🚌 MTA Meeting on Franklin and Fulton Moved to Feb 10th

🌟 Author’s Note

Happy Super Bowl Sunday to the 125 members of the Better Block Project 🏈 . I have no allegiances to either team in today’s game, but will be rooting for the Seahawks as Sam Darnold’s comeback story is so cool. To all of you Patriots fans out there, you’ve had enough. Here is the TLDR for this week’s update:

• The MTA meeting on the Franklin and Fulton bus stop was moved to this coming week, February 10th

• I met with Anthony Drummond, Community Liaison at the MTA, and learned that removing the seating 🪑 close to Fulton was one of the most feasible asks for the MTA

• On adding lighting 🔦, I learned that this is more difficult with the MTA, but I am meeting next week with DOT to discuss the path to adding a street light and input a budget request by February 19th

• The experience with the MTA and DOB highlight how NYC Agency decision making is too concentrated at the top. Shifting more power down to local officials could help us move faster and make better choices for the neighborhood

🚌 Latest with the MTA and the Franklin and Fulton Bus Stop

This past week, we heard from Chi Osse’s office that the meeting with the MTA on Franklin and Fulton had to be moved until February 10th, this coming week. While the delay is unfortunate (and not surprising 🫠), I’m excited they are meeting next week and hopeful we’ll see real progress from this discussion.

Outside of this, this week I had the chance to connect with Anthony Drummond, a community representative from the MTA, to get more insight on what’s happening on the MTA side of the conversation and what we should expect moving forward.

In positive news, Anthony is actively working with the City Council’s office to plan how to make good on all of the promises we outlined a few weeks ago from the Atlantic Avenue Mixed Use Plan. We also discussed how each of our key asks from the community letter: removing the extra seating 🪑, additional lighting 🔦 and adding temporary security 👮 could get done.

First, I learned that removing the extra seating 🪑 at the bus stop is the most attainable ask, as this is directly in the purview of the MTA. The reason the seating is there is this bus stop is the beginning and end of a few bus lines. However, as many folks know, the seating closest to Fulton is not commonly used by riders and has been a magnet for illicit activity. The decision to remove the seating is ultimately up to a gentleman named David Solomon, who leads all of MTA’s facilities group. Anthony shared this decision could be made in the next couple of months and the seating could be removed. I am hopeful we will hear a substantive update on this following next week’s meeting.

Additional lighting 🔦 is another story. According to Anthony, this would need to be a part of a capital project, which would have to happen on a much longer time frame. After discussing with Anthony, it does seem like focusing on Department of Transportation adding street lights is the best option given the timeline and nature of the lighting (the streetlights will be much more aesthetically pleasing than the MTA wall lights). As a follow up to this, I have found time with Leroy Branch at DOT this coming week to discuss the street light proposal. I’ve asked Leroy if we can open this discussion to a few community members, I will keep you posted. Regardless, if there is anything important you want to be brought up at that meeting, just let me know.

Finally, adding temporary security 👮 seems to be much more complex. MTA has provided security for their stations in the past, but only inside the actual station. Anthony couldn’t speak to what would be required to add security outside the station on the actual bus stop. My sense is the best path forward is continuing to alert the NYPD of any issues at the station and encouraging quality of life teams to continue to patrol the station.

For next steps, I hope next week will be fruitful for learning about what the MTA can actually do to improve the bus stop, and the role DOT can play in adding permanent lighting. Note, it is still my goal to formulate a budget request for the street lights to submit to City Council and the Brooklyn Borough President’s discretionary funding deadline on February 19th.

⚙️ Why NYC Agency Decision Making is Broken

My conversation this week with Anthony was another reminder of how flawed decision making is at NYC Agencies. In order to decide the future of the seating at the Franklin and Fulton bus stop, it’s not up to the local officials or residents who live there (who all pleaded back in September for these changes), it’s up to David Solomon, who leads MTA’s facilities group. This was remarkably similar to how we were able to get enforcement on 1105 Fulton and 26 Jefferson, which required the last commissioner of the Department of Buildings, Jimmy Oddo, to come visit the buildings in order to actually levy enforcement.

It’s indicative of how New York City’s are organized today. Key decisions are all made by agencies, and many decisions have to be made by very senior individuals at these agencies. The result of this is two things:

1. Decision making is exceptionally slow. If everything has to go all the way up the chain to be decided, it’s very difficult to move quickly

2. Local officials and residents have less say on what happens to city assets directly in their neighborhoods

There are counter examples to this, like the role of the Community Board to advise on zoning and budget priorities, but it’s not formal authority. With all due respect to all the great individuals who work in community roles in NYC government, many of my conversations with them end with some version of how whatever I am asking either can’t happen or may happen but it will be 5 years from now.

You could imagine a different world where local officials had a lot more authority in how decisions were made in their district. What if the local NYPD, MTA, DSNY and DOT all reported into the City Council member? They would still be a part of their city agencies for consistent policies, but imagine if most of their direction came from the local City Council member instead of their agency head. There are some really interesting benefits to this model:

1. City Council members are much closer to the problems in their district, so can allocate resources more effectively to what their district needs

2. It’s a lot easier to speak to a City Council member than it is an agency head. As a result, residents could have faster resolutions to the problems facing them

3. City Council members can see problems across agencies, so with issues like the bus stop, they can identify the solution that works best for the area, not just their own agency needs

New York City government is a very large cruise ship today, and as a result, it’s very hard to steer. I believe one of the most positive policy decisions New York could make is re-organizing to push more power down to the local level, to give more autonomy to the folks directly on the ground. I predict we would move a lot faster, use our resources more wisely, and have a much more livable city.

That’s all for this week’s update! As usual, if you like what we’re doing at the Better Block Project, forward this to someone you know that is looking to get more engaged in the neighborhood.

See you next week,

David