The president of the community council, Ann Bruno, opened the meeting with what seems to be her usual rituals. She asked us all to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance, said it was nice to see people in person and not in Zoom windows, and said Deputy Inspector Kenneth Gorman (commander of the 114th precinct) was “the best.” Last time she opened the meeting in almost exactly the same way. Next up was the recognition of the “Cops of the Month” (yes, this is really the title of the award) for February: two partners who got the award, not for any one incident, but for a “plethora” of “police work” (Gorman’s words, which I think means nobody did anything exceptionally heroic this month).
Gorman gave his rundown of crime: crime is down 6% overall, according to him, and down in every crime category, except rape (up by 1 rape) and grand larcenies (up by 8). He said the grand larcenies were mostly scams (same as last month).
And….that was it! Almost. Gorman apparently asked if there were questions at this point, but people either didn’t hear or assumed that Gorman was only asking for questions about the grand larcenies, because no one raised their hand. Ann Bruno was about to wrap up the meeting when u/Miser realized what was going on and immediately jumped up with a question. Gorman trudged back to the podium after he’d believed he was home free.
u/Miser asked what Gorman thought the 114th Precinct had done over the past month to be a better “Vision Zero” partner. Gorman appeared unsure of what u/Miser meant. u/Miser sought to clarify that Gorman knew what he meant by “Vision Zero partner”, and Gorman said he absolutely did. u/Miser then rephrased and asked what specific things the precinct had done in the last month to keep pedestrians and others on the street safe. Gorman said that overall traffic injuries were down since last month by ten incidents, but that there was a slight increase in pedestrian injuries specifically. He also talked about enforcement and said that in the last month, the precinct had issued 450 parking summonses, almost 600 moving violations, and done an “operation” on illegal parking on 21st St yielding 50 parking tickets issued to commercial vehicles.
Once u/Miser asked that question, several other people took the ball and ran with it. The conversation was almost entirely dominated with pro-pedestrian safe-streets advocates. Some highlights:
· A woman in a blue shirt asked where she could report it if there was a particular intersection where drivers were constantly running red lights/stop signs, and asked for specific email addresses/portals. An officer provided an email address to report intersections: carlos.chacon@nypd.org.
· A man in a burgundy shirt said he feels safe in Astoria except when crossing the street. He has 2 kids and almost gets hit once a week. He said focusing on specific hot spot intersections wasn’t enough and we had to change overall attitudes of drivers, perhaps through more enforcement. Gorman gave his usual spiel about how cops can’t be everywhere.
· u/Miser said that the whole point of deterrence was so that cops didn’t *have* to be everywhere, because drivers would fear consequences if they drove dangerously. Gorman had a pretty good rhetorical jiu-jitsu at this point: he said, correctly, that it wasn’t his job to instill fear. He also pointed to the number of summonses issued as proof of enforcement. u/Miser said he understood that but deterrence was part of the job, and it seemed obvious that drivers in Astoria feel they can drive as fast as they want, run red lights, and park wherever they want, with no consequences.
· A woman in a leather jacket spoke up to say she almost got killed recently while crossing the street with her dog. She asked the NYPD to point out problem intersections so we could all email DOT to ask for improvements. Gorman agreed, said we could start at the intersection of Hoyt and 31st, and said he would provide numbers.
· An elderly man, who later was revealed to be the president of the Italian-American Federation, declared that pedestrian injuries aren’t always the driver’s fault, because the other day a young kid jumped right in front of his car, and the kid’s mom just laughed. He said all this in THE most classic New York Italian-American accent—it was the best thing about his comment.
· A man in a Tommy Hilfiger jacket noted that he could find crime statistics online through the NYPD website, but moving violations seemed to disappear from month to month. He asked if there was a place he could look for previous months’ violations. He also noted that a large percentage of all the moving violations in February were for tinted windows, and asked why that was a priority. Gorman said he would have to “look into” providing this “historical” data. Gorman also claimed that the tinted windows were a pedestrian safety issue as well as an officer safety issue: he said it’s hard for the driver to see out of tinted windows and therefore won’t see pedestrians. Hilfiger also asked further pointed questions about data.
· A man in a gray jacket said he was a stay-at-home dad, echoed the concerns of Burgundy Shirt, and said the Hoyt/31st intersection was especially dangerous. He said he sees cars running the light there once a day, not just once a week. He asked the precinct to instill respect, if not fear, with enforcement, because this is a serious danger to kids. Gorman said he put officers near that intersection and could get a speed camera but only through DOT, and NYPD could ask for that, but so could citizens.
· A woman asked about enforcing the busway on 21st St. Gorman essentially blamed the redesign of 21st St because it took away a lane and added a busway. He claimed this increased traffic and was bad for cars and (somehow) for pedestrians (it’s not, I cross that street every day and the redesign makes it infinitely better).
· Finally, an elderly man asked where he could look up how many pedestrians got summonses for jaywalking. I think he thought this was a stinging rebuttal to everything everyone else had said.
Unlike last month, the tone of almost all the comments was pro-safe streets. Already, the collective advocacy and voice of everyone involved is having an impact on the culture of these meetings.
Originally posted on r/MicromobilityNYC and crossposted to r/Astoria.