Reclaim Magazine

T H E M A G A Z I N E O F T R A N S P O R TAT I O N A LT E R N AT I V E S

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T R A N S A LT. O R G

* ew York’s funniest blogger * Ngets serious (sort of) about why fixing our language is the first step to fixing our streets.

VOLUME 21 | #2

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Volume 21 / # 2 2015

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, INTRODUCING RAY AND IVY WHITE.

PUBLISHER’S LE T TER

BE FO RE MY W IF E , ZOE , GAVE

miraculous birth to our now threemonth-old twins, Ivy and Ray, I worried about the world we were bringing them into. Monsters have always lurked under the bed, but with global warming and rising intolerance it does seem like there are a lot more boogeymen these days.

What kind of city will Ray and Ivy live in?

When my first daughter, Anna Jane, was born almost seven years ago, I asked the same question, imagining on this page her future city packed with car-free streets, protected bike lanes and high-quality transit. That future is much closer today than it was in 2008.

We have a safer citywide speed limit, Queens Boulevard is in the middle of a game-changing redesign (read about it on page 13) and Mayor de Blasio recently

announced plans for a protected bike lane on Sixth Avenue. Even a few campaigns that seemed impossible when Anna Jane was born are now part of Ivy and Ray’s reality, like the transformation of Times Square and a Right of Way law that protects walkers and bikers.

These campaigns were conceived by activists in TransAlt committees or members of Families for Safe Streets, and won by their hard work with the help of TransAlt’s wide network of friends. In an interview later in this issue, Janette Sadik-Khan points out that our network of friends has never been stronger, and those business, labor, neighborhood and health partners are as vital to successful campaigns as they are to keeping them in place. “Your vigilance is required,” she says. How true that has proven lately.

Just as Ivy and Ray were coming into the world, a cadre of strange bedfellows took aim at the Right of Way law, threatening to water down the power of the policy. Times Square’s public plazas came under fire, too, with Police Commissioner Bill Bratton proposing that Broadway be turned back into a flood of cars. Mayor de Blasio, surprisingly, said he might agree. And I was still in the hospital, holding my wife’s hand, when one of the leaders of the anti-Right of Way cadre texted to tell me that when we returned home from the hospital with our two newborn babies we would find picketers waiting outside our apartment, along with a giant inflatable rat.

(The menacing rat was to be a symbol for yours truly, leader of the New World Order of Bicyclists.)

Zoe White

What Beats the Rats and Boogeymen?

Zoe White

I worried: Did I not repeat enough the statistic that proved the Right of Way law was already saving lives? Did I forget to tell the mayor the story of the grumpy New York deli man I met who loves the new public space in Times Square?

Had we not been vigilant? There was a moment when I thought that my two new New Yorkers would live in a city where these campaigns had been won, then lost.

The truth is that as long as you and I stand on the side of justice and fight for a better way, there will always be rats and boogeymen trying to knock us down. As good New Yorkers and good Americans, we do what we can, at the ballot box and with the power of the purse, to vote down the Donald Trumps, divest from the Exxons and slay the other monsters of our day. We keep fighting and we stay vigilant. Our horizon is the city where we want our children to live.

Thanks to a friend at City Hall, the rat was called off. As the summer of 2015 wound down (and Ray and Ivy approached the two-month mark), the Right of Way law and Times Square were both saved. The stories are long and complicated, but it boils down to friendship: You and the other TransAlt faithful

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Laurence Levi, Chair; Curtis Archer, George H. Beane, Colin Beavan, Christine Berthet, Ken Coughlin, Doug Ellis, Mike Epstein, Alex Herzan, Steve Hindy, Daniel Kaizer, Mary Beth Kelly, Adam Mansky, Richard B. Miller, Neysa Pranger, Jeff Prant, Mark Seaman, Gordon Travers, Shin-pei Tsay, Paul Steely White, Howard Wolfson, Susi Wunsch, Howard Yaruss ADVISORY COUNCIL Janet Liff, Co-Chair; Adam Mansky, Co-Chair; Mark Agger, Thurstan Bannister, George H. Beane, David Byrne, Joshua David, Michael Drinkard, Paul Gertner, Mark Gorton, Alex Herzan, Karen Karp, Rich Kassel, Mary Beth Kelly, Randy Locklair, Stephen Lyle, Linda Prine, Henry Rinehart, Lisa Sladkus, Michael Smith, Steve Vaccaro, Lloyd Westerman, Adam Wolfensohn STAFF Paul Steely White, Executive Director; Stacey Auguste, Special Events Director; Mark Castillo, Finance Manager; Marco Conner, Legislative and Legal Manager; Matthew Cox, Development Assistant; Thomas DeVito, Director of Organizing; Evan Feldman, Bike Valet Coordinator; David Guerrero, Manhattan Organizer; Munmun Habib, Finance Coordinator; Arthur Hanna, Web Manager; Lauren Hawk, Volunteer Coordinator; Jenna Herskovic, Data Services Coordinator; Mike Infranco, Senior Director, Technology & Information; Julia Kite, Policy & Research Manager; Sandra

took action, signing petitions and showing up for important meetings, and that turned the tide.

For me, being a part of this team is the best part of my job. I know I am just one human and you are, too, but all of us together are a powerful force for change and, increasingly, quite a wedge against the rollback of history.

Ray and Ivy will grow up and face the world, and their own boogeymen. I will always be a dad who worries, but I will continue to be vigilant, for the Right of Way law and Times Square, and our next campaigns, too, like the challenge of getting the word “accident” out of our lexicon. (Read about it on page 8, where Eben Weiss, a.k.a. Bike Snob, explains why soiled diapers are very different from car crashes.)

Until then, and the next time we change New York, you’ll find me changing those diapers.

Sincerely,

Paul Steely White Executive Director

Lee-Hawkins, Upper Manhattan Organizer; Kyle S. Mackie, Foundation & Corporate Relations Coordinator; Michelle Mayer, Online Production Associate; Jackie McAllister, Operations Manager; Ellen McDermott, Chief Operating Officer; Serena McIntosh, Data & Research Coordinator; Greg Mihailovich, Staten Island Organizer; Luke Ohlson, Senior Organizer; Ollie Oliver, Field Organizing Coordinator; Sasha O’Malley, Creative Director; Ryan Parris, Membership Manager; Caroline Samponaro, Deputy Director; Laura Silver, Marketing Manager; Jessie Singer, Senior Editor; Beth Slade, Events Manager; Rabia Syed, CRM Manager; Karen Trella, Development Director; Timothy Tong, IT Systems Manager; Julie Ziff Sint, Associate Development Director; Brian Zumhagen, Communications Director BROOKLYN COMMIT TEE CHAIR Becca Kaplan BRONX COMMIT TEE CHAIR Daniel Ranells LOWER MANHAT TAN COMMIT TEE CHAIRS Janet Liff & Willow Stelzer UPPER MANHAT TAN COMMIT TEE CHAIR Rose Seabrook EASTERN QUEENS COMMIT TEE CHAIRS Joby Jacobs & Uma Alice Lo QUEENS COMMIT TEE CHAIRS Peter Beadle & Angela Stach STATEN ISL AND COMMIT TEE CHAIR Laura Barlament FAMILIES FOR SAFE STREETS STEERING COMMIT TEE Aaron Charlop-Powers, Amy Cohen, Lindsay Motlin, Kevin Sami, Dulcie Canton

Our mission is to reclaim New York City’s streets from the automobile, and to advocate for bicycling, walking and public transit as the best transportation alternatives.

CONTENTS

Publisher’s Letter 2 Milestones 4 Commuter Profile 5 Activist Profile 6 Bike Snob 8 Queens Boulevard 13 Mural for Vision Zero 14 Restorative Justice 17 Janette Sadik-Khan 18 Dispatches from the Front Cycle Music 25 Partner Profile 26

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Vol. 21 No. 2 of 2 ISSN #1524-1912 Published biannually by Transportation Alternatives.

Subscriptions available for $ 40/year, $50 (outside U.S.). Reprints (except graphics), with TransAlt credit, allowed without permission.

PUBLISHER: Paul Steely White EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jessie Gray Singer ASSISTANT EDITOR: Kyle S. Mackie PROOFREADER: Ken Coughlin DESIGNER: Sarah Lang CONTRIBUTORS: Andrew Hinderaker,

Jessie Gray Singer, Eben Weiss, Paul Steely White COMIC: Jessie Gray Singer

111 John Street, Suite 260 New York, NY 10038 Tel 212-629-8080 info@ transalt.org, transalt.org

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LOCAL NE WS

Milestones CITI BIKE EXPANDS

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This summer, Citi Bike expanded with 91 new stations in Long Island City, Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant.

The Upper East and West Sides will split another 48 bike share hubs. In the expansion’s footprint, proof of the “if you build it, they will come” theory of bike share was immediately evident, with active Citi Bikers and empty stations spotted all over. Citi Bike says that expansion will continue through 2017, with plans for 12,000 bikes at 700 stations, including new spots in Astoria, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Crown Heights, Gowanus, Harlem, Park Slope, Prospect Heights and Red Hook.

Andrew Hinderaker

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CLOVE ROAD Staten Islanders got their first new bike lane in seven years, thanks to a campaign TransAlt activists launched in 2013. Clove Road, a critical connection to the Staten Island Ferry, now sports a green lane, and eager cyclists are making sure it gets good use. Getting the bike lane approved took the support of nearly 500 Staten Island residents and 25 local business owners, and a group of bold activists proposing the idea to the DOT. At a meeting of Community Board 1 last year the plan was brought to a vote. A board member asked the packed room, “Who here even rides a bike?”

More than 100 people raised their hand. The rest is bike lane history.

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Andrew Hinderaker

Mayor Bill de Blasio took a giant leap this summer toward freeing Prospect and Central park from car traffic. On Central Park’s Loop Drive, cars are no longer allowed north of 72nd Street. In Prospect Park, the West Drive is now entirely car-free. As far back as 1979, TransAlt advocates started talking about a campaign to make New York’s parks car-free. For decades, the City responded by incrementally reducing access to the parks’ loop drives with closed entrances or reduced hours. Mayor de Blasio’s decision is by far the most aggressive effort toward, as he put it, “returning our parks to the people.” After celebrating the successful end to Transportation Alternatives’ longest running campaign, activists plan to launch a new campaign to make the remaining stretches of Central and Prospect parks car-free.

VIGIL FOR VISION ZERO In July, more than 1,000 people, dressed in yellow to represent their hope for Vision Zero, held a moment of silence in Union Square Park. It was the largest-ever gathering for Vision Zero. Members of Families for Safe Streets were joined by DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, Public Advocate Letitia James, and members of the City Council, State Assembly and Senate to read the names of the 81 people killed in traffic in the first six months of the year. A hospital stretcher carried more than 23,000 yellow roses, representing the number of people injured in crashes over the same period. TransAlt advocates will organize another Vigil for Vision Zero next summer.

Cassandra Giraldo

PARKS MORE CAR-FREE

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COMMUTER PROFILE

Beth Handman What do you do?

I’m the assistant principal at P.S. 321 in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

But that’s not all...

I am also a children’s author. In collaboration with my husband and my daughter, I wrote the first in a series called Josie Goes Green. The first book is Josie and the Fourth Grade Bike Brigade. Both my husband and my daughter are organizers, and I’m an educator in elementary school, so the collaboration worked really nicely.

When did you start riding your bike to work?

It’s funny. I grew up in Brooklyn and always biked around the neighborhood but I was scared to bike around the city.

Then, when my daughter was in high school, she started to ride from where

Andrew Hinderaker

JOSIE AND THE FOURTH GRADE BIKE BRIGADE IS AVAILABLE ONLINE AT JOSIEGOESGREEN. COM, OR FROM AMAZON.COM, BARNES & NOBLE OR YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE.

we live in South Slope to LaGuardia High School. This was a pretty big commute and I was worried about her. She said, “No mom, it’s fine now. The city is different. Everybody is biking.” So she took me to the city, with me following her over the bridge. She showed me how to avoid Chambers Street and get over to the West Side. It was so much better than how it was when I was a kid that I just started biking everywhere.

What do your students think of their bicycling assistant principal?

It’s actually a lot of us. A few years ago so many teachers wanted to bike to work that we installed a cage for our bikes. We also installed bike racks on the side of the school so that the kids can bike as well.

So your students ride to school?

Oh yeah. It’s a neighborhood school so most of the kids live within a few blocks.

Some of them bike to school just so that they can bike around after school.

Did they inspire Josie and the Fourth Grade Bike Brigade?

They did, and not only because they were biking. Our students are so inspiring in their socially conscious way of living in the world. In the neighborhood, when there were too many plastic bags flying all over they went and asked shop owners

not to give out plastic bags. The kids are real organizers, so they were the inspiration. In fact, the dedication of the book is to the kids of P.S. 321.

In the book, Josie starts biking, but everything doesn’t go as planned.

What happens?

It’s a book about teaching kids to organize, really. Josie and her friends take action against climate change by forming a bike brigade and convincing their families to ride rather than use cars to get to school. There’s a conflict, of course, because some people feel that the kids shouldn’t be riding. At the end of the book, the problem is solved by the community deciding to paint bike lanes so the kids can ride to school.

This is the first in a series. What’s next for Josie and her friends?

Josie is going to take on a couple of things in the next couple of books. The working title for book two is Josie Meets a Jaguar.

She always in the summer spends time with her grandmother in Ecuador, who is a mentor for her and helps her plot her ideas out. We’re hoping that she’s going to have some effect on logging in the rainforest in the next book. In the third book, she’s going to take on the story of stuff and how we deal with plastic bottles and other unnecessary junk in our lives.

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JACKIE ROWE-ADAMS, FOUNDER OF HARLEM MOTHERS S.A.V.E., SPEAKS AT THE VIGIL FOR VISION ZERO IN JULY 2015.

ACTIVIST PROFILE

Jackie Rowe-Adams What happened next?

I walked into Assemblyman Keith Wright’s office in 2006 with four more mothers saying, help, help. We were saying that we are sick and tired of being sick and tired of our kids being killed and them killing each other. Who is giving our kids these guns? That was the question. Immediately, Assemblyman Keith Wright said, “Well y’all are going to need a name.”

That’s where Harlem Mothers Stop Another Violent End (S.A.V.E.) comes from...

Yes. Assemblyman Keith Wright took us to the steps of City Hall. We went and stood on the steps with 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement. While we were standing on the steps of City Hall, my cell phone rang, and I picked it up and believe it or not, it was someone on the phone to tell me, “I know what y’all are doing. I know that

y’all are wanting to know who is giving these kids these guns.” And they gave me the name of two bodegas in Harlem that were selling guns.

Woah.

This is deep, this is a real story. I immediately told 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement. I wanted to say it to the media. I wanted to say it on TV. But they said no, because that’s dangerous. So the next day, they contact the police. They close these bodegas that was giving these kids guns the next day. This is how Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E. started.

Are there other stories like that?

You had a truck out there on 127th Street and 7th Avenue selling collard greens and watermelons. It’s a famous truck.

Everybody knew that truck. They would go down south and they would get collard greens and watermelons. Who would

Andrew Hinderaker

How did you get involved with activism?

Thirty-three years ago I lost my first son.

It seems just like yesterday. That’s how my life changed. My first son was 17 years old. He was killed when three drug sellers saw him in a bodega and said, “Look at that nigger looking at us. We don’t like how he’s looking at us. We should kill him.” They followed him out of the store and they actually killed him, all because they didn’t like how he was looking at them. Sixteen years later, my second son was killed by a 13-year-old with a gun. And this is what made me start an organization. I had to choose between hating teenagers and working with them.

I chose to work with them. I chose to try and make sure another mother or father would never feel the same pain and hurt that I have endured. That’s what made me want to start Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E.

believe they were going to get guns too, and were up here selling them? We took them off the street. So that’s how Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E. started. And we’ve been moving forward ever since.

That’s a remarkable beginning. How does it compare to your organization today?

We started off with five mothers. Now we have 50 plus mothers and fathers. We have a support group that meets every first Monday of the month. We are faithful, we are consistent, and we make sure we do outreach once we hear about the shootings. We have first-responders training, training mothers and fathers what to look for and how to be helpful to families that are hurting and don’t have a voice.

How do you do that?

When you lose a loved one, and you’re in the hospital, first thing: Here come the media and here come the police. You need someone who knows your pain that can be your voice. And that’s what we do.

We go and we interact, if the family wants us. We don’t force ourselves on the family. We only do it if the family wants us to do it. But we are on site, and we are the voice, to the media, to the police. We tell them the family don’t want to be bothered or if the family made a statement.

These are the things we do.

You’ve been organizing with Families for Safe Streets, TransAlt’s group of family members who survived crashes or lost loved ones in traffic. How did you meet?

Really through [TransAlt’s Upper Manhattan Organizer] Sandra Hawkins. She was so persistent. She worked me to death. She was determined that I was going to meet the families. She told me about Transportation Alternatives and she gave me a whole history and I said, Sandra, right now I’m so busy. And she said, “No, no, you’ve got to meet them.”

She was so persistent that I said, oh Lord, Sandra, okay. When she broke it

down and told me about the families, and the loss of the families, I said, it’s the same thing. Different incidents but the same hurt and pain. We need to support each other because we all have the same pain, we all have had a loss. Whatever way we had that loss, it’s the same tragedy. We have a lot in common. So I said, you are absolutely right, we need to join together.

“START SAYING WHAT IT IS: IT’S MURDER. WE CAN’T SUGARCOAT THIS.” At the Vigil for Vision Zero this summer, you spoke about the connection between guns and traffic. Can you elaborate?

A lot of these families have gotten kids murdered by traffic, and a lot of these families have gotten kids murdered by guns. How do we connect? We connect because there are still these families that are hurting. Some of the people that have hit these kids have said, “It’s an accident.” It wasn’t no accident. Just like it wasn’t no accident that shot my two children. This is a tragedy. And all of these are tragedies and losses. That’s how they connect and we have to begin to start saying what it is: It’s murder. We can’t sugarcoat this. We are definitely connected.

Gun control and traffic safety activists are not traditional allies. Why do you think it is important?

It’s important because we all had a loss.

But it’s also important because we have numbers and there’s strength in numbers. And we came up crying for the same thing: Let’s stop the killing, let’s stop

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the tragedy. That’s how we link together and be one voice. I speak about guns, you speak about traffic, and we are all speaking about the same thing. What do we do about it? How do we put in safety laws that stick? Whether it’s gun safety or traffic safety. How do we put in these laws?

We have to do it as a team.

What keeps you going after all these years?

People like you all, that want to get the message out there. People like you all, who care. And the other mothers that are hurting. What drives me is that we can’t bring our kids back. Traffic and guns, this is how we connect. We can’t bring our families back, so maybe, just maybe, we can help another mother, another father from the pain and hurt and crying that we have endured. That’s what keeps me going. I feel it’s hope. If we save one life, there’s hope.

What’s next for connecting these movements?

The key for both the traffic and gun violence is prevention and education.

That’s what keeps us going. That’s what joins us by the hip. That’s where we’re bonding. Our messages are somewhat different because of the incidents, but it’s the same on the pain and prevention and education. If we don’t keep education and prevention out there, we lose. We win if we keep it out there. We win if we stay strong. We win when our voices are heard, together.

Is there anything else you want to say?

I just want to say, let’s keep this going. In Jesse Jackson’s famous words, let’s keep hope alive. And let’s continue prevention and education because that’s key, and touch as many lives and reach as many people as we possibly can. We must continue to lobby these legislators. We have to hold their feet to the ground. We ain’t going to let nobody turn us around. We have to keep on marching. Keep on talking. Keep on fighting. That’s what I want to say.

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BY EBEN WEISS

THE PHRASE “CAR ACCIDENT” IS SO

common that many of us use it without even thinking about it.

However, once you do think about it, you begin to realize how silly it is to default to the word “accident” in the context of something that involves police investigation, property damage, injury or death – not to mention something that

is often the inevitable consequence of a crime. Therefore, Transportation Alternatives has launched a campaign to stop calling traffic crashes “accidents,” and to instead call them crashes.

Because, you know, that’s what they are.

This should be an easy transition. After all, accuracy aside, using “crash” instead of “accident” saves two (2) whole syllables! Plus, if you’re tweeting, it gives you three extra characters you can then

squander on emojis. (“Car crash killed my Hyundai. FML. ”) Nevertheless, there has been a bit of a backlash against throwing “accident” onto the scrap heap. For example, a Slate columnist slammed the campaign by invoking classical philosophy and the concept of telos, proving liberal arts degrees can be almost as dangerous as cars.

Some people say it’s not fair to the poor drivers, who are innocent until

proven guilty because this is America, Home of the Whopper. Still others think tinkering with our language is typical politically correct syntactical gerrymandering on the part of the limousine liberals (or, in this case “bakfiets liberals”) of Park Slope.

Wrong, and wrong.

Firstly, “crash” doesn’t imply guilt any more than “accident” does. Indeed, “crash” is completely neutral, whereas “accident” absolves everybody involved before the police even have a chance to declare “no criminality suspected.” Secondly, there’s nothing “PC” about any of this. If anything, calling a crash an “accident” is PC, in that it’s an overly sensitive word that obfuscates the severity of what’s happened.

“Oh, no, there’s been an accident!

Does anybody need a hug?”

But perhaps most importantly, “accident” implies a fait accompli, whereas a crash is something you can take measures to prevent in the future. As the

nerds at Transportation Alternatives will happily tell you, there are “numbers” and “statistics” indicating that every time a bike lane is added to a street, fewer drivers crash there.

“OH, NO, THERE’S BEEN AN ACCIDENT! DOES ANYBODY NEED A HUG?” Indeed, besides traffic crashes, the most common context in which you’ll come across the word “accident” is in child-rearing, where it’s usually employed as an excuse. For example, during potty training, we assuage our children’s guilt for soiling themselves by assuring them that “accidents happen.” They soon figure

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out the absolving power of this word, and a few years later when you ask them why they hit a sibling over the head with a Barbie doll, they assure you that it was “just an accident.” Lesson learned.

The word “accident” is most jarring when it is used by the police and the media, who should not be discussing potential crime scenes like they’re potty mishaps. Consider the driver who struck a building parapet on a rooftop garage in Queens late this summer, creating a deluge of bricks that nearly crushed the people below. CBS News called that one not just an accident, but a “freak accident”: And it turned out, it was not the first time the building was damaged in a freak accident. Back in February of 2014, a snow plow pushed a garbage can – crashing into the front glass window and injuring a woman sitting inside.

Okay, something that happens on an annual basis isn’t a “freak accident,” because if it were that would put a whole new spin on Christmas.

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Not only that, but drivers crash into buildings all the time. Only a day before it rained bricks in Forest Hills, another driver had plowed into the Value Depot right around the corner – and a few days before that the driver of a casino bus crashed into a residential building in Rego Park. Then there was the driver who plowed into an Aeropostale store in the Bay Terrace Shopping Center, and the one who plowed into the Pathmark in Flushing, and one who hit the discount store in Ozone Park, and the school bus driver who took out the fruit market (that’s some Jerry Bruckheimer stuff right there), and the motorist who made a schmear out of the bagel place...and that’s just in Queens!

I’m no detective, but that’s not an

accident. That’s a pattern.

But for some truly absurd use of the word “accident,” let’s head a few miles east of Queens into Nassau County, where in the summer of 2014 ABC News reported on a woman who drove into a firehouse: Sarah Espinosa, 22, lost control of her 2010 Toyota Prius around 7 p.m. on Monday night while driving on Jericho Turnpike in New Hyde Park on Long Island, according to police.

Ooh, sounds serious. What happened?

A police report states that Espinosa’s vehicle “drove over the center median striking a Nissan Maxima and continuing through the front garage door of the New Hyde Park Fire House. Her vehicle collided with two fire trucks parked in the firehouse

causing damage to the vehicles.”

So, what is the excuse that makes this an accident? Faulty accelerator? Mistook gas for brake? Swerved to avoid cyclist?

Hardly: Fire personnel at the scene rushed to aid Espinosa when they “discovered a small ball python snake wrapped around the defendant’s neck,” which they promptly removed and secured, according to the police report.

Now we’re getting into some real intrigue! So how did the python get there? Was it planted by a rival spy in a devious Bond-worthy act of sabotage?

Not exactly: “Third Precinct officers responded and determined Espinosa had stolen the snake from [a Garden City] Petco,” according to

T R A N S A LT. O R G

Eben Weiss

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

the report, which also stated that Espinosa was in possession of marijuana at the time of the accident. The snake is sold at Petco for $89, a store employee said.

Wow. Okay, so let’s take a closer look at this “accident.” The way I read this is that our driver gets baked and shoplifts a python from the Petco in Garden City (1).

Then she fires up the ol’ Prius and heads out onto Jericho Turnpike, shortly after which the python decides to strangle her, possibly because it has Stockholm syndrome and wants to go back to Petco (2).

This adversely affects her driving, she crosses the median and hits the Maxima, and then goes careening into the firehouse (3) – at which point the first aid responders “removed and secured” the python (though I like to think it later managed to slither back to Petco in the ensuing melee) (4).

Calling this an “accident” is a Nobel Prize-worthy act of charity, and if anything I’m amazed that things turned out as well as they did.

In fact, the sheer inevitability of so many crashes is yet another problem with the word “accident”: Given all this reckless driving (the poor street design doesn’t help), the only accident is when we manage not to crash at all.

USING “CRASH” INSTEAD OF “ACCIDENT” IS A CRUCIAL STEP AWAY FROM SHRUGGING OFF THE VICTIM. Of course, most crashes aren’t so delightfully slapsticky, and many of them destroy lives. This is yet another urgent reason to ditch the word “accident.”

After all, you might explain to your child that he or she had an “accident,” but

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you’d never in a million years call them one. So imagine how a parent must feel when the police or the media call the crash that took their child’s life an “accident.”

It’s simply the wrong word to use. It cheapens lives. Using “crash” instead of “accident” is a crucial step away from shrugging off the victim.

Our language and our streets have much in common: they’re both something we all share, and they’re both something we need to update from time to time. Clinging to retrograde terms like “accident” is like failing to calm Queens Boulevard, or the Grand Concourse, or any of the other arteries badly in need of safety improvements. In both cases we need to discard the features that are obsolete and outmoded, and then we need to adapt them to reflect the reality that crashes are preventable.

Because “accident” is just a cop-out.

EBEN WEISS WRITES THE BLOG BIKE SNOB NYC AND IS THE AUTHOR OF BIKE SNOB, THE ENLIGHTENED CYCLIST, AND BIKE SNOB ABROAD.

VACCARO & WHITE REPRESENTING INJURED CYCLISTS AND OTHER CRASH VICTIMS Proud Sponsors of

THE NYC CENTURY BIKE TOUR Adam White has represented New York cyclists, pedestrians and other crash victims for more than fifteen years. Adam has been a Transportation Alternatives member and donor since 1995, and serves on the Legal Affairs Committee of the League of American Bicyclists. He has been an avid cyclist for over 25 years and commutes regularly by bicycle.

Steve Vaccaro has litigated personal injury cases for cyclists, pedestrians and others for over fifteen years. He also handles employment, civil rights and police misconduct claims. Steve has served on the Advisory Council of Transportation Alternatives since its inception, and as Advocacy Coordinator for the Five Borough Bicycle Club. He began commuting by bicycle in New York City in high school and continues today.

17 BAT TERY PLACE, SUITE 204 NEW YORK, NY 10004 VACCAROANDWHITE.COM

212-577-3040

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STREE T DESIGN

Queens Boulevard Resets the Bar

Andrew Hinderaker

LIZI RAHMAN WAS ANXIOUS EVERY

day that her son Asif rode his bike to his job as a cashier at Trader Joe’s. When she told him so, Asif showed his mother the map of all the bike lanes in New York City. In a bike lane, he told his mother, I’m safe.

It wasn’t long after that conversation that he was killed by a truck driver on Queens Boulevard. When Lizi Rahman visited the site of the crash, she was shocked to find that there was no bike lane there.

“I asked, if bike lanes make a street safer, why are there no bike lanes on Queens Boulevard?” Rahman told Reclaim. She devoted herself to a campaign for a bike lane on the dangerous corridor, long known as the Boulevard of Death. For years, everyone from the DOT to Mayor Bloomberg told Rahman that fixing Queens Boulevard would be impossible. This summer, she introduced Mayor Bill de Blasio at a press conference to unveil his plan to overhaul the street.

The four-stage, $100 million redesign, which began this summer with the installation of protected bike lanes, median crosswalks and more space for walking from Roosevelt Avenue to 73rd

Street, means more than the end of the Boulevard of Death. It’s a seminal shift in City policy addressing street safety.

It begins with the City of New York admitting to a longstanding open secret: Queens Boulevard is horribly dangerous, and fixable.

The reason for secrecy was serious.

For decades, City officials passed the buck on Queens Boulevard with stopgaps: pedestrian fences, morbid warning signs, extended crossing times, and circuitous bike routes that pretended cyclists could avoid the integral route.

At the same time, 23 people were killed on Queens Boulevard in just the last six years. In the 90s, an average of 10 pedestrians a year died crossing the street. Admitting the dangers of Queens Boulevard is akin to admitting to generations of negligence toward public safety.

If Queens Boulevard can be made safer, then no dangerous street in New York is “too big to fix.”

Mayor de Blasio’s plan for Queens Boulevard is like a new kidney after decades of dialysis. No more halfhearted efforts or temporary solutions; for the first time ever, the City has dedicated real political and financial capital to fixing the

most dangerous street in New York.

“The plan for Queens Boulevard is a long time coming, but it raises the question: What’s next?” says TransAlt Deputy Director Caroline Samponaro. “Plans for Atlantic Avenue and 4th Avenue are unimpressive. Countless streets earmarked as dangerous by the DOT don’t even have a plan. It’s this administration’s job to find the money and staff to keep New Yorkers safe. We know other streets are dangerous. When will they get the Queens Boulevard treatment?”

After her son was killed, Lizi Rahman spent seven years advocating to fix Queens Boulevard. The model street she helped create will reset the bar for how the City fixes dangerous streets.

The big question now for Rahman and other TransAlt activists is how to ensure what’s happening in Queens becomes the new normal.

“I fought for a bike lane on Queens Boulevard because it could have saved my son’s life, and I didn’t want another mother to have to go through this” Rahman told Reclaim. “But it could have happened on any dangerous street.

I want to know when the rest will be fixed, too.”

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Volume 22 / # 2 2015

TRAFFIC JUSTICE

A Mural for Vision Zero

“This is a fictional crossroads.

We have a driver who is texting, looking at his phone, not at the road. Appearing in front of him is Lady Justice. She’s got her scales out and on one side is an automobile and on the other side are the different types of people who have been affected by bad choices behind the wheel.”

THIS SUMMER, TRANSALT

teamed up with the Groundswell Community Mural Project and the New York City Department of Transportation to create “Justice at the Crossroads,” a mural on 5th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Reclaim sat down with mural artist Marc Evan to hear him talk about what decisions he made, with the help of 20 New York City high school students, to create the detailed piece of art.

“Lady Justice’s eyes are open.

She is witnessing the events that are about to happen and she’s weighing the options on her scale. We’re all watching this moment, hoping that the driver is going to put down the phone and make the right decision.”

“It was important for us to include the new 25 mph speed limit. Sofia Russo from Families for Safe Streets really had an impact on our team.

She shared with us the story of when her daughter Ariel was killed and her involvement with Transportation Alternatives, going up to Albany and fighting for lowering the speed limit.”

Andrew Hinderaker

“We have a ghost bike that’s chained to one of the street signs with some flowers around it. We wanted to include a ghost bike, even if it was a smaller detail in the design, because the original ghost bike, the first one to hit the streets, is just a couple of blocks from the mural site.”

T R A N S A LT. O R G

“The ‘do not walk’ sign is shining over our driver who is making his bad decision and the ‘walk’ sign is facing toward the human lives. Above those symbols, we have a speedometer from a car to reference the fact that people are always trying to get where they’re going fast.”

“There are crowds of people protesting to show that activism is really driving Vision Zero.

It’s the communities coming together to make these changes, people calling for safer streets.

We tried to include a wide range of people and we colored them throughout the spectrum to show the diversity of the communities coming together.”

“The car is greatly outweighing the human lives to show this unjust perception that the driver has the right and the pedestrian who gets killed is looked at as a victim. There’s no real justice, that’s why we chose to have Lady Justice without her blindfold on.”

“A bunch of people in the crowd are wearing “Crash Not Accident” shirts. A few of us went to the Transportation Alternatives’ vigil in Union Square. Seeing all the people affected by bad decisions when it comes to driving, it had a huge impact on us.”

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“One of the figures on the scale is Ariel Russo in the wings she loved to wear. The day she was killed, she was going to be in a school play dressed as a cowboy. So we have Ariel wearing wings and cowboy boots and releasing a heart balloon. Some yellow butterflies are flying with the balloon and that was symbolic of the beauty and the fragility of human lives.”

“The screen is cracked, showing that our driver made the wrong decision and kept looking at his phone while he was driving.”

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T R A N S A LT. O R G

17

ENFORCEMENT

Dangerous Drivers, Restored A PIONEERING JUSTICE PROGRAM

in Brooklyn is giving dangerous drivers a meaningful way to get back on the right side of the law.

At the Red Hook Community Justice Center, TransAlt advocates and members of Families for Safe Streets have teamed up with Council Member Brad Lander, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson, Judge Alex Calabrese and the Center for Court Innovation to launch a first-ofits-kind “restorative justice” program for traffic violators.

Traditionally, when a driver is caught breaking the law police officers will issue a summons that the driver can plead guilty to, and be sentenced to jail time or ordered to pay a fine. In this pilot program, court officials in Red Hook are working with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office to identify drivers who could benefit from a more in-depth look into how they broke the law and why it

Andrew Hinderaker

“THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR ME WAS THAT THE DRIVER WHO HIT HIM UNDERSTOOD THE PAIN HE CAUSED AND HOW CLOSE HE CAME TO TAKING SOMEONE’S LIFE.” matters. Eligible drivers are required to participate in a 90-minute interactive exchange to help them better understand the consequences of their actions.

In September of this year, 14 men and women whose charges ranged from reckless driving to DUI participated in the first-ever Driver Accountability Group.

Their curriculum included video testimonials from Families for Safe Streets and a lesson in harm reduction. A series of exercises helped the drivers identify the risks they take in their daily driving, why they take those risks, and how they can take concrete steps to reduce them. Drivers engaged in a motivational counseling session and were asked to detail the impact of their actions on other people.

Restorative justice programs like this operate alongside courtrooms around the world, addressing a wide range of criminal acts, from sex offenses to prison violence. By focusing on repairing the harm caused by criminal acts instead of applying adversarial punishments, restorative justice can benefit the community, the crime victim and the offender. Similar programs have been shown to reduce recidivism, post-traumatic stress in crime victims and the cost of prosecution. In Red Hook, the Driver Accountability Group is the first time a restorative justice program has been vigorously applied to traffic safety issues.

“If we really want safe streets, we need drivers to understand that traffic safety laws aren’t mean-spirited and summonses aren’t about making money. In Red Hook, we’re trying to teach those lessons at the moment when it matters most,” explained TransAlt Legislative and Legal

Manager Marco Conner.

For now, the pilot curriculum is being offered twice a month to drivers summonsed by officers in the 72nd, 76th and 78th precincts. Advocates are figuring out how to expand the program to operate more often and reach a greater variety of offenders.

None of the participants in the Driver Accountability Group thus far have been involved in a crash where someone was killed or injured, but it’s anticipated that program participants will eventually include such offenders, and this is especially important to members of Families for Safe Streets.

“I watched my husband’s long recovery, and our ongoing anxiety and fear continues. But I get no pleasure from the law wrecking someone’s life,” said Dahlia Goldenberg, whose husband suffered severe injuries after a driver struck him while crossing the street.

“The most important thing for me was that the driver who hit him understood the pain he caused and how close he came to taking someone’s life,” Goldenberg said. “The drivers who participate in the Driver Accountability Group could be the start of a culture shift in New York, where reckless driving, speeding and lack of care become unacceptable. I do think that’s possible.”

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RECL AIM

Volume 21 / # 2 2015

THE SIT-DOWN

Janette Sadik-Khan in the tabloids during her six-year stint as the commissioner of New York City’s Department of Transportation, Janette Sadik-Khan is more likely to be regarded as a hero by bicyclists and safe street advocates. No one has done more in less time to rewrite the future of New York’s streets. Reclaim caught up with Janette Sadik-Khan to talk about Times Square, the new administration and what she’s been doing since.

What are you up to now that you’ve left city government?

After leaving I joined Mike Bloomberg’s consulting firm, Bloomberg Associates.

We’re working with mayors around the world to help improve the quality of life of their cities. We’ve helped Mayor Mancera transform streetscapes in Mexico City, where we kickstarted a pedestrian safety initiative and got a plaza

program off the ground. We helped L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti to find their rockstar DOT Director Seleta Reynolds and put out the agency’s first-ever strategic plan, and we continue to work with them on everything from Bus Rapid Transit to bike share. Now we’re working with the mayors of Rio and Rome and Oakland.

No two cities are exactly alike, and of course you can’t just import solutions off the shelf, but it’s really interesting just how similar the issues facing these different places actually are. They’re all trying to reclaim space for people on foot and bike, improve access to transit, slow down cars to save lives, and they’re all trying to involve the public in their cities in these solutions. By tackling smart, targeted projects, we’re helping our partners win some quick victories and use that to build momentum to keep them moving forward long after we’re gone.

And I’m also thrilled to report that my

upcoming book, Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution, is coming out in March, which will give readers far beyond New York a real-world introduction to how to change streets for safety and sustainable transportation. Of course it tells New York’s story, but it’s bigger than that, highlighting what’s working—and not working—in cities around the world.

You’re famous for modernizing New York’s transportation network. Is there a bike lane or plaza project that you’re particularly proud of?

That’s sort of like picking from among your children. But I have to say the 9th Avenue lane, the first parking-protected bike lane in the U.S., tops the list. There was a 60 percent decrease in injuries for all street users, and retail sales went up 49 percent. Now you’ll see them on hundreds of streets in some 50 cities coast to coast, but it all started in New York. And

Andrew Hinderaker

OFTEN CALLED A REVOLUTIONARY

of course there’s the Prospect Park West lane, which grabbed a lot of headlines for all the wrong reasons but was ultimately one of the most successful projects we ever did. Ridership doubled and there were 74 percent fewer drivers speeding with zero impact on travel times for drivers. Today you’ll see families biking to school or the farmers’ market. Given all the controversy, you might think it conjures some bad memories, but for me, it’s one of the best projects we’ve done.

As for the plaza program, we created or got the ball rolling on more than 60 in New York City. And that’s not just in places like Times Square, Herald Square and Madison Square – three favorites naturally – but in dozens of diverse neighborhoods across the boroughs like Corona, Queens; Brownsville, Brooklyn; and Belmont in the Bronx. We also launched the Neighborhood Plaza Partnership program to help neighborhoods throughout the city. These are public plazas for the people and by the people, managed and maintained by local partners, making these spaces as diverse as the city itself. They’re community hubs in places that lacked somewhere for people to gather. They’re open space in neighborhoods that are far from any parkland. And they’re economic boons for a lot of once-struggling commercial strips. If that doesn’t make you proud, you’re in the wrong business.

If you had another six years on the job, what would you do?

It’s amazing how quickly that time went by. When you’re working to save lives and remake a city of 8.4 million people and more than 6,000 miles of streets, there’s never enough time to get to every street you’d like to. Some projects just ended up taking longer than we liked, but it’s great to see Polly Trottenberg and her team at DOT get the extension of the 125th Street bus lanes and the Pulaski Bridge bike lane over the goal line, to name a few. And we wouldn’t have had any trouble sketching out another six years of similar makeovers of streets across the city.

But there are some big-ticket items I would love to tackle too. How do we fund the MTA’s capital program and get the

city, state and private sectors working together to support the city’s lifeline?

Can we put all the pieces in place to move Madison Square Garden, undo the sins of the 1960s, and finally build the Penn Station New York City deserves? While we got the ball rolling on the Sheridan Expressway, bringing street-level crossings to neighborhoods in the Bronx and connecting them to much-needed open space on the river, I would have loved to see that project through. And it’s high time we build a new rail tunnel under the Hudson and unblock a bottleneck on the entire nation’s transit network. A 10 billion dollar commitment from New York and New Jersey is a great start, but it is just a start. Even six years wouldn’t be long enough to tackle all three, but you have to start somewhere.

“IT’S CRUCIAL TO KEEP SHOWING PEOPLE HOW MUCH MORE IS POSSIBLE ON THEIR STREETS. ONCE YOU INSPIRE THEM, THERE’S NO GOING BACK.” Have you met with DOT Commissioner Trottenberg? Did you offer any advice about the job?

Polly has been a great friend for a long time, and she was instrumental in a lot of important projects here even before she came to New York from D.C. And she came into the job with a great head start when Mayor de Blasio committed the administration to Vision Zero, which gave DOT a lot of cover and allowed them to take on some really exciting projects, everywhere from Queens Boulevard to Clove Road on Staten Island. My advice would be to keep up the momentum.

Administrations change, people are

T R A N S A LT. O R G 19

voted into and out of office, and community board members come and go, but it’s crucial to keep showing people how much more is possible on their streets.

Once you inspire them, there’s no going back.

Mayor de Blasio recently said he was considering removing the public plazas from Times Square. How do you think that will play out?

I’m not going to comment on the administration and local issues.

I will say that it’s amazing that just seven years ago, the press and some of the political class couldn’t believe we’d close Times Square to traffic, and today you’re seeing editorials expressing disbelief that anyone would dream of reopening them to cars. This was a backlash, not against taking space from cars, which was the case in New York just a few years ago, but against the idea of taking space from people. The pushback came overwhelmingly from New Yorkers themselves, who passionately defended their streets, not from the leaders who fought the battle to build them. Even some of the harshest critics of the plaza in the media have now conceded that the plazas aren’t going anywhere. So I think this is evidence of a city and a political landscape fundamentally changed from the one that existed just six years ago, and the Times Square that now exists is a symbol of this new status quo. Nobody likes to be hounded by Elmos and topless Statues of Liberty. But cities around the world have found ways to manage their great public spaces to preserve a variety of uses, and so they don’t turn into free-for-alls for vendors. If New York can overcome the urban blight that plagued Times Square a generation ago, we can find a way to deal with a bunch of Muppets today and improve what is really one of the world’s greatest destinations.

Is New York on the right track to achieve Vision Zero?

I know Polly and her staff at DOT have spent a lot of time with the original architects of Vision Zero in Sweden, and I think they would be the first to tell you that this is as much about changing the

Andrew Hinderaker

culture as it is changing the streetscape.

From the 25 mph bill to their compelling ad campaigns, I think they’ve been incredibly successful in doing just that.

Almost no one in America had heard of the term before last January but now it’s universal.

But changes worth making take time.

When we introduced our Pedestrian Safety Study and Action Plan back in 2010, we committed to cutting fatalities in half by 2030. The target wasn’t yet quite zero, but we knew we needed to start the conversation. Before that, street safety just wasn’t front-page news and most people in New York just weren’t familiar with the language of street design.

Today they’re fluent – and could tell you the benefits of bulb outs, road diets and traffic calming. In just a few years, the city came to embrace this once foreign dialect. We weren’t quite Copenhagen but we were getting there. That’s a pretty strong foundation to build on, and if anyone can do it, it’s the men and women of NYC DOT. We hear from a lot of activists that their community board is out of step with local popular opinion about safety issues. Where do you see room for improvement in the local political process?

Done right, community boards can be amazing agents of change. Just like we saw with the plaza program, no one is better equipped to say what is needed on their streets than the people that travel them daily. But there are obviously issues with certain community boards responding with knee-jerk resistance to anything that changes the status quo, letting a lot of life-saving projects wither in committee, or losing in votes that are swayed more by fear than facts.

People have floated a number of interesting ideas over the years, from term limits to eliminating age minimums, which all have benefits. In the meantime, though, it’s undeniable that safe streets projects are getting more popular, not less. A few years ago most community boards wouldn’t have even been able to debate things like road diets and protected bike lanes, but now they’re demanding

them, sometimes at a pace faster than any DOT could hope to provide. As long as there are organizations like TransAlt out there to raise awareness, enlist the public, and keep these projects on the docket, we’ll head in the right direction.

“IF NEW YORK CAN OVERCOME THE URBAN BLIGHT THAT PLAGUED TIMES SQUARE A GENERATION AGO, WE CAN FIND A WAY TO DEAL WITH A BUNCH OF MUPPETS.” Is there anything you’d like to say to TransAlt’s 150,000-person activist network?

First, I’d like to thank every one of you for all your support and ask you to take a bow for what you accomplished over the last several years. New York City has come

T R A N S A LT. O R G 21

this far because of your tireless work at countless community board meetings, in City Hall and out there on the streets.

You helped roll out 400 miles of bike lanes, 60 plazas, the nation’s biggest bike share network, seven Select Bus Service routes, our first speed cameras and the safest streets since we started keeping records. You pointed out problems on our streets, defended our fixes when they came under fire, and when we didn’t see eye-to-eye, you weren’t afraid to tell it like it is.

In some ways, things have never been better for you. Partners like StreetsPAC are hard at work with candidates before the ballots are cast, you’ve got the most sustainable-streets supportive City Council in history swinging the gavel, and you have City Hall’s ear. But there are two words that I’d leave you with: Eternal Vigilance. I think the lesson from Times Square and elsewhere is that you can never back up or take the pressure off.

Without you constantly pushing the rest of us to innovate and experiment, complacency can set in, people might take too much for granted, and momentum can shift. You keep New York City’s leaders honest. Your vigilance is required, and I feel confident knowing that Transportation Alternatives is on the watch.

T R A N S A LT. O R G

ACTIVIST COMMIT TEES

Dispatches from the Front TRANSPORTATION ALTERNATIVES’ ACTIVIST COMMITTEES

have led hundreds of successful campaigns for new bike lanes and safer streets. They are the first line of defense for local change and always ready to welcome new activists to the fold. Get in touch to find out how you can get involved in your neighborhood.

UPPER MANHATTAN ACTIVISTS LAUNCHED A CAMPAIGN TO FIX A DANGEROUSLY BROKEN STRETCH OF BROADWAY IN HARLEM.

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QUEENS ACTIVISTS TOOK A CELEBRATORY 5 RIDE IN THE NEW PROTECTED BIKE LANE ON QUEENS BOULEVARD.

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A NEW GROUP OF 3 ACTIVISTS JUST STARTED TO MEET IN EASTERN QUEENS.

BROOKLYN ACTIVISTS ARE STARTING A BICYCLE CLUB IN BROWNSVILLE TO GET THEIR NEIGHBORS ON TWO WHEELS.

Get Involved ACTIVISTS ARE STANDING BY...

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BROOKLYN

1 BROOKLYN ACTIVISTS ARE USING RADAR GUNS TO STUDY SPEEDING ON ROGERS AVENUE.

AFTER A LOCAL BLOG PUBLISHED A VIDEO ABOUT BIKING ­­SHOT FROM A MOVING CAR, STATEN ISLAND ACTIVISTS OFFERED TO HELP FILM THE NEXT ONE ON A BIKE.

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TWO LOCAL CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS AGREED TO SUPPORT BRONX ACTIVISTS’ PLAN TO REDESIGN THE GRAND CONCOURSE.

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LOWER MANHATTAN ACTIVISTS STARTED A CAMPAIGN FOR A PROTECTED BIKE LANE ON CHRYSTIE STREET IN SOHO.

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BRONX

4

LOWER MANHAT TAN

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STATEN ISL AND

EMAIL

EMAIL

EMAIL

Committee Chair Daniel Ranells bronx@transalt.org

Committee Co-Chairs Janet Liff & Willow Stelzer manhattan@transalt.org

Committee Chair Laura Barlament statenisland@transalt.org

CALL

CALL

CALL

Bronx Organizer David Guerrero 646.839.6479

Manhattan Organizer Ollie Oliver 646.839.6481

Staten Island Organizer Greg Mihailovich 646.873.6036

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E ASTERN QUEENS

5

QUEENS

7

UPPER MANHAT TAN

EMAIL

EMAIL

EMAIL

Committee Chair Becca Kaplan brooklyn@transalt.org

EMAIL

Committee Co-Chairs Joby Jacobs & Uma Alice Lo queens@transalt.org

Committee Co-Chairs Peter Beadle & Angela Stach queens@transalt.org

CALL

CALL

CALL

Committee Chair Rose Seabrook uppermanhattan@transalt.org

Brooklyn Organizer Kristen Miller 646.873.6038

Queens Organizer Jaime Moncayo 646.873.6004

Queens Organizer Jaime Moncayo 646.873.6004

CALL

Manhattan Organizer David Guerrero 646.839.6479

ON NOVEMBER 15 WE WILL REMEMBER THE VICTIMS OF TRAFFIC VIOLENCE

TAKE THE PLEDGE AT crashnotaccident.com

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T R A N S A LT. O R G 25

26

RECL AIM

Volume 21 / # 2 2015

PARTNER PROFILE

Fleisher’s Craft Butchery

What is a craft butchery?

Our focus is on being aware of the entire supply chain, from how farmers are raising livestock to what it looks like in the case. At every step, there are important values to adhere to and traditions to be aware of. We’re combining an old-school butchery tradition of cutting from whole animal with modern sustainability ideals about our slaughterhouses, what kind of feed the animals get and what their living conditions are like. We’re appealing to health-conscious people, to foodies, to the average Joe who really likes a good steak. We sell everything from bone broth to a rib-eye, and we try to create value for that, and honor it, so people understand that it’s all delicious and important to use.

What’s your role at Fleisher’s?

I am the CFO, which mostly means that I keep track of all the accounts. I write the checks. I do payroll. I do general management stuff. I make sure that people are spending things right. I just walk around and make sure the wheels don’t fall off the bus.

When did Fleisher’s first get involved with TransAlt? I’ve been a longtime supporter, as a committed 365-day-a-year urban cyclist. I know [TransAlt’s Executive Director] Paul Steely White through friends in the West Coast cargo bike community. One of our investors, Aaron Naparstek, who is the founder of Streetsblog, believes strongly in this stuff. It felt like part of the community we appeal to: people who like to bike around tend to be oriented toward healthy living and they’re frequently omnivores so they like meat. We like meat, they like biking, it just seemed like a good fit.

Fleisher’s is part of the slow food movement. At TransAlt, we talk about the slow biking movement. Is there any connection?

Yes. For me, that’s why I have this cargo bike. I’ve been living in the city for going on nine years and I haven’t owned a car for any of it. I do all my grocery shopping for my family with that bike. For me, that’s what biking is all about. I’m faster than a car. I can park. I can get my meat, my milk, my eggs, my produce. I can go to work. I can drop my kid off at school.

And that’s connected to butchery?

Absolutely. It about resiliency and networks. Instead of: you leave work, you arrive at work and you don’t know what happened in between, being part of Fleisher’s and a cyclist, you can be on a bike, get your groceries, put it in one of our cooler bags, and you’re eating today what you bought today, what was butchered today. I think it’s a more pleasant, human-scale way of existing, where the interaction is with a person behind the counter who is cutting your meat and knows what to recommend and may know you because you’re a regular customer. For me, it’s all about scaling these interactions down to human-level things, where we can relate.

Last question: Is there an ideal postride cut of meat?

Yeah, there is. I’m going to say a grilled top sirloin. After an exhausting event, your body craves the protein and that glistening bit of fat that coats your tongue, that savory-salty flavor. I would be devouring slices of watermelon and slices of grilled top sirloin. I would go back and forth, rehydrating, getting the sugar, getting the protein, getting the fat, back and forth until I felt sated.

Andrew Hinderaker

Where do you work?

I work at Fleisher’s Craft Butchery in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

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