A ‘Giving Tuesday’ Streetsblog Primer

All this month, we’ll be asking our loyal readers to dig deep and donate to Streetsblog to help us churn out great stories about the efforts to rein in cars, redesign our streets for safety, and hold reckless car drivers accountable.

But first, let us prove to you that we’re worthy of your donation. In 2023, we put last year’s funding to great use with deep investigations, broader coverage and ongoing analysis, such as:

• Amid a debate over the supposed impact on congestion pricing among low-income drivers, Dave Colon crunched the numbers to discover that a new toll to enter the central business district of Manhattan will affect just 5,200 drivers who currently commute from homes more than one-half mile from high-speed public transit. Everyone else can save the toll by using transit.
• Reporter Kevin Duggan had a great year, too, breaking important stories, first that the city’s outdoor dining program would no longer be a full-year initiative (followed by an analysis of how the decision will harm workers and city coffers), then revealing that the Adams administration had pulled back from an ambitious safety plan for McGuinness Boulevard.
• That story followed an amazing investigation by Jesse Coburn, who revealed the inner workings of Mayor Adams’s chief adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin, a longtime opponent of street safety initiatives. Coburn’s reporting on City Hall was second to none this year, including uncovering a rogue chain of command overseen by Lewis-Martin to slow down or completely halt safety projects, as well as the Fordham Road bus lane.
• Julianne Cuba broke what turned out to be the biggest Streetsblog story of the year: the arrest of lawyer Adam White for un-defacing the license plate of a cop-adjacent scofflaw — a story that led to Editor Gersh Kuntzman’s viral video series, “Criminal Mischief,” which included the hit song that the New Yorker called an “earworm” (in a good way!).
• Speaking of Kuntzman, he also did several deep dives on the demise of the city’s Dangerous Vehicle Abatement Program, revealing flaws in the safe-driving initiative, as well as the City Council’s inability to create something better. Kuntzman also revealed how cheap souvenir license plates are fooling the city camera enforcement system. And he also holds the mainstream media accountable for its windshield bias.
• And who could forget Cuba’s coverage of a neighborhood so divided over making streets safe that a mediator had to be called in?
• Other incredible coverage this year included breaking the news that Mayor Adams no longer feels bound by the legally mandated bike/bus lane mileage requirements; Duggan’s historical overview of how the city has failed residents of frequently flooded Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn; and New Jersey’s plot to send a lot more cars onto Canal Street.

Beyond the day-to-day reporting, we’d be remiss if we didn’t remind you that we put your donations to great use by unleashing investigative reporter Jesse Coburn on the Adams administration. In addition to the stories mentioned above, Coburn uncovered:

• How several DOT trucks exploded last winter.
• How dangerous it is to be a city crossing guard.
• How New York City became flooded with fake temporary license plates from states such as Georgia and New Jersey — a series that led to significant crackdowns in both states. Coburn’s “Ghost Tags” series won several awards.

So whaddya say? Care to donate to help us keep holding the Adams administration accountable and making sure the rest of the city press corps take the livable streets movement seriously? Click below. And thanks!