Time for the Feds to #TransformTransit
Riders Alliance press conference in Jackson Heights (May 27, 2021)
For the first time in my lifetime, it seems that power brokers in Washington are open to altering the traditionally proportion of funding between 80% of $$$ spent on highways/cars/trucks and 20% spent on non-automobile forms of transportation (trains, buses, bicycles and two feet). NYC based transit org Riders Alliance has formed a #TransformTransit coalition to fight to rebalance the funding structures and give transit its long delayed fair share. I was honored when my friends at the org asked me to speak at their May 27 launch event in Queens. My speech below. Be sure to click through, sign the petition, and call your federal legislators to demand they fund transit just as much as they’ve funded cars.
The Queens Boulevard Viaduct in 1916.
Photo credit: New York Transit Museum Collection/G. W. Pullis
106 years ago, in the year 1915, the 7 train (right over there) opened -- and a whole borough was developed. Entire neighborhoods that we take for granted as existing — LIC, Astoria, Sunnyside, Corona, Flushing, and especially where we are Jackson Heights — all exist as they are today because of the 7 train and other transit like it.
For a moment, transit made and grew new mini cities, with subways and streetcars, trains and trolleys, moving both the gentry & the working class into new housing, into Queens County, into the new "suburbs". The automobile was a play toy -- even less common than bicycles. Transit systems were vibrant and funded on a massive scale not just here in New York City, but also in cities like Wilmington, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, even Seattle, Portland & Los Angeles.
One century later, the 7 train is still kicking but most public space here & across the nation has been given to the automobile & most of the transportation monies have been given to its infrastructure. After a long century of lavish government subsidy -- we’re talking trillions, yes trillions of dollars -- the car is undisputed king of all American roads.
But here we are in the year 2021, and the federal government is finally turning its attention & care back to cities. And that’s good because local governments can't do it alone. We have a new President, a new Majority Leader, a new government -- soon a new Mayor, a new City Council, & a new Governor -- and the people in cities across the country require federal government spending. The needs of the people in cities -- housing & transit among others -- require more fully the attention of the federal government. Yes, Linda was right: money & attention must be paid.
I’ve lived in this city for 20 years and have been honored to call Queens my home for the last 8. This borough & this city are experiencing great change ----- but they can handle it, we can handle it, especially with the work of my friends at the Riders Alliance and the folks standing behind me. When the people organize together and fight, we are better off. And we can guarantee a dignified human life to everyone, by funding public housing, public space, public transportation, public power even.
But we need the help of the federal government. Mr. President Joe Biden: we need you. Don't pull a Gerald Ford Redux & tell us to Drop Dead Again. Instead: Fund the people of Queens, fund the people New York City, fund cities again, fund transit riders again, fund trains and buses. And we also need our New York elected officials to fight for this, and so I’m calling on Representative Carolyn Maloney, Senator Kirsten Gilibrand, Majority Leader Charles Schumer & the entire New York State federal delegation to step up, be leaders, fight like hell for transit, fight like our lives depend on it — because they do.
Cities and their transit are maybe the only chance we have to fight & survive climate change. So this is it: fund us again, or we perish. All we’re asking for is for you to give public transit the same century-long investment as the federal government has given public roads & highways. That’s all. Thank you all so much. Time to #TransformTransit