attempting to bring the city into a new more technological age. The administration also took stabs at housing, safety and education, as all administrations do. His attention to the “rainy day” fund was both far sighted and necessary. 

One need only look at the goals of Bloomberg's’ PlaNYC master plan, which comes from the World Economic Forum Vision 2030, to get an idea of the massive scope of his aspirations. The scope was very ambitious for a newly elected mayor and even more so for one with no experience in government, but aspirations are important. It was not the aspirations I was concerned about, it was the implementation of such that concerned me. There was no way any administration was going to achieve a minority, let alone a majority of this plan if they were planning on adhering to the structure of government My question was, just how far were they willing to bend the process? 

“Even with the annals of businessmen candidates, Mr. Bloomberg is ill matched for the job he covets. His company, a financial information service, has no stockholders, and no unions. It is a brand new business created by Mr. Bloomberg himself, its corporate culture and decision-making structure devised to suit his character. New York City, on the other hand, is a very old business indeed, with multiple layers of interests and precedent weighing on every decision,” NY Times 2001 via “Bloomberg’s New York,” by Julian Brash. 

The bike lane on Prospect Park West, in Park Slope Brooklyn is a good demonstration of the tactics that were nascent at the time but seemed to become standard operating procedure through the remainder of his terms and in administrations to follow. 

The bike lane was installed in 2010 despite backlash from the community on the lack of out reach by the DOT, among other issues. In Alysia Finley’s piece for the Wall Street Journal on March 26, 2011, “NY Liberals Battle a Bike Lane," Ms. Finley quotes several people in the neighborhood about the tactics used by administration officials. 

In the piece, the DOT was accused of doctoring statistics after the installation of the lane. A group of community residents formed, “Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes” to protest the lane. 

“Louise Hainline, the Neighbors’ president notes that the city had only collected 32 minutes of data to measure speeding. The city also masked an increase in car accidents after the lane was installed. There were fewer accidents on the street in 2009-the year before the lane was installed-than 2010. (The city used an average of data from 2007 through 2009 to increase the before numbers.)” 

Ms. Finley quotes Norman Steisel a former Deputy Mayor and former Commissioner of Sanitation for the city, in the piece, “The principal [bike advocates) from Transportation Alternatives and Streetsblog live in Park Slope and the Bloomberg administration wants “these groups” to go out and burnish his credentials. It is one thing to alienate community activists like us. It’s a different thing to alienate these two groups that have national influence, arguably international reach’” 

Ms. Finley goes on to document, “According to email exchanges obtained by Neighbors’ Freedom of Information Law request, a high-ranking transportation official chatted with the bicycle advocates over beers about the 'threats” to the bike lane project. Another official discussed with the advocates “counterattacking” and “neutralizing” the Neighbors.” 

In a piece written by Jack Brown in “The Villager” October 10, 2010, there was further evidence of the Bloomberg Administration fabricating statistics related to bicycle drivers and bicycle lanes. Mr. Brown reports, “CBS news reporter Tony Aiello produced a five-part series called 'Bike Beldam” Aiello's’ reporting presented a graphic picture of often-anarchic practices of cyclists and the problems related to the bike lane. Bedlam culminated with an acknowledgement by DOT spokesman Seth Solomonow that statistics ballyhooed in a “landmark” study of pedestrian safety in mid-August were inaccurate or fabricated. DOT also apologized to reporter Aiello accusing him of “inaccurate and irresponsible” reporting.” 

With the end of the Bloomberg administration came Bill DeBlaso, a candidate described as a progressive, running as the “counter argument” to Mr. Bloomberg. Mr. DeBlasio famously lived in Park Slope as did the DOT commissioner he hired, Polly Trottenberg. The street restructuring continued at the same pace, with the same lack of communication, despite the new administration. It was now rebranded Vision Zero. It was more of the same, lipstick on a pig. 

Recently I was shown a video that appeared on the internet showing an individual who was identified as the current editor of Streetsblog, the blog for the lobby Transportation Alternatives, a subsidiary of Mark Gorton’s Open Plans / Open Streets. The video showed the above mentioned individual vandalizing peoples cars in an attempt to “correct” license plates that, this individual attests, had been obscured by owners in order to evade toll collection. 

First and foremost, the predication that license plates have been tampered with by the owners of the vehicle in order to evade toll collection is not provable. One need only ask a trial attorney about how difficult intent is to prove, and to start down the road of perceived reality is dangerous. 

If license plates are obstructed from the view of the plate reader at any toll collection point, the proper authorities should be the ones to correct the issue. If there are voters not satisfied with the response of an administration, or authority, the answer is to vote, not self deputize. 

It is illegal to tamper with someone else's property. Anger and self righteousness are never justifications for self deputization. The actions that stem from self deputization are meant to intimidate, harass, and control those the individual deems wrong, as well as send a message to everyone else about who is now “in charge.” 

It is clear from the video that this individual is aware that what he is doing is illegal, and he seems to make light of that fact and the ramifications of being caught. One cannot self deputize in order to hold others accountable to a law system that the self deputized have not studied or been sworn to protect, while they themselves are breaking the very law system they profess to be upholding. 

The unfortunate, and very dangerous thing about self deputization is that it can go both ways. For every action there is an equal or greater reaction. You do not want to be the individual to start or encourage such extreme thoughts or behavior regardless of what side of an issue you are on. 

Self deputization is dangerous to everyone and it is deleterious to this experiment in democracy which we in this country hold dear. An experiment that so far has lasted since March 4,1789 with the ratification of the Constitution. 

Some more recent tragic and stinging examples of self deputization bring home the very real dangers of this mind set. Ahmaud Arbery a man who was out for a run became the target of two men, who deemed themselves arbiters of what they perceived as right. They accused Mr. Arbery of theft, and with no evidence, or authority, shot him dead. Kaylin Gillis, a woman who was riding in a car that mistakenly turned into the wrong driveway in upstate NY was shot and killed by a 66 year old man who assumed he had the right to shot and kill her with absolutely no interaction at all. 

The most public and recent blow to self deputization occurred on January 6, 2021. A mob of individuals, with no authority or actual evidence, self deputized and stormed the capitol building to take “the country back” from a perceived steal. Self deputization on any level should never be encouraged by anyone or any institution. 

When I put on the light blue shirt marking me as an officer for the FDNY I took an oath to protect and serve this city and it citizens. With that oath I was tasked to uphold the law and to protect the city as well as those I worked with. It was my job to set a tone of respect while I was working. I was not just responsible for my own behavior, I was responsible for the behavior of those I worked with. I could not use the power, and privilege of rank as an excuse to be irresponsible with my words or actions. 

When one is in a position of influence, or power it is essential that that person be held to a higher standard for the good of the system and the good of those they serve. Making light of illegal behavior when one has a platform, any platform, is irresponsible and only serves to drive people away from listening to what caused you to feel so disempowered, and angry. It does nothing but attempt and fail to give those who engage in self deputization a sense of empowerment. 

Transportation Alternatives has gone from being a true grass roots movement, many decades ago, concerned with transportation options within the city, to a well funded lobby with a much larger payroll, and employee base. It has not only grown in size but also influence. “Gizmodo” writer Whitney Kimball reported on November 11, 2021, that,“Transportation Alternatives accepted $125,000 from Uber and Lyft in 2020 along with donations from Revel, Bird, and Lime.” Transportation Alternatives is also financially backed by Bloomberg Philanthropies and Mark Gorton, a hedge fund manager, Tower Capitol Research LLC, who has investments in Uber and Lyft. One need only Google Transportation Alternatives donations to get a full list of contributors. 

Mark Gorton not only financially contributes to Transportation Alternatives but is also the creator of Open Plans, Open Streets, originally unveiled as CityRise in 1999. Open Plans lobby city and state government officials for what they describe as safe, accessible car free streets. It is interesting to note that the hope of Open Plans is to remove privately owned vehicles from city streets. The vacuum that will naturally occur will be filled by products from companies like Uber and Lyft, and surprisingly those who invest in these companies will undoubtedly benefit both in wealth and power. 

What appears to have been the co opting of the lobby Transportation Alternatives by both the Bloomberg and DeBlasio administrations, to spearhead this transformation of NYC transportation, seems to have lead this lobby to believe that they are above the law and exist 

as, or along side a government agency without any apparent worry about being held accountable for their actions or the actions of their members. No lobby should be given free rein, and no lobby should be sitting at the right hand of any city, or state agency. 

Now that Transportation Alternatives is part of Open Plans, their financial resources far out weigh what ordinary citizens can match. These lobbies have what seems to be unfettered access to power and once again citizens and their needs are ignored. The only answer to a lobby aggressively pushing their own agenda in order to gain power and wealth is a strong administration unwilling to engage. 

Every great generational shift that has come to fruition in this city has had its time, and then makes way for the next generational shift. The city is then tweaked or changed to some degree to address the new normal. The influx of large numbers of migrants who need to be processed, housed, and allowed to work, the work from home culture, a runaway affordability crisis and an aging population are just a few of the issues facing the city at the moment and beyond. 

NYC’s fastest growing population now is people over 60. In 2021 the population of people over 65 was 16.2%. The Bloomberg era “tech world” is well beyond its zenith and has begun its decent into a more streamlined and profit conscious world. Lay off’s, and" buy out’s” in the tech sector are now the norm. The next metamorphosis of this city is beginning to unfold. What will it be, and will we be ready? 

The reliance on any lobby, be it Transportation Alternatives, Open Plans, or the real estate lobby as an administrations sole “go to” for solutions can no longer be tolerated by the voting public. The questions asked by the next administration must require input from actual people. The electorate, not algorithms, and quick fixes that benefit lobbyists and the well connected, is the touchstone of any democracy. None of this will be easy, but not communicating, and downright ignoring the electorate is not the way forward. We must read the tea leaves. We must know and understand our history and the trajectory of events and stop relying on the sales pitch.