Transportation is not just transportation. It’s about commerce, energy, and environment.

It’s about getting to work, going on vacation, personal mobility – it’s about our quality of life.

I have fought to protect our Bus routes, fought the transit fare hikes, and I have fought to keep station personnel. I'm fighting for our transit system to be smarter and more responsive to the community.

We must recognize that in a disaster anywhere in our mass transit system, Transit workers are our first responders and they must be given the training and respect in accordance with this reality.

Distributed parking in Downtown flushing

Downtown Flushing is the largest transportation hub outside of Manhattan, and the third largest in NYC and we are reaching critical mass. Traffic must be more efficient, we need more distributed parking to spread the centers of traffic gravity. We need different locations for cars to park so that people can go shopping, eat, get on the train or bus.

The community is more than just Downtown flushing

We need more buses to service our community. We need Bus Rapid Transit, express buses to service Auburndale, Queensboro Hill, and Mitchell Gardens. The 20th Council is more than downtown Flushing and we need services in these areas too to help us access mass transit, got to work, play, and just get around New York.

We also need to have more bus shelters and we must have more community input. Of great importance that the MTA does not seem to consider is the topography of our bus stops - looking at more than just proximity, but also the accessibility of a bus stop, is it at the top or bottom of a hill, is it difficult to access for the elderly. And we need the MTA to establish a dialogue with the community to really talk about our needs.

Trains & Buses

The 7 train is rapidly approaching maximum capacity and we need to anticipate the real transportation needs of our commuter population. We need more access points into the train system. We also need to expand the trains. But any expansion would require a massive capital investment and take years and an efficient solution is more express buses, more Bus Rapid Transit.

The MTA needs to focus on its core competency – transportation, not technology. The MTA wasted $11Million dollars on a bus tracking system which they complained that they could not make work because of the canyons and valleys of New York city streets, while Verizon has a working system that anyone can use. The Chaperone system is a cell phone you can give your child and you know where they are at all times. It will even send you alerts when the child goes to a particular location.

A working tracking system would allow riders to tolerate fewer buses because then we could know when the bus would really be there. We could call the transportation information line, enter our bus and know its real ETA, rather than having people stand in the cold, the rain, the snow, or even baking in the sun.

In these difficult times we must maximize our resources. We need to work Smarter.