ALBANY — There are many ways to justify bad behavior. In marriage, it’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” or “the 100-mile rule.”
In our state legislature it’s "Aye without Recommendation."
The maneuver — which is widely known by its acronym — is a vote to approve something without actually offering your approval. (In last week’s heated budget deliberations, for example, Sen. James Skoufis voted AWR on all the budget bills, saying it was a reflection “on the process.”)
Now a statewide coalition of watchdog groups is sounding the alarm about a new "Aye without Recommendation" threat likely to take place today at noon when the Senate Transportation Committee will consider S533, the first to make it to a committee vote of the 17 bills that seek to repeal or eviscerate congestion pricing.
The coalition, which is led by Reinvent Albany, is concerned that Senate Democrats on the committee might vote “Aye without recommendation,” allowing Sen. Jack Martins’s toxic bill to make it to the Senate floor.
Martins brought his bill to committee with a bit of procedural jiu-jitsu himself. Because Martins made a “motion for committee consideration,” Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Jeremy Cooney is forced to put it on the agenda even if he doesn’t want to.
Rachael Fauss of Reinvent Albany is concerned that some Democratic Senators would allow the bill to move forward with an AWR.
"It’s a way of covering a yes vote," she said.
The memo, which is also signed by Bike New York, Citizens Budget Commission, the Real Estate Board of New York, the Regional Plan Alliance, and Open Plans (full disclosure: the parent company of Streetsblog), calls the bill "contrary to notions of basic fairness.”
In the run-up to congestion pricing, the Traffic Mobility Review Board evaluated more than 120 requests for exemptions and rejected virtually all of them. But like the undead, they still lurk in the halls of Albany.
Streetsblog will be at the hearing at noon. You can livestream it here.
Amy's Albany Addenda
The other big action today will be busloads of activists headed to the Capitol for the annual "Lobby Day" for a package of bills being pushed by Families for Safe Streets.
Top on the agenda is the Sen. Andrew Gounardes/Assembly Member Emily Gallagher "super speeder bill" (S4045B/ A2299B), but right up there is the long-stalled Idaho Stop bill sponsored by Sen. Rachel May and Assembly Member Karen McMahon (S639/A7071).
The bill would let cyclists treat red lights as stop signs and stop signs as yield signs. So after stopping completely at a red light, the cyclist can proceed if there are no pedestrians. And at a stop sign, the cyclist can slow, but keep moving, if pedestrians are absent.
It made it out of the Assembly last session, but died in the Senate.
Supporters say the bill is a crucial safety measure: if cyclists are allowed to enter an intersection before a green light, it gets them out of truck drivers’ blind spots and past cars that block bike lanes: two major causes of cyclist deaths. (Twenty-three cyclists were killed in New York City last year, according to Transportation Alternatives, a 23 percent increase from 2023.)
In addition, the Idaho Stop, which is law in 11 states (including its namesake), reduces fatigue, which is a great deterrent to cycling. And if cyclists could treat stops signs as yield signs, so many secondary roads away from cars and pedestrians would become much more popular with cyclists.
In Delaware, 30 months after the Idaho Stop was adopted, there was a 23-percent reduction in cyclist injuries.
The city Department of Transportation has long (long long) tried to implement the Idaho Stop via an administrative rule change, but has been blocked by City Hall.
The current state bill will certainly face a backlash, which is ironic because supporters say we need the Idaho Stop more than ever.
In recent weeks, the NYPD has been slapping cyclists with criminal summonses instead of regular traffic tickets for passing through red lights or not stopping at a stop sign. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch repeatedly claims that complaints of "out-of-control" cyclists are "one of the largest pieces of feedback that I get from New Yorkers.”
But riders of bicycles and e-bikes comprise just 2 percent of all trips in the city streets, and cause a tiny share of injuries to pedestrians. Nonetheless, they get 15 percent of red-light tickets handed out by NYPD officers, as Streetsblog reported.
Jon Orcutt, the advocacy director for Bike New York, said Tisch's enforcement blitz was just "done to jack up ticket numbers," whereas passing the Idaho Stop would "get rid of actual problems.”
So what will happen? Well, given how little state lawmakers even understand road safety from outside of a car, who knows!
Last session’s Assembly debate, revealed an astounding lack of knowledge. Consider this exchange between Assembly Members Sam Pirozollo (R-Staten Island) and the bill's then-sponsor, Patricia Fahy (D-Albany). Pirozollo said he had seen bike lane traffic lights, and wasn't sure "what goes on there."
Fahy explained that a red stoplight in the bike lane means cyclist would "of course stop and wait for the green."
Pirozollo: Do cyclists know that?
Fahy: Yes. And if you have seen those stoplights, it literally is in the shape of a bicycle.
Pirozollo then sought to require his fellow lawmakers to do a slow roll call, in which each member would have to “push their button to decide possibly how many of their constituents will live and how many of their constituents will die.”
He didn't get his slow roll call, but he did vote no, defying the majority of the Assembly. The Senate failed to act, bringing us to the current impasse ... and Lobby Day.
