James Vacca

"If we want to give meaning to multi-modal transportation ... and if we want a vibrant city, then we must encourage safety for people who walk and bicycle."

After Transportation Committee Chair James Vacca, Speaker Christine Quinn, and the City Council yanked a 25-cent parking meter increase out of the city budget last week, reading Vacca's explanation in the Daily News ("This was just not fair.") was enough to make transportation reformers despair.

Speaker Christine Quinn's office just announced that the City Council has reached a budget deal with the Bloomberg administration, restoring some services slated for cuts and targeting others instead. There's also one case where the council successfully fought to prevent the city from raising revenue to fund more services. A proposal to increase parking meter rates by 25 cents per hour in Manhattan above 86th Street and in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island got negotiated out of the budget deal, thanks in no small part to vigorous opposition from Transportation Committee Chair James Vacca.

Speed kills, even when traffic is moving at New York's citywide limit of 30 miles per hour. According to the UK Department for Transport, if a driver hits a pedestrian at 30 miles per hour, the victim only has a 55 percent chance of surviving. At 20 mph, the pedestrian has a 95 percent chance of survival.

The City Council Transportation Committee held a hearing yesterday on four bills that would release new information about traffic crashes and how the Department of Transportation decides whether to install traffic calming measures and traffic control devices like stop lights and stop signs. All together, the bills would cover a wide spectrum of information, but committee chair Jimmy Vacca said the goal of each is "empowering citizens who want to fight for traffic calming measures in their own community." The measures drew opposition from DOT representatives, however, who seemed to bristle at the prospect of Council-imposed mandates even while pledging support for the intent of the bills.

City Council Member Jimmy Vacca has made several public shows of support for street safety initiatives since taking over as chair of the transportation committee at the beginning of the year. To draw attention to the statewide complete streets bill, he stood with Speaker Christine Quinn at 23rd Street, using the Ninth Avenue bike lane as backdrop. He appeared with Quinn, Mayor Bloomberg, and DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan at last week's big pedestrian safety announcement. And he told Streetsblog in an interview this spring that reducing speeding is one of his top priorities.

The last two years have been full of dismal news for transit riders in New York City. Revenue streams for transit have nosedived during the recession, with Albany plundering dedicated MTA taxes for good measure. The payroll tax state legislators passed last year hasn't lived up to expectations, making their failure to enact congestion pricing or bridge tolls even more burdensome for New Yorkers. Sweeping service cuts are going to take effect in less than two months, and discount MetroCards for more than half a million students are on the chopping block.

This January, Bronx City Council Member Jimmy Vacca took over the transportation committee from outgoing chair John Liu.

Legislation that would compel the NYPD to open some of its traffic safety data to the public got a big boost today, when City Council public safety committee chair Peter Vallone Jr. announced his support at a hearing on the bill. The hearing was marked by a tense confrontation between council members and police officials who refused to concede that New Yorkers have a right to such information.