Transportation & Safe Streets

Crystal understands that this city is a multi-modal one and that streets have to be safe for all users, no matter how many wheels they ride on or if they get around on foot. She will work to reform the failed implementation of Vision Zero, expand bike lanes, reform street parking, and advocate for municipal control of New York City Transit, making those who manage our subways and more directly accountable to their passengers. She will also ensure that taxi and for-hire drivers are treated fairly and not subject to predatory lending and labor practices.

As New Yorkers, we are so lucky to live in a city that has a wide range of transportation options. Like so many, Crystal frequently gets around on foot, by bike, car, and via subway. Crystal believes we must continue to invest in all forms of transportation to ensure New York remains a multi-modal city for generations to come, and overturn decades of underinvestment in our city’s infrastructure by fully funding and implementing the already-passed Streets Master Plan, which will make our streets safer for everyone. With more protected bike lanes, updated parking policies, more protected lanes, upgrades, better pedestrian signals, and more pedestrian-friendly intersection redesign, we will move toward a city that respects and invests in all modes of transportation.

We must be vigilant in advocating for the accessibility, safety, cleanliness and durability of our transportation infrastructure. Fellow New Yorkers continue to shoulder the burden of increased and transit costs with little to no improvements in service or safety. We need to remove the NYPD from trafc enforcement while investing in accessibility and affordability upgrades, like fully funding Fair Fares, shifting Access-a-Ride to municipal control, expanding station accessibility, and creating stronger bike infrastructure.

Additionally, our transit workers and taxi or for-hire vehicle drivers provide essential services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. We must center their voices and demand oversight after years of predatory policies.

Make Our Streets Safer

● Fully fund and implement the already-passed Streets Master Plan. New York City’s Streets Master Plan, signed into law in 2019, intends to dramatically improve bus and bike transit infrastructure and create safer streets across the city, especially in Black and brown neighborhoods that have suffered historic disinvestment. The plan calls for more protected bus lanes, hundreds of more miles of protected bike lanes, bus stop upgrades, intersection redesign, more accessible pedestrian signals, and updated parking policies. Ultimately, it will help our city reduce carbon emissions, improve accessibility, and bolster mass transit use. Crystal supports the Streets Master Plan and an overall investment in traffic calming design, and will work to fully fund and implement the new law when elected to the City Council. ● Accelerate New York City Transit’s bus network redesign process currently underway and dramatically expand Bus (BRT) plans. Black and brown New Yorkers have the longest commute times in New York City and overwhelmingly rely on the subway and buses to get to work. Buses provide a relatively affordable and quick-to-implement way to provide better public transit for Black and brown commuters. The 14th Street Busway has been an enormous success and expanding BRT routes to Central Brooklyn and other Black and brown neighborhoods is essential to allowing people to for work and pleasure. Crystal supports accelerating New York City Transit’s bus network redesign process and dramatically expanding plans for lines. ● Strengthen Open Streets program. As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across New York City, more and more New Yorkers masked up and explored their neighborhoods, enjoying the benefits of the Open Streets initiative to safely shop at local small businesses and enjoy socially distanced time with friends and loved ones. Unfortunately, the Open Streets program is sporadic and limited in Black and brown neighborhoods. Crystal will work to expand the Open Streets program by identifying more streets that can be closed to cars and used for pedestrians only — especially in Black and brown neighborhoods — and will work to connect Open Streets to remedy the current patchwork system. She will also work to ensure restaurants and cultural institutions can use the streets for seating, street vendors have priority access to curbside space, and artists and musicians can quickly obtain necessary permitting to perform as part of the Open Culture program (which must be reformed to provide a living wage for performers and mandated COVID-19 safety protocols). ● Shift traffic enforcement away from armed officers. More than $220 million of the NYPD’s bloated budget goes to enforcing traffic laws. The reality of armed police handling traffic enforcement is that routine stops too often escalate to violence and even murder. It is no surprise that Black and brown people suffer these fates during police traffic stops at disproportionate rates. Crystal will work to shift traffic enforcement responsibility from armed officers to the NYPD’s civilian Traffic Enforcement Agency, because armed police should not handle traffic enforcement. ● Commit to a study of residential parking permitting. Currently, any driver can park their car at nearly all of our city’s estimated 3 million curbside parking spots for free, as long as they comply with street cleaning and other street service restrictions. Most major cities have already implemented some form of a residential parking permitting system, charging residents for the ability to park their cars curbside. The system is designed to ensure there are designated curbside parking spots that are available for use by community members. As we rethink how we use our curb space, we need to ensure we are intentional with its use and designate space for everything from parking spots to bike parking to restaurant seating. Crystal supports commissioning a broad study of residential parking permitting to determine whether a system could be effectively implemented in New York. She supports a study that utilizes an equity- and justice-oriented lens to ensure Black and brown car owners are not disadvantaged and guarantee low-income car owners can afford a permit. ● Continue to build on Vision Zero and work toward zero traffic and cycling deaths by 2024. Last year, more people died in traffic incidents than any year since Vision Zero began in 2014, which aimed at eliminating all traffic fatalities in a decade. In 2019, we saw the most bike fatalities of any year since 2000. Crystal supports increasing rather than cutting the capital budget for Vision Zero and working with the administration to implement already-passed legislation that would strip reckless drivers of their license unless they take a safe driving course to work toward ensuring our city has zero traffic fatalities. She also believes that Vision Zero requires a fundamental shift in our city’s relationship to our streets, primarily by reducing our city’s reliance on cars and incentivizing New Yorkers to use mass transit and cycling by fully implementing the Streets Master Plan. There is no reason we cannot achieve our goal of eliminating traffic and cycling fatalities by 2024 other than willful inaction. ● Advocate for municipal control of the subway and bus system. For too long, our bus and subway systems have suffered from systemic underinvestment and anemic progress due to bureaucratic disputes within the state-run Metropolitan (MTA). We can no longer rely on the governor or his closest aides and allies to dictate how our city runs its mass transit system. Their misguided decisions — from cutting subway operating hours during the pandemic, which disproportionately harmed our essential workers who risked their lives to ensure our health and safety, to removing benches to deter our neighbors who are currently experiencing homelessness from sleeping on them — continue to prove that they do not know how to operate a transit system in a manner that aligns with our city’s values. Crystal will advocate for municipal control of the subway and bus system operating within the five boroughs, ensuring accountability to those who rely on city transit the most. ● Support the implementation and oversight of congestion pricing. Our city’s current congestion pricing plan — the implementation of which the Trump administration slow-walked by failing to approve an electronic tolling system that requires federal action — is projected to provide up to $1 billion in revenue for the MTA to make repairs and upgrades. Crystal will work with federal and state lawmakers to push for any needed actions to commence congestion pricing as soon as possible. Additionally, she will push for the MTA to use the revenue to support green infrastructure. See Crystal’s Environment and Climate Justice plan for more information.

Expand Our City’s Investment In Making New York City the Best City for Cyclists

● Create better bike infrastructure everywhere. Not having safe places to bike in the street has given police even more opportunities to criminalize Black and brown people, whom the NYPD are more likely to ticket for riding on the sidewalk. The placement of better bike infrastructure — such as protected bike lanes — in whiter and wealthier neighborhoods is yet another example of the City’s disinvestment in Black communities. Crystal will improve bike infrastructure throughout the city, including building more protected bike lanes and stronger enforcement of laws prohibiting parking in bike lanes, with a focus on prioritizing Black and brown neighborhoods. Ultimately, Crystal believes we must expand our existing infrastructure of bike lanes into a continuous and contiguous high-capacity network. ● Expand bike parking citywide. Too many cyclists know the frustration of traveling throughout the five boroughs and not finding a safe place to park their bike. Currently, there are 1.6 million cyclists in New York City but just 56,000 bike parking spots, forcing cyclists to park their bikes wherever they can find space — on a street sign, planter or fence. In fact, there are 100 more free car parking spots in our city for every single bicycle parking space, according to a recent study. All of these roadblocks explain why more than one-in-four New Yorkers report having had a bike stolen from them or a family member. Moreover, Black and brown people are more likely than white people to ride a bike if there is secure parking available. Crystal supports expanding bike parking citywide and more than doubling the number of existing bike parking spots by attaching bike parking to existing street infrastructure like tree guards, lamp posts, or parking meters. She also supports converting some car parking spots into dedicated bike parking spots — either bike corrals or similar parking structures that can store a dozen bikes or more — and using curbside space on streets included in the Open Streets program for bike parking, as well as modular solutions like that provided by Oonee. ● Provide funding for bike subsidy programs. As our city improves its bike infrastructure, more and more New Yorkers will find it increasingly advantageous to use our network of bike lanes to get around the city. Yet with a shortage in bike availability due to rising demand during the pandemic, only those with greater resources may be able to afford or find a bike, meaning our essential workers may not have access to their preferred form of transportation. Crystal will work to secure city funding for nonprofit organizations and programs that subsidize bike purchases or provide used bikes for low-income New Yorkers.

Create A Transportation Network That Is Accessible for All

● Make our public transit system fully ADA-compliant. Currently, only 25% of NYC subway stations are accessible to those using a wheelchair or with limited mobility. In 2018, the city announced its Fast Forward plan “to completely modernize New York City Transit, from the inside out.” But little has been done to realize this plan and set the MTA on a path to actually achieve the goal of making the transit system accessible. Crystal will work to hold the administration accountable for making these upgrades in a timely fashion. ● Ensure the Fair Fares program is fully funded and expanded for all New Yorkers in need. Fair Fares recognized that subway and bus is too expensive for low-income folks and cut the price by 50 percent for eligible New Yorkers. However, not all those who are eligible have applied for Fair Fares, and even a half-priced round trip fare can still be too costly for many. As more New Yorkers begin to use public transportation as the city reopens, Crystal believes the city should invest more in fare reductions, starting as a pilot targeted at Black and brown communities if resources are limited. This action should be the first step toward eventually making public transit free for all, which would benefit all New Yorkers — particularly Black and brown New Yorkers. ● Shift Access-A-Ride to municipal control & expand service fleet. Currently, countless independent and private operators run the Access-A-Ride service under City Council oversight. Crystal supports shifting Access-A-Ride from a service overseen by the city to a service run and managed by the city. The absorption of this transit network into a municipal service would create unionized and/or municipal jobs at a cost savings and allow seniors with limited mobility, those living with disabilities, and other clients of Access-A-Ride to have more reliable transportation options. Crystal will work to expand the vehicles used in the Access-A-Ride program to include yellow and green taxi cabs so that more New Yorkers can quickly access more reliable transportation options. She also supports increasing the number of ADA-accessible cabs in the city’s taxi fleet. ● Create a sidewalk repair grant program. Frequently forgotten in discussions of transportation networks are sidewalks, which are perhaps the most utilized piece of transportation infrastructure in our city. Despite their frequent use, many of our sidewalks are cracked, uneven, and present a physical danger for all New Yorkers. Currently, homeowners are responsible for repairing sidewalks in front of their properties — a burden that often falls to older homeowners and homeowners of color. These unexpected costs may be impossible to pay for those living on fixed incomes. Crystal supports creating a grant program for certain low-income and senior homeowners to finance sidewalk repairs to ensure everyone has access to safe, even sidewalks regardless of their ability to pay. ● Support the expansion of dollar-van providers. Dollar vans are a lifeline for Black communities who live in transit deserts. Crystal believes our city must equip dollar van companies with technology infrastructure so that riders can effectively “hail” rides, supporting riders to get access to transportation and support dollar van owners — many of whom are Black — to make a living.

Support Taxi & For-Hire Vehicle Drivers

● Establish a taxi medallion owner debt relief fund. In 2018, eight drivers killed themselves, three of whom owned a medallion. After the medallion market crashed following the rise of market speculation and lax oversight by the city’s Taxi and Commission (TLC) of a dangerously overcapitalized market, medallions that were worth as much as $1.3 million saw their value fall to as low as $150,000. As a result, medallion owners, many of whom drive their own taxis, could sell their medallions and still owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in related debt, including predatory loans taken out to finance the medallions. From 2015 to 2017, 85 taxi medallions were sold as xpart of foreclosure proceedings, showing how the devaluation of a once reliable asset has a ripple effect that financially destabilizes largely immigrant communities. Currently, the average medallion owner has $700,000 in debt, vastly more than the average New Yorker has in student loan debt or credit card debt. The de Blasio administration’s current proposal for debt relief is woefully inadequate and does not do enough to fully relieve the significant debts facing medallion owners. Crystal supports a fully-funded medallion owner debt relief fund that will finance relief for a significant portion of the medallion-related debt for medallion owners as well as taxi-related debt for drivers who have seen a reduction in trips due to reduced travel during the pandemic. ● Create a permanent city-sponsored worker relief fund. In addition to work-related costs, many taxi drivers are independent contractors who do not have access to medical coverage or basic employment benefits. Crystal supports creating a permanent city-sponsored worker relief fund that would pool funds to cover health insurance and other basic employment expenses for freelance workers and independent contractors, including taxi and for-hire vehicle (FHV) drivers. ● Support medallion refinancing. Given the significant debt facing medallion owners, Crystal supports working with lenders to restructure debt to cut it and maintain a fixed interest rate tied to that of the federal reserve. She also supports a plan for the city to purchase the loans from banks or lenders and refinance them at fair interest rates. Crystal will also determine whether municipal control of the taxi medallion market would be beneficial. ● Create a city-sponsored taxi worker retirement fund. Currently, though they may open their own IRA with a financial brokerage, taxi drivers have no established retirement system that ensures they have sufficient savings upon retirement to care for themselves and their family. Crystal will work to create an independent retirement system for taxi/FHV drivers, overseen by the Comptroller, that includes board positions for taxi and FHV industry members and representatives. The retirement system can be funded both by allocating pre-tax dollars for taxi/FHV drivers and by automatically rounding up fairs to the nearest dollar and adding that total to the driver’s account. ● Bolster the Freelance Isn’t Free Act to support drivers and other freelance workers. Passed five years ago, the Freelance Isn’t Free Act created vital protections for freelance workers, including a written employment contract, a mandate for timely and full payment, and protections from employer retaliation. The law represented a great first step in providing essential protections for freelance workers but is just the beginning. Crystal will advocate for legislation to strengthen the Freelance Isn’t Free Act that requires that freelance workers receive a minimum down-payment up-front for services rendered and ensures that minimum payments for services are above New York City’s self-sufficiency standard based on the cost of living in the five boroughs. She also will work to ensure the Freelance Isn’t Free Act grievance process is more widely publicized so workers know where to file complaints and recover lost wages when they are mistreated. ● Ending predatory lending. A recent New York Times investigation found that a handful of industry leaders created the medallion bubble by artificially driving up the price of medallions and pushing drivers to accept predatory loans. The medallion market crash forced 950 medallion owners to file for bankruptcy and pushed immigrant families into debt. Some drivers signed loans that forced them to only pay the interest on the loan for the initial term, meaning their loan never got smaller. Experts said the industry’s tactics were “among the worst that have been used since the housing crash,” according to the Times. Once in the Council, Crystal will work with state lawmakers to overhaul taxi and medallion loan regulations to require purchaser credit review to ensure they have sufficient capital to afford payments and restrict interest-only loans (which have lower monthly payments early on but higher ones once payments to the principal begin).