10/21/2025
RSVP: https://rpa.org/events/the-story-of-the-bqe
‼️ Screening announcement! ‼️
The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is more than a highway — it’s a visual reminder of institutional segregation, displacement, and environmental degradation.
The Story of the BQE, a documentary from , examines this history and its impact today.
Join RPA, , and for a screening of the documentary, featuring opening remarks from .trottenberg and a panel discussion moderated by Tiffany-Ann Taylor.
Register + learn more via 🔗!
06/07/2024
🚨🚨🚨You've probably heard a lot about congestion pricing and the stakes of the governor's current attempt to cancel it.
Today is the last stand, with the legislature set to vote on stopgap funding the governor is pushing that would provide money for the MTA that is meant to come from congestion pricing. If this passes, congestion pricing is likely dead for good.
NOTE: 🚨This funding is just for a year, not permanent; and of course we need all the benefits of congestion pricing (reduced gridlock, faster buses / ambulances / fire trucks, cleaner air, fewer emissions, less noise, less traffic violence, better quality of life)—not just the MTA money.
Senator Gianaris is ostensibly opposed but was noncommittal to a reporter. Here's a tracker with contact information so you can demand they reject any revenue replacement scheme. Assuming no help from the GOP she needs 31 Senate votes and 75 from the Assembly. See full thread for more: https://twitter.com/2AvSagas/status/1798892068577902856
We're hearing that legislators are on the fence (which is crazy! this is an easy no!), so it would be amazing if you could take one minute to call your state senator's office and say you support congestion pricing and that you want them to vote no on this stopgap funding.
You can find yours here: https://www.nysenate.gov/find-my-senator (The Senate is closer to no so that's where our focus is, but you can call your Assembly member too!: https://www.assembly.state.ny.us/mem/search/)
If they say, "Well, we need the MTA to be funded," you can remind them: congestion pricing is the law, it will fully fund the MTA, and this bill is capitulation to Hochul's last-minute cancellation of a transformative policy we've waited years for. A no vote stands up against this odious approach and will force the governor to back down. Thank you!
Assembly Member Search | New York State Assembly
News and Information from the New York State Assembly
03/20/2023
Long Island Town of Hempstead Freezes New Housing, Highlighting Hochul’s Uphill Battle
Hempstead once passed plans to spur apartments near LIRR stations. Now it’s extending a development moratorium.
01/19/2023
On Politics: Light rail idea would transform Brooklyn and Queens
Commuters would be able to travel between Bay Ridge and Jackson Heights in 39 minutes, columnist Ross Barkan writes
01/11/2023
Hochul Gives Green Signal To Light Rail On The Interborough Express
Gov. Hochul was poised to use her State of the State address on Tuesday afternoon to announce that the MTA will choose light rail for the Interborough Express, the transit connection on an existing…
09/25/2022
MTA officials see light rail as easiest option for Brooklyn-Queens Interborough Express — final choice months away
Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials haven't decided whether to go with heavy rail akin to commuter or subway trains, a specially built bus system, or light rail. But a few constraints laid out by agency experts at town hall discussion could prompt the agency to chug ahead with light rail...
06/09/2022
Wrong Turn: America’s Car Culture and the Road Not Taken
With its highways and suburbs, modern America was built around the automobile and powered by fossil fuels. The oil crises of the 1970s provided an opportunity to change course and move to renewable energy, but any momentum achieved then proved to be very short-lived.
08/30/2021
MTA to Get Slim Slice of Federal Infrastructure Bill as Cars Outpace Mass Transit
The nation’s largest transit agency would reap about 1.9% of the planned $550 billion nationwide spending on transportation, which some critics say continues to focus too heavily on roads and highways.
08/30/2021
Bob Diamond, Brooklyn rail and trolley advocate, remembered
Tributes have been pouring in on social media for Bob Diamond, the Brooklyn streetcar and rail advocate who died this past Saturday at the age of 62 in his home in Flatbush. Diamond was best known for two things. As an engineering student in the early 1980s, he discovered, using old maps and documen...