NYC folks!! Want to help make our streets safer and reduce car dependency? Join me in testifying in support of universal daylighting at City Council's Transportation Committee Hearing on Monday, April 21. One of the bills being heard is CM Won's Intro 1138, which would require the city to implement universal daylighting and add hardened daylighting at 1000 intersections each year.
Sign up to testify at the Intro 1138 (universal daylighting) hearing on City Council's website: https://council.nyc.gov/testify/.
Select "Mon, April 21, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure" for the meeting.
You're likely representing "self" (unless you represent an organization officially for testimony)!
What is daylighting, you might ask? Daylighting means no longer allowing parking in the 20 feet adjacent to intersections, which increases visibility for all road users!
Sick of close calls with drivers when you're walking in a crosswalk?
Want to reduce car dependency, which would in turn reduce demands for parking in new housing construction, which we know increases rents?
Tired of having to walk or bike into the intersection - where a car might hit you - just to see if you can cross safely?
Tired of going to Community Board meetings and hearing that street improvement projects like bus and bike lanes can't be made better because they'd have to remove some parking at intersections to do that?
Want to add additional seating, bike corrals, or more rain gardens?
Universal daylighting would fix or improve all these things!
FYI, there's also corresponding state legislation, A09985/S09769, which would require NYC to implement universal daylighting, but it's moving a little slower right now.
I'll be at the Intro 1138 hearing on Monday, April 21 in person to testify, but as with any Council hearing, you can also testify remotely on Zoom or send in written testimony (it's too early to have that information to share though). City Council members will start off the hearing talking about the bills on the docket to DOT representatives, so public testimony probably won't start until around 11am or noon. Expect to have 2 minutes for your testimony.
If you can't take the day off - which makes sense, it's during most folks' workdays and the hearings can run really long - you can testify on Zoom or send in written testimony. I'll post about that when that information is up! If you testify on Zoom, you only need to be present when you're called to testify, but you do need to be in the Zoom to be called on to testify. If you'd like to testify on Zoom in favor of lifesaving daylighting, you can connect with me (email me - see my website) so you can put the Zoom on mute and get a ping from me when you're called since I'm taking the day off to help folks speak up for this.
There's also going to be a rally ahead of the hearing on City Hall steps, too, at 9 am to support universal daylighting. You can RSVP to the rally and to testify with Transportation Alternatives or Open Plans.
Some resources and events that can help you prepare to testify, especially if it's your first time:
Open Plans is hosting a virtual session this Thursday, April 10 at 6pm about testifying for this bill!
Transportation Alternatives Brooklyn Activist Committee is hosting an in person work party for writing testimony and making signs for the rally on Monday, April 14 at 6pm! (I'm one of the hosts of this event - I'll be there in my N95 mask.)
Transportation Alternatives has an overview of how to testify at City Council.
Let's get universal daylighting - a lifesaving street safety improvement!
Around the world, activists are ‘daylighting’ forgotten waterways.
“Around the world, ‘daylighting’ (the process of uncovering lost rivers, also known as ‘deculverting’) has been developing slowly but surely. In 2014, Auckland ‘daylighted’ the Fairburn and Parahiku reserve streams. Sheffield inaugurated its Porter Brook pocket park in 2016, and for the past decade the city of Yonkers, New York has been uncovering the Saw Mill River, buried since the 1920s. Madrid, Manchester and New York City are also considering similar restoration projects.
Most of these urban rivers were covered up during the urbanisation of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and as water quality deteriorated they were gradually put into culverts underground and sometimes turned into sewers, which also helped prevent floods. But with today’s technology and engineering, keeping them underground often doesn’t make sense any more. In fact, cities are realising that opening up old rivers could help them adapt to climate change.” -via TimeOut
“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” ―
