Daily News New York City. March 29, 2020

34 Sunday,March 29, 2020 DAILY NEWSNYDailyNews.com

T

he COVID-19 outbreak

has had profound effects

on city government, and

we at the Department of

Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n h av e

been no exception. We were

devastated to lose our first em-

ployee to the virus this past

week and many of our sister

agencies have experienced sim-

ilar heartbreaking losses.

But as we grieve, we are also

working hard to keep 5,800 em-

ployees safe with as much tele-

work and social distancing as

humanly possible, while re-

sponding to emergency condi-

tions on our roads, bridges, side-

walks and traffic operations in-

frastructure — and keeping the

Staten Island Ferry running

2 4/7. This grows more chal-

lenging each day for all agencies

with a growing number of em-

ployees falling ill.

At the same time, we are fac-

ing unprecedented challenges

on our city streets. As March

began, and New Yorkers began

social distancing and

more teleworking, we

saw decreased driving

combined with in-

creases in cycling city-

wide. And so Mayor

de Blasio challenged

us and our partners at

the NYPD to address

some of these side ef-

fects of the COVID-19

outbreak, leading us to

pilot two separate improve-

ments that we think could help

meet new demands: temporary

protected bike lanes filling criti-

cal bike-network gaps as well as

new and larger pedestrian

spaces.

The new protected bike

lanes, just unveiled Friday, can

be found along two popular cor-

ridors used daily by thousands

of bicycle commuters — along

Second Ave. in Midtown and

Smith St. in downtown Brook-

lyn. DOT staff has installed new

barrels and signage to keep cy-

clists physically separated from

cars and other vehicles and our

NYPD colleagues will help us

maintain the lanes.

The mayor announced our

second pilot last week. It also

took effect Friday, as we barred

motorized vehicles along four

streets in Manhattan, Brooklyn,

Queens and the Bronx during

most daylight hours, creating

new pedestrian spaces in the

roadbed.

How were these streets se-

lected? In each borough, we

looked for wide streets with ad-

equate room for social distanc-

ing in dense neighborhoods

that lack open space. We also

looked for streets that did not

have hospitals or function as

bus or truck routes, which are

now carrying critical workers

and supplies. NYPD also made

the decision to provide for con-

trolled access on the cross

streets to ensure that essential

vehicles, especially ambulances,

could get through.

On each of these first four

streets — on Park Ave. South in

Murray Hill, Bushwick Ave. in

Bushwick, 34th Ave. in Jackson

Heights, and along the Grand

Concourse in Fordham — po-

lice officers will be on site this

entire weekend and Monday to

ensure pedestrian and cyclist

safety and direct traffic as

needed, especially emergency

vehicles.

Ne w Yo r ke r s s h o u l d , o f

course, continue to

stay home — espe-

cially if they are feeling

sick. However, if you

live near these streets

and need to use them,

please be sure to keep

six feet of distance at

all times. I am proud of

the DOT team that

created these spaces

and I am so very grate-

ful to our partners at the NYPD

for helping us make them a real-

ity.

As these first four pedestrian

streets are up and running,

DOT and NYPD will look

closely at how they work. We

will use our observations and

input from all our stakeholders

to determine next steps.

Iknow some members of the

advocacy community have been

openly disappointed by these

first pilot treatments. A couple

of miles of streets citywide, they

say, is not a big enough commit-

ment to meet this moment. I ask

them to consider the challenges

that all city agencies on the front

lines — not just at home with

laptops — face at this moment.

We will continue to do all we

can transform our streets, but as

this virus continues to take its

toll on us all, please remember

that city employees are not an

inexhaustible resource. We

must be able to go the distance

while continuing to serve the

public during these terrible and

uncertain times.

Trottenberg is the city’s trans-

portation commissioner.

A different kind

of safe streets

How NYC

is

adapting

public

space

BE OUR GUEST

BY POLLY TROTTENBERG

S

aturday, President Trump sent New

York City and state into a crazy tizzy

about an impending regional quaran-

tine — before saying nevermind, it

“will not be necessary” a few hours

later.

Welcome to episode 788 in the impulsive,

ill-considered, just-spitballing-here presi-

dency. It’s bad enough during otherwise stable

times. In a crisis, this is madness.

Trump first raised the idea Saturday after-

noon: He said New York, New Jersey and

parts of Connecticut might have to be sealed

off in some way, to stop the rest of the country

from getting infected from areas where the

coronavirus is now raging — or at least where

an upsurge in testing is revealing far more

cases than anywhere else.

The flippant floating of the idea served no

one. It was baseless. Trump didn’t care be-

cause, well, he never does.

He didn’t care that in practical and consti-

tutional terms, the feds were likely powerless

to take such drastic actions without full co-

operation from the states. Nor had he even

floated the idea with Cuomo, who was proper-

ly puzzled by the notion, calling it “a civil war

kind of discussion” to restrict travel between

the states.

Details — oh, those — were the furthest

thing from the mind of the most powerful

person in the world.

How on earth would it be executed? With

what army? State economies are seamlessly

interconnected: swaths of New Jersey are the

Philadelphia suburbs; swaths of Connecticut,

the Boston suburbs. No federal authority can

try to seal state or regional borders.

Nor was it lost on anyone that Trump, who

botched testing for the virus, failed to order

social distancing and now, impatient to turn

the economic switch back on, mused about

sealing off a state that did move fast, blindsid-

ing its governor in the process.

It was a fire drill that burned to an ember

presidential credibility. Or what was left of it.

The wall that wasn’t

J

une 27, 1932, was the opening day of the

Democratic National Convention in Chi-

cago, and party bigs still hadn’t decided

who they would nominate to take on and

beat Herbert Hoover, who was busy dig-

ging America deeper into the Great Depres-

sion. Party insiders had to decide between two

New York governors, Al Smith and FDR. They

picked Roosevelt. The rest is happily history.

Other New York governors have since

sought the top job and perhaps, in this upside-

down world, the current one might too. Worse

things could happen.

We’ve had many disagreements with An-

drew Cuomo over the years — calling him “a

real piece of work” in endorsing him for a third

term — but in his calm, competent, command-

ing and compassionate performance these

past few weeks, he has shown America what

crisis leadership should look like. And created

acrystal clear contrast with the confused, divi-

sive, impulsive, vindictive, ill-informed Donald

Trump.

If things still worked the way they did back

in the 1930s, even into the 1960s, Cuomo

would absolutely be the Democratic Party’s

pick this year.

In fact, if state primaries had not been can-

celed by the coronavirus, we’d expect a Cuomo

write-in campaign to pick up steam. It’s

spreading on Twitter, Facebook and other

places people virtually congregate.

Of course, things don’t work the way they

once did. For better and worse, mostly better,

voters decide, not insiders.

Before the roof caved in, voters chose Joe

Biden, whose public pronouncements are also

confidence-inspiring compared to Trump’s.

Biden has the delegates. Does he have the

mandate?

Cuomo and 2020

H

aving the governor jam all kinds of

non-fiscal policy changes into the

state budget has never been a good

way to make laws.

It’s true that a 2001 ruling by

New York’s highest court in Silver v. Pataki

(remember them?) gives the chief executive

apowerful hand to play as the April 1 dead-

line approaches, and it’s true that he often

has the winning argument on policy. Some-

times — like last year, where congestion

pricing got folded in — the budget’s the only

vehicle by which vital measures can happen.

But by and large, complex legislation

ought to go through hearings, amendments

and more, not get wedged into a gargantuan

omnibus that the public can’t swallow,

much less digest, until after it passes.

That rule is bolded and underlined this

year. A coronavirus-hobbled state is staring

at a $15 billion-and-growing deficit; attack-

ing it while trying to rescue recession-

plagued workers and businesses are jobs

one, two and three.

So: Put on the back burner reforms like

fixing the overly-broad bail reform from last

year’s budget and streamlining New York’s

crazy quilt court system. Wait on legalizing

marijuana and other worthy programs.

And the budget is definitely the wrong

place to push through a badly deformed

campaign finance plan that would strangle

minor political parties. Or scale back a new

landmark farmworkers’ rights law by ex-

empting all kinds of employees from over-

time and a day of rest.

Pass bills later, when the emergency

abates. Now is not the time.

First things first