RoadWarriors

ACCORDING TO JIM / ROAD WARRIORS

In a Staten Island Advance Op-Ed piece in December of 2014,
I wrote:

This marked the beginning of what would ultimately become our successful, Pave, Baby, Pave initiative. Within months after the Op-Ed publication and after much lobbying both privately and publicly, Mayor de Blasio announced an infusion of $242.1 million to do just what I asked him to do – exceed the thousand lane-mile mark in a meaningful way.

By now we have all seen the fruits of Pave, Baby, Pave, with more asphalt activity in this last year than we have seen in recent memory. I take great pride in my work to get our Mayor to listen to our concerns on Staten Island, and give him great credit for the steps he has taken to address them.

I first began my quest for additional resources for resurfacing back in 2008. By then, about a decade of disinvestment in our roads had taken its toll. You see, paving a thousand lane-miles citywide per year is considered the minimum necessary to keep our city’s roads in a state of good repair. Unfortunately, the city didn’t reach that number for the first eight years of this century; during times of fiscal constraint, basic infrastructure is often one of the easiest things to cut.

When that happens,
our roads literally deteriorate
before our eyes.

In the first few years, few motorists feel the effect to any great degree. But at some point the chickens come home to roost – and the lack of investment causes the problem to become acute.

That is where we were in the cycle around 2007-2008.

Each year, the problem kept getting worse and worse.
After hitting the thousand lane-mile mark in FY 2009, the city again failed to reach it in 2010. In 2011 and 2012 it hit the mark and then in 2013 missed it by around 200 miles.

All this time I kept writing to the Bloomberg Administration and the DOT asking for help. Once in October of ’08; twice in January and once in August of ’09; again in January, March and May of 2010; and January and February ‘11.

These pleas all fell on deaf ears, and our streets and highways kept deteriorating.

Terrible roads with bone-jarring potholes
became the new - and unacceptable - normal.

Visitors to Staten Island seemed to be very keen to remind us that our streets and highways
mimicked those of third-world countries.

We were in such a bad a situation that even when we hit the thousand lane-mile mark
again in FY 2014; it was simply not enough.

We needed to exceed it in a meaningful way to even begin to make up
some of the ground lost during the last decade.

Enter Pave, Baby, Pave and Mayor de Blasio.

I started this piece with a quote from my December, 2014, Staten Island Advance Op-Ed. This started our concerted effort to convince the de Blasio Administration to make real, meaningful, and dare I say transformative changes that would finally reverse the decade of decaying roads we have all experienced.

In May 2015, I received some extraordinarily exciting news – the Mayor was about to announce an infusion of $242.1 million to the city budget for resurfacing. This meant that the city would pave 1200 miles in FY 2016 and 1300 in FY 2017. To borrow a phrase I’ve been hearing a lot lately – this was YUGE!

MILES TO BE PAVED ON STATEN ISLAND

I’m proud that the starter’s pistol triggering an all-out effort to improve our roads was fired on Staten Island,
and that the “Pave, Baby, Pave” campaign pushed it over the finish line.

This has been an eight year battle and it is gratifying that Mayor de Blasio recognized our issue
and made it a priority to take steps to fix it.

Let me be clear: This is not a declaration of victory.

You will not spot any “Mission Accomplished” signs over my shoulder. Victory will only come when we have all our roads are drivable roads, and it is clear we’re not there yet. However, we do know now we have an allocation of the tools we need to bring us closer to that victory. That is why we cannot let up, and that is why earlier this year I asked the Mayor to extend this extraordinary financial commitment beyond the time period initially announced.

Once again, I’m happy to say
the Mayor heard us, and extended
“Pave, Baby, Pave”
into Fiscal Year 2018.

We promised Staten Islanders that we’d start seeing a lot of paving, and that is exactly what’s taking place. At one time, “Pave, Baby, Pave” was a simple mantra reflecting our hopes and aspirations for the future. It is now reality, the denouement of eight years of frustration and hard work, and we are finally seeing the results. We are still not yet where we want to be, but with each passing day our roads are getting better, lane by lane and mile by mile.