Ben Furnas
@bfurnas
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Executive Director, @transalt Former: @Cornell; @NYCMayor The greatest city in the world should have the greatest streets in the world. Views mine.🗽
NYC
Joined May 2007
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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New Yorkers have been trained to be nonchalant even when a mega celebrity goes by.
Watching this cargo ship pass under the Verrazzano was very fun
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both homeowners oppose the new apartment building going up down the block 🥲.
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French fur traders in 1700:.
Stop scrolling and listen to me very carefully:. You need to buy land here asap.
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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.”.
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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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The miraculous innovations of hyper-advanced society. NYC is in the lead again.
DSNY collects its first bags of residential garbage from curbside containers as part of a pilot program that kicks off today on W45th between 9th and 10th
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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.”.
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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 .
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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.’”
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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.”
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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! 🎥 @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.”.
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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.
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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).
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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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When NYC installed speed cameras on roads around schools, speeding on those roads dropped 80-90%.
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Handsome new multi-unit the width of a brownstone in South Slope.
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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.”.
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.
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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.
sorry to be dramatic but i actually think food delivery culture is one of the worst things to ever happen to modern society.
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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.
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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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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”
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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?.@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.
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Striking evidence that New Yorkers really came together yesterday to avoid a much worse set of outages.
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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
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No setbacks & uniform material for the facade look much nicer than NIMBYs fear.
Tall buildings aren't something to fear in cities. When thoughtfully designed like this new 13-story building in New York, they can be wonderful!
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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…)
Don’t youthwash NIMBYism — these kids don’t know what they are talking about!!
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innovation, pleasant living, new deal nostalgia, and pneumatic tubes.
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@kevinspellman 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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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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I am an NYC adult and I love MTA’s buses. (But they could be better!)
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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.
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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.
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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“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.”
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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.”
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The future is now: “…the 44-story structure will yield 441 rental units, with 45 reserved for affordable housing, and will be fully powered by electricity.”.
The Alloy Block’s 505 State Street Approaches Completion in Downtown Brooklyn
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Huge mistake - if anything the looming uncertainty is more politically damaging than letting it go into effect and getting the immediate congestion-easing benefits. That’s the lesson from Stockholm where the charge was least popular right before it started.
NEW: @GovKathyHochul is considering delaying the implementation of congestion pricing, as concerns mount that the controversial policy could hurt Dems in tight races this year. W/ @JCColtin & @NickReisman:.
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“An underrated truth about congestion pricing is that it works. It reduces congestion. And congestion is very annoying to people driving on the roads…The way to make congestion pricing more politically palatable wasn’t to delay it, it was to switch it on.”.
When it comes to congestion pricing, London and Stockholm have political lessons for New York. What are they? Read @bfurnas in Vital City.
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“12.7% of current childhood asthma nationwide is attributed to gas stove use, which is similar to the childhood asthma burden attributed to secondhand smoke exposure.”.
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The NYC alternate side parking calendar is one of the world’s most moving homages to pluralism and peaceful co-existence.
Today, @NYCCouncil passed legislation I sponsored to suspend Alternate-Side-Parking regulations on Tisha B’Av. Tisha B’Av is one of the holiest and most mournful days of the Jewish calendar. Now, the burden of moving cars on such a meaningful day has been removed.
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Taking my favorite electric vehicle to an announcement about some other kinds of electric vehicles. ⚡️🚗👀
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“…by 2030, the US will probably produce around 20 per cent of the world’s most advanced chips, up from zero today.”
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Disturbing evidence of a conspiracy to keep homes off the market, reducing supply and raising prices.
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“Every rich newcomer who can afford this new building, when it does get built, is someone who will not come to my landlord and offer double my rent because they don’t have another option for a building to live in, and I’m conveniently located.”
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"New York City’s biggest buildings are complying with a landmark emissions law at a much faster rate than the city expected, undermining the real estate sector’s claims that the rules will be too hard to meet. ".
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“TVA’s nuclear fleet of 7 reactors has generated more since 2016 than the 34.2 GW California wind & solar industry…all that TVA nuclear power is publicly-owned, producing energy at cost, not for profit—and not for Wall Street.”.
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“Germany’s “Energiewende” transition to wind, solar, and biomass has cost more than €500 billion, yet its grid is roughly six times more carbon intensive than its neighbor’s and its electricity prices are about a third higher.”
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Most New Yorkers already use an electric vehicle to get around (subway car).
Manhattan is probably going to lag behind suburban Charlotte/Atlanta/Dallas/Phoenix in EV adoption over the next few years, which is going to be a bit weird when thinking about the political ideology of NYC vs Sun Belt metros.
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“New York shut down its Indian Point nuclear power plant in 2021, taking 2,000 megawatts of carbon-free power off the grid, with the promise that offshore wind would soon replace it. It hasn’t yet.
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In a shortage, money finds a way: “A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100? In NYC? The broker's fee is $15K.”
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Strolled around the West Village, Manhattan, perhaps the greatest of all NIMBY triumphs, and also entirely unaffordable.
Strolled around Williamsburg, Brooklyn, today, perhaps the greatest of all YIMBY triumphs and also entirely unaffordable.
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After 8 years, today was my last day in the Mayor’s Office. Thank you to the incredible colleagues across City government, the inspiring and ambitious team at @nyclimate, and to Mayor de Blasio for the opportunity of a lifetime to serve this remarkable city. More soon!
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The underlying block technology has real value.
Watch: Collectible Lego sets are attracting investors looking for a safe and profitable alternative to the recent volatility and unpredictability of stocks and bonds. Here’s how Lego investing works.
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“We’re a national leader in blocking housing…New York is essentially in a league of its own when it comes to constricting housing development. Virtually no new housing has been created in large swathes of the New York City metro area for years…” 🔥
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“The project includes new 17- and 19-story buildings that would wrap around the subway covering where the F and G trains go below ground. The project adds 305 new apartments, 162 of which will be income-restricted…”.
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“Every time an ancient switch or signal fails, service is snarled and commuters are late to wherever they need to be, we are reminded again just how shortsighted the congestion pricing pause is — and how costly it is to the entire city…”
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Great to see a calm import of international best-practice instead of reinventing the wheel.
NYC is turning to a Spanish company to supply the first batch of on-street, Barcelona-style trash bins that will arrive in Manhattan next spring. The $7 million contract with Contenur could eventually be expanded to cover large buildings citywide.
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“Over 80% of Americans support building more homes in their local neighborhood…”
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"New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s indefinite pause on congestion pricing has prompted the MTA to halt its plans to install elevators at more than 20 subway stations, including one in Midtown where a mother died carrying her baby and stroller five years ago.".
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Mildly depressing that very simple nice things that could make neighborhoods more pleasant are just casually discarded with a shrug.
After a push by locals to keep the street for people (not cars) beyond the G train shutdown, DOT decided it will become a regular fixture only on Saturdays and Sundays between Sept. 28 and the end of the year.
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“Word is out that Gov. Hochul will press for a statewide ban on smartphones in schools — a long overdue move that would help teachers and students reclaim educational settings for learning and actual human connection.”
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No one is getting a camera ticket for going 28 in a 20mph zone. Tickets ($50, no points) are only issued if 11mph over. But it’s important to drive carefully in our neighborhoods - the difference between 20mph and 30/40 saves live (and doesn’t change travel times much).
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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.”. 🚌🚌🥳🥳.
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“But here's how to quiet your anxieties about gentrification: Help out your fucking neighbors and build some apartments.”
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@DanRiffle Yeah they had been jeering her in the run up, didn’t seem like that was in her prepared remarks.
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“The typical family that moves out of New York State saves 15 times more from lower housing costs than they do from lower taxes.”
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“In the past half century, by investing in transit & allowing development, Tokyo added more housing units than the total number in NYC. It remained affordable by becoming the world’s largest city. It has become the largest city by remaining affordable.”
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In 2009, NYC downzoned Carroll Gardens and Columbia Street. In the wake of the rezoning, housing production stalled, and the neighborhood became richer, whiter, and more expensive. Great look-back report from @NYCPlanning.
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The @NYDailyNews editorial board comes out strongly for the proposal to build apartments on the Arrow Linen site. “New York is pricing out young people, middle-class families, and seniors. It’s time to build.”
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"Mayor Adams's landmark City of Yes rezoning plan will generate 50 percent fewer new units if the City Council modifies the plan to eliminate mandatory parking within half a mile of subway stations instead of everywhere citywide.".
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To be clear - I’m a big fan of this program, know a lot of fine folks are working hard putting it together - just having a little fun! 💕.
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“The evidence indicates that adding more housing of any kind [market-rate or subsidized] helps slow rent growth. And the Pew analysis of these four places is consistent with that finding.”.
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Curb and concrete is so much more pleasant and appealing than truffle paint and flexposts. Need to help @NYC_DOT expand their capacity and ambition to do much more of this.
This year we installed a concrete triangle and concrete curb extension at the intersection of Westchester Ave, Fox St, East 165th St This project:.🚶Created a shorter safer crossing.🪑Provide a new public space with benches.🚶♀️Widened a crowded sidewalk.#nycdot2024
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The overwhelming majority of people who get 1-2 camera tickets…stop speeding and don’t get more. New Yorkers are mostly people who care about their neighbors and follow the rules so this is very heartening to see.
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“A deepening housing shortage is costing New York City nearly $2 billion in annual tax revenue while driving residents out of the five boroughs and locking others into homes that don’t fit their needs…”
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