NYC mayoral candidate Kathryn Garcia plans to cut street space for cars by a quarter
Mayoral hopeful Kathryn Garcia touted a plan Friday that would cut 25% of streetscape space currently devoted to cars and convert it to pedestrian and cyclist use.
Her policy proposal, dubbed 25X25, would give more space to cyclists by adding at least 250 additional miles of protected bike lanes, tidy those lanes with small-bore vehicles called multihogs and expand bike parking near transit hubs.
“My approach to safety will be to make changes to the built environment to physically prevent crashes, instead of relying on driver behavior change. That’s why we need protected bike lanes — with safety barriers that work and physically keep cars out,” she said Friday in Sunset Park. “When I think about bike safety, I think about my son, who bikes to work. I think about the delivery workers for whom a safe bike lane isn’t optional, because their job and livelihood depend on their ability to get around the city safely.”
Garcia, who served as Mayor de Blasio’s sanitation commissioner, also plans to prioritize the enforcement of bike lane traffic violations.
She chided her former boss Friday for failing to follow through on several plans to improve bike parking and safety, suggesting that his failures have lead to more traffic fatalities, despite his Vision Zero plan to eliminate vehicular deaths.
“Unfortunately, the limited progress made under Mayor de Blasio’s administration — to expand the protected bike lane network and introduce a bike-share program — has been concentrated in our wealthiest zip codes,” she said. “Nowhere is this more apparent than in neighborhoods like Sunset Park and on Third Avenue, where we have seen a disturbingly high number of New Yorkers killed by traffic violence.”
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