Issues: Constituents Corner

By Ed Litvak

A follow-up on the continuing tensions between the Forsyth Street produce vendors and the NYPD. Last month, the vendors and the Urban Justice Center staged a protest under the Manhattan Bridge, complaining that the police and other city agencies were going on a ticket-writing frenzy in an effort to scare them away.

Yesterday, representatives of many of those agencies, as well as State Senator Daniel Squadron, City Councilmember Margaret Chin and staff from the offices of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Borough President Scott Stringer got together to discuss the situation.

“The question to monitor is whether we’ve gone far enough,” echoed State Senator Daniel Squadron, a strong advocate for minimizing the number of tour buses that frequent Lower Manhattan.

Squadron is pushing for other transportation measures to be implemented, such as a dispatch system that would inform bus companies of area parking availability ahead of time, so that bus drivers would be ensured a spot before coming into the neighborhood. The Senator would also like to see a “satellite” parking system in place that would direct the buses to Harrison, New Jersey and other dedicated parking spaces outside of Lower Manhattan after dropping off passengers at the memorial. The hope, he said, is that out-of-towners would patronize Downtown businesses and visit other attractions in the area besides the memorial before heading home.

By Stephen Rex Brown

State Senator Daniel Squadron and City Councilwoman Margaret Chin urged the Department of Transportation to improve safety on Delancey Street today in the wake of last week’s deadly accident that killed a 52-year-old cyclist. As the Lo-Down reports, the thoroughfare had a reputation for danger prior to the most recent tragedy. Earlier this month, The Local reported that a significant number of the city’s dangerous intersections are on the Lower East Side — of those, most are on Delancey Street.

By Patrick Hedlund

LOWER EAST SIDE — A pair of Lower East Side politicians urged the city to make immediate safety improvements along Delancey Street following a spate of deadly crashes on the high-traffic strip.

Their call to action comes after a cyclist was struck and killed on the busy thoroughfare, near Chrystie Street, last week. It was the second car-related death on the stretch in the past few months.

State Senator Daniel Squadron and Councilwoman Margaret Chin wrote a joint letter to the Department of Transportation asking the agency to expedite safety improvements, including installing pedestrian countdown clocks along the length of Delancey Street.

Senator Gianaris was on NY1 with Inside City Hall’s Errol Louis and executive director of Common Cause New York, Susan Lerner, to discuss redistricting and the need for an independent redistricting commission.

See the full video interview here.