Election Day is almost here, and while the mayoral race has sucked up a lot of the oxygen and brought Andrew Cuomo's racism to the forefront, there are a handful of competitive City Council races on the undercard. Among those is an attempt to topple Vickie Paladino, the northeast Queens Republican who's well-known to Streetsblog readers for encouraging someone to punch one of our editors and vowing to stop the city from installing a greenway along the waterfront in College Point and Whitestone. That race is being run by Democrat Ben Chou, a firefighter and lifelong District 19 resident.
Paladino has made a name for herself as a committed foe of street safety — even though her district led the city in traffic fatalities in 2024. Meanwhile, Chou has welcomed support from pro-cycling advocates and organizations, made overtures to the r/Micromobility sub-reddit and won a StreetsPAC endorsement on the strength of his commitment to daylighting and bringing more protected bike lanes to his district. He also is a strong supporter of the Queens Waterfront Greenway.
Still an active firefighter, Chou took a few minutes between the end of a shift and the latest planning session for the greenway to talk about why he doesn't think it's a risk to run in northeast Queens as a friend of greenways, pedestrian safety and expanding mobility options beyond just driving.
In our interview, Chou called out Paladino for "fear-mongering" about the greenway that he and his neighbors grew up riding.
"We walked, jogged off the river, the bay. It's a nice function that's being utilized by our community, our families. It's not a 'pipeline for criminals,'" Chou told Streetsblog, channeling Paladino's language. "This rhetoric — fear mongering it really is — it's trying to empower a base of people by projecting a villainous image on people that want any form of change. These are families that want to ride their bikes."
This interview has edited for length and clarity.
We've seen the StreetsPAC endorsement, we saw you reach out to the micrombility subreddit, and you've chatted with Miser. People think that northeast Queens is very hostile to cycling or focusing on pedestrian safety. Clearly, you're running a campaign that is not hostile to those things. So why are you making that choice to do that?
I grew up here, and I understand that a lot of my district is still car-reliant. But I do believe that the direction that we're heading in is not going to be sustainable having more and more people driving. Having additional options can only benefit us. I grew up riding bikes. I grew up using alternative means of transportation. So it's not that we're unable to do it. It's just that we're choosing not do it.
So you're looking to expand the field a little bit of what is possible to do to get around the district.
Yes, exactly yes.
Do you think, or have you found, that it's been a risk to run a campaign where you're saying you support daylighting at targeted intersections, and that you support adding bike infrastructure where you think you can fit it? Or is this something that you think is less risky than somebody from outside the district would maybe assume?
I think there is some pushback from certain people, but I feel like when most people see the numbers they they understand the need for for more safety measures. Last year, we led the city in traffic-related fatalities. For our district, for a suburban district where there's more space, it seems quite drastic, leading the city. It's a lot, right?
Yeah, that's something that I noticed: You've talked about this district leading the city in traffic deaths, and you want to change that. As a first responder, is this where that perspective comes in? Do you find yourself showing up to crashes? Obviously not in the moment, but do you then look back and go, "This was something was preventable?"
Absolutely. Being a first responder and seeing all the car crashes and the deaths from accidents [sic], and just in general over the years, have definitely opened my eyes toward understanding the need for certain safety measures.
People think that speed cameras are just a money grab, but if you look deeper into it, the amount of speeders that these cameras catch actually decreases after the first year. And not only that, speeding decreases. So measures like this aren't unreasonable. It's just painted with such a negative bias, and people don't see the correlation because they think it won't happen to them. But until you're walking your dog, you're the one walking on the street, you're taking your family for a bike ride, and a death occurs.
We have to be preventative. A big reason I'm running is so many years of seeing the devastation going on and thinking how much is preventable. When we do an after-action report you hear, "It's because of this," or "There's no law to prevent that." These are people's lives, and so much can be done in proactive prevention, in legislation that could save lives, could make people's lives easier that we just don't do.
You're talking about being proactive. Do you find that your firefighting experience has also helped you to get to where you are on bringing more daylighting to the district?
I feel like it's very plain to see. P.S. 94 is right near my house. The intersection itself is just so dangerous with kids walking around. And if that mirrors more schools or senior centers around the neighborhood, then I feel like there should be a very clear-cut decision. Everyone should be on board if it's risking lives, right?
We've covered the greenway, including when Council Member Paladino showing up at a workshop and said a lot of really terrible things about the project and biking in general. And you've been pretty clear that you're supporting it. Can you talk a little bit more about why is it an important project for the district? She just wrote in her newsletter that this is a pipeline for criminals. Is that an appropriate thing to be saying about people who live in Jackson Heights?
We're all New Yorkers. This rhetoric — fear mongering it really is — it's trying to empower a base of people by projecting a villainous image on people that want any form of change. These are families that want to ride their bikes. These are young people trying to commute to work, they're utilizing an alternative means of transportation. She's painting this as a gigantic bicycle highway running through all our neighborhoods, destroying the fabric almost like we're running a railroad through the place. This is not the fact at all. It's just just blatant fear mongering. If, in all honesty, a criminal is not going to be like, "Wow, there's a bike lane now. I'm going to use it." This doesn't make any sense. Any common rational thought would dictate that this is not reasonable. Everyone outside of here is a criminal element who is just biking here with a ski mask and burglarizing our homes? Is this what we're talking about?
I feel like my approach to a lot of it is different than her rhetoric. She paints this as destroying a way of life. Once you talk to people, they come to understand. Like [with] the greenway, [she's] fear mongering by saying we're gonna have elements of danger biking into our our district; [it] is an extremely unreasonable argument. These are families. I was one of them, me and my family when I was growing up, we used to go to the greenway to bike. We walked, jogged off the river, the bay. It's a nice function that's being utilized by our community, our families. It's not a pipeline for criminals. This is an unreasonable statement.
I know you mentioned that growing up in the district you'd bike around. Are there places that you get around on your bike these days, anywhere that you'd that you'd like to be able to, or even just, you know, where would like to ride? How you how do you get around?
Currently, I've been a lot more reliant on driving because my campaign has taken me to all ends of the district, and there really is no alternative means of transportation. Even getting to the early voting sites has proven difficult: If you don't drive, you have to take two buses. It gets extremely complicated and prolonged because we don't have any system that supports those who might need to or want to take any other means of transportation. Studies show that by having alternate transportation options, people will utilize it.
