Assemblywoman advocate for safe streets is a traffic violence recidivist

Emily is the smirking fauxgressive on the left. Photo by JQ LLC

 

NY Post

 

Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher (D-Brooklyn) — who has demonized drivers for years as she calls for “safer streets” — has racked up at least 46 traffic tickets totaling over $4,000 over the past two-and-a-half years, a review of public records by The Post found.

The socialist pol’s 2014 White Buick Encore was caught on camera blowing through a red light in the Bronx in November 2022, and ticketed for parking in front of fire hydrants at least six times, according to city records.

Her utter disregard for the rules of the road extends beyond the Big Apple: In March 2022, Albany traffic cops slapped the far-left lawmaker with an expired-meter ticket that she has yet to pay, records show.

 

Gallagher has been upfront about her war on cars, and called driving a “very kind of aggressive activity” in a 2022 interview.

The scofflaw lawmaker backed a bill known as “Sammy’s Law,” which allows the city to lower speed limits to as low as 10 mph on some streets.

Transportation Nihilists and Delinquents

NY Post 

 Two of the Big Apple’s top transportation honchos — known for talking tough at traffic scofflaws — need speed themselves, data reviewed by The Post reveals.

Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez and his baby mama Christina Melendez, a top director at the Department of Education, have racked up a staggering 66 traffic violations totaling at least $5,600 in fines the past decade using the same vehicle – including 14 since 2019 for speeding in school safety zones, according to city records.  

The chair of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, Councilwoman Selvena Brooks-Powers (D-Queens), has cruised in a family car that racked up 25 tickets over the past 16 months, including 20 for speeding near schools and another for blowing a red light, records show. 

 It’s unclear how many of the summonses were handed out on Melendez’s Nissan Rogue when Rodriguez was behind the wheel. 

As DOT commissioner for the past two years, he’s enjoyed the perk of having a city vehicle that comes with an assigned driver.

“Ydanis Rodriquez, who gets chauffeured in a giant SUV, and Selvena Brooks-Powers are prime examples of ‘do as I say, not as I do,'” fumed Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens).

They’re “hypocrites who act as if laws don’t apply to them,” he added. 

Other lefty pols with a long history of being speed demons who’ve racked up plenty of traffic violations include Comptroller Brad Lander, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine.

Rodriguez regularly drove Melendez’s Nissan to work at City Hall when he was a Manhattan councilman — even obtaining a parking placard for it — but he and his former domestic partner, who share two daughters, have since split, according to sources. 

The vehicle was slapped with six speeding tickets during the final five months leading up to Rodriguez’s January 2022 appointment by Mayor Adams as DOT commissioner.

Since then, the Nissan has received six parking tickets – including two for misusing a parking permit—and was caught speeding in July and November of last year.  

On March 2, 2023, the vehicle was slapped with two tickets totaling $160 for illegally parking in a spot in lower Manhattan on Warren Street reserved for state senators and assembly members.

The traffic agent noted in the tickets that the car was flashing a Department of Education parking permit. Melendez works nearby as the DOE’s $195,000-a-year executive director of Family and Community Engagement.

A Post photographer on Thursday spotted Melendez getting into the vehicle, which was illegally parked 

Rodriguez, who has cheered congestion pricing and speed cameras and has helped promote City Hall’s anti-car agenda, earns $243,171 and now gets a free ride to work in a city vehicle.

He has not driven his ex’s car since being appointed commissioner two years ago “and is confident he has not received any [traffic] violations in this role,” said DOT spokesman Vincent Barone.

The DOE and Melendez declined to comment.

Brooks-Powers has been a longtime proponent of using speed cameras to help curb traffic accidents and has pushed legislation seeking to reward New Yorkers who report hit-and-run drivers fleeing deadly crashes.

However, a 2019 Nissan the pol has said she shares with her husband Demetrius Powers II racked up 25 tickets totaling $1,395 in fines since September 2022 — including the 20-speed cam violations, records show. 

 

 NY Post

Some New York City agencies are using the viral image of Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce screaming at head coach Andy Reid during the Super Bowl to push their policy agendas.

“OUTDOOR DINING TAKES UP LESS THAN .5% OF STREET PARKING IN NEW YORK CITY. PUBLIC SPACE IS FOR EVERYONE, NOT JUST CARS,” posted the city Department of Transportation Monday on X, along with a photo of Kelce jawing on the sidelines at a stone-faced Reid.

Some critics slammed DOT for using the photo of Taylor Swift’s boyfriend barking at his coach to drive home anti-car policies advocated by Transportation Alternatives and other advocacy groups.

“Instead of focusing on filling potholes and installing speed bumps in a timely manner, the DOT prefers to tweet nonsense that New Yorkers couldn’t care less about,” fumed Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens). “The Department of Transportation Alternatives needs a major change in leadership.”

DOT spokesman Nick Benson quipped that he’s “notoriously bad at lip reading, but I think it’s a safe assumption that Travis Kelce was vociferously expressing his support for outdoor dining in New York City.”

The guy photographed above is Vin Barone, he's in charge of media at the Department Of Transportation Alternatives which includes their obnoxious twitter account (which is also stupidly known as X).

 

Council Member Holden's bill calls for slamming the brakes on ebikes and e-scooters

 

 Sunnyside Post

Council Member Robert Holden, who represents the Queens neighbors of Ridgewood and Glendale, says that electric scooters and electric bikes are putting New Yorkers in danger and has introduced legislation that would ban them until they can be properly policed.

Holden introduced a bill last week that would repeal city regulations that allow e-bikes and e-scooters to be driven throughout the five boroughs.

The lawmaker says that some riders are ignoring traffic laws — since they are not required to have a license to ride their bikes – which is leading to crashes. In addition, he said, there have been instances where the batteries in e-bikes and e-scooters have sparked fires.

Holden wants the ban imposed until state lawmakers pass legislation that would require the vehicles to be registered, licensed and insured.

The legislation that would require the vehicles to be registered, licensed and insured, can only be enacted at state level since state lawmakers legalized the vehicles in the first place in 2020, Holden said. The state law gave municipalities the ability to legalize e-bikes and e-scooters.

“The scourge of these devices throughout our city has led to people disregarding traffic laws resulting in injuries or death, lithium ion-based fires that killed several people and injured hundreds, and a feeling of disorder on our streets and sidewalks as well as a diminished quality of life,” Holden said.

“We must ensure that these vehicles are operated safely before allowing them back on our streets.”

Comptroller wannabe Brad Lander has a entitled need for speed

 

NY Post

He’s a high-speed hypocrite!

City Councilman Brad Lander — who’s crusaded against reckless drivers and pushed a law that lets the city seize their cars — has been caught speeding in school zones around the Big Apple eight times in the past five years, The Post has learned.

Lander’s lead foot led to tickets against him for going more than 10 mph over the speed limit in every borough except Staten Island since June 2016, city records show.

The liberal Democrat — who’s now a candidate for city comptroller — even racked up two violations in one week last month, one in Manhattan and another just blocks from his home in Brooklyn’s Park Slope.

In each case, Lander pleaded guilty and paid a $50 fine, according to information posted on the NYC Open Data website. But because the tickets were issued after Lander zoomed past automatic speed cameras, he wasn’t assessed any points against his license.

Under state law, speeding more than 10 mph over the limit carries at least four points per violation and drivers can have their licenses suspended if they rack up a total of 11 points in 18 months.

Lander was ticketed seven times between Oct. 25, 2019, and March 25, 2021, which is a period of less than 18 months, and would have resulted in at least 28 points if he’d been stopped by cops and convicted each time.

Meanwhile, The Post on Thursday found Lander’s Toyota Prius parked illegally on 13th Street in Park Slope, near his home, between 9 and 9:30 a.m, when street-sweeping regulations were in effect.

At one point, a Department of Sanitation street cleaning vehicle came by and was blocked from sweeping the curb.

Lander’s dark gray hybrid remained parked until he got in and drove away shortly before noon, even though there’s a two-hour meter limit on the block from 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.

 Update:

Watch this bum squirm when he tries to simultaneously defend and absolve himself from his own reckless driving record. But what's really hysterical is how these fauxgressive council cronies are willing to eat each other to maintain the one-party establishment.