For the last eight years, Comptroller John Liu had served in the City Council as a bumbling fool the head of the Transportation Committee. Tasked with city oversight of the MTA, the Transportation Committee could, in the right hands, be a vehicle for positive change, and as Cap’n Transit explored in depth yesterday, transit advocates should rally around a pro-transit candidate. The Cap’n ran down the list of potential contenders and noted that friend-of-cars James Vacca (D. Bronx) — a leading supporter of that five-minute parking grace period bill — seems to be the leading favorite for the seat. Vacca comes from a car-heavy district and has shown little love for mass transit. The Cap’n notes that Dan Garodnick is also interested in the spot and would be a better, transit-friendly choice.
This morning, Bob Kapstatter reported that the “powers that be” are pushing for Vacca to assume the head of the transportation committee. An appointment would give Vacca a launching point for a higher office while boosting the power of the Bronx delegations. That is not, however, a good reason to give away an important chair at a vital time in the city’s transit history. Time is of the essence, and the best way to avoid a Vacca-inspired committee is by telling Christine Quinn to appoint someone else.
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For those interested, I sent the following letter to Quinn via her website. Feel free to copy and paste:
Was drafting a letter when I saw this! Thanks a million, Ben.
One substantive change– I’d write “Speaker Quinn,” as people have a way of being testy/sensitive about titles (see, e.g. SENATOR Barbara Boxer).
🙂
A valiant effort, but I don’t know how useful it will be. I clicked on the link to Speaker Quinn’s site, and on the right-hand side, was drawn to the window to some of her Facebook notes and publicity:
and
She doesn’t get it, and the rant on her YouTube video shows it. I can’t think of anybody other than Richard Ravitch who I’d like to see in this position, but I doubt the state’s Lieutenant Governor would take it.
As a side question: I imagine that only city residents are eligible to offer input. Those of us who live in the suburbs are irrelevant – right?
Sorry for the long message- there’s no more HTML preview on Second Ave Sagas. That first link should be to here,not the Facebook redirect posted above. Also, I forgot to note that “Testifys” is her spelling, not mine.
I’m not sure why the HTML preview vanished, and I haven’t been able to reactivated it. I’ll keep working for a solution. I didn’t realize people noticed it was gone!
Well, it was a bit buggy, but helpful. And I see it’s back!
Irrelevant in a narrow, political sense? Probably. But I still encourage you to write to Quinn, since the Transportation Committee clearly has a great effect on life outside the 5 boroughs.
I wrote the following:
Dear Speaker Quinn,
Mass transit and livable streets in NYC go hand-in-hand. News that you are interested in selecting car-friendly James Vacca over transit-friendly Dan Garodnick to head the Transportation Committee is not only a bad choice for the future of responsible economic growth of our city, but also for the affordability and safety of the city’s residents. PlaNYC calls for increasing traffic and pedestrian safety, and increasing mass transit and making our streets safer is a co-requisite. Appointing Mr. Vacca would be a mistake and as one of nearly five million daily transit riders and bikers, I urge you to strongly consider Mr. Garodnick instead to head the Transportation Committee.
Sincerely,
xx
http://ecstatice.blogspot.com
How cynical to suggest that politicians jockey for media attention as a launching pad for higher office!
And how entirely accurate.
Vacca supported congestion pricing. Garodnick looked for excuses to oppose it.
I don’t think so. Garodnick’s testimony can be found here:
http://www.garodnick.com/file......9807234610
He’s playing politics a bit with the Manhattan resident portion of his remarks, but he clearly supported congestion pricing and wanted to make sure that the funds went directly for transit improvements.
To drive home my point, here is the 2008 City Council breakdown on congestion pricing:
http://www.onnyturf.com/blogs/.....t_id=17703
Garodnick (and Vacca) voted for it.
It sounds like Garodnick wasn’t that pro-CP – he was pro-hitting the suburbs, but so were many CP opponents like Anthony Weiner. I don’t think that a five-minute grace period should be the metric by which you judge transportation officials.
Thanks for the link, Ben! And thank you all for your letters. But please, don’t make it be just Vacca vs. Garodnick, because then it turns into Bronx vs. Manhattan. Make it clear that you’d prefer Oliver Koppell or Larry Seabrook over Vacca. They both voted for the “grace period” bill and Koppell co-sponsored it, but as far as I can tell neither of them made big statements to the media about how they were “standing up for the little guy.”
[…] committee, Vacca’s appointment is a disappointment. As I wrote earlier this week, Vacca is a car-friendly representative who has shown no love for transit. After eight years of John Liu’s know-nothing blustering, it looks for now as though […]