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here to lead the q&a. ten best books november and a powerful argument for infrastructure. they meticulously researched the politics, research strategy and transportation. the best book on explaining the city and the nuances of the timesyo, or new york city trafficker officer. a good shooting editor to the manhattan journal.

along with his work at bloomberg 21022013 running as chief of staffof as executive director of the national campaign committee. masters history from the university. please welcome nicole and harris. [applause] >> it is a pleasure to be speaking with so many knowledge and engage people.

this is a terrific book and i loved it. i hope you all have read it or will read it. it's one of the best about new york and one of the best things we can talk about this how many areas of city life we touched talk about.book and criminal justice issues and housing issues. so we will talk about that. curious why you chose to write this at thiss time. >> why transportation policy because it is the one government thing that we do every day that

touches ons all of our lives and their other issues you talked about. many of you are aware, this is the 50th anniversary but we tend to focus on that era and longer since it was in that year end that it covers so about when the automobile was in york city and other cities. it has been longer since then so i got around to thinking something must have happened in these past 50 years, we don't have to constantly talk about the past years so what has

happened in terms of rebuilding systems, starting in the era of building clauses starting after the turn of the millennium. the activism involved not only in defeating the highway area and some streets back favor of other users, how was this done politically? it applies to other issues sides transportation. if you want to get something done politically and new york city, it's not good enough to say i got this great idea. how do you get this accomplished in one of the most complex political environments in the world? it is interesting how that's achieved through history and how people in a hurry in the

background cracks and have any idea of being enacted. >> let's talk about one of the ideas that may be on the verge of being enacted, congestion pricing. i'm wondering your take at this moment and think about that in the history of this issue. and one of the things in the book and before they occur, congestion pricing being one of

the examples.e it what arewh your thoughts? >> it does date back to the early 1970s and even earlier in the proposals to cross the bridges, they would have accomplished goal. what has happened over the years is what is not has happened. you need and activism community that won't take no for an answer. they been working for the entirety of these years.

in a political idea if we don't have this was a subway and bus and rail system that actually works. you can charge people to come if they don't have an alternative in terms of i want to get on the bus mass transit so the creation in 1958, the founding didn't come until the early 1980s and decrease in crime on the system but didn't come until the early 1990s and the transit system that people want to to use so they set the stage for what they tried to do in 2007 and 2008 that was necessary.

a mayor that was committed but also not sufficient in politics, the government is that center power. that's what today from the previous governor and we will see if they turn around on the pricing and half a century in the making. >> this will be groundbreaking,

standards of the united states and revolutionary. do you support it? >> yes, it is groundbreaking where we are he hears behind. london did this 21 years ago. as i learned, i won't consider congestion pricing until someone tribes i will say a word of warning. we are not here to criticize politicians but that is important because you need political ownership to enact

policies you report and want enacted so understanding how the state legislature works and what the governor is supposed to dohe and can do and what the governor has or hasn't done and these are important if you want your policies and place so she is let herself be defined by the state legislature and already has the law in place but this she had time to get down and a program enacted before january 20? if you don't understand how these work, two g months will go by very quickly. >> wonderful personalities bring to life in the book. governor hochul is a week governor, somebody who speaks

out as a strongg leader who, in the face of opposition made a major difference along the way. >> bloomberg was a group leader on transportation and was willing to take the political blowback for things that now seem to most people like common sense.e. make room for bicycles on the street and they have five and six lanes for car and truck whether moving traffic or parking traffic, to take elaine away and what happens in same thing with pedestrian causes. they should not have been as controversial as they were that they were willing to put up

people making fun of them a lot mayors would say that way more important in its no more than my top 20 problems because in line to get more criticism and praise. in terms of an appointed official in the early 1980s they have a developer who became the transportation authority. he was the mtas first leader, 12 or 14 yearsy old by then he had enough capital in terms of being a credible person and going to the pacific median personal wealth if he did not get the support he needed, he could walk

away from the job and going to end real estate and financial leaders and the media so we can rebuild this we don't rebuild the subway system and rebuild from the decline of the 1970s but not to take away they let him independent and that is important for people. >> by referencing robert moses,

those of us who think about the book often care and i'm wondering what they play in the history of transportation policy. >> of they are sustainably, do we have to rehash whether you love the story or tired of it but i found in trying to forward, you have to go back and revisit what you think you know and the impact what we do today and partial out our

responsibility. so the narrative bed villain, highways and expressways and the expressway system and it followed for 40 years, that came from regional plans, a group of prominentle people from the business community and they said weil have to rebuild new york cy and it made a lot of sense. unless you reorganize the city,

it would populations and jobs to other places building around so the plane came out in 29 in working onn its project in a public he had no public reputation at the time, it wasn't something where moses said we have to roads and they said yes, we have to do what moses said. he enacted what others wanted and tenure to want until the 60s. the role played in the 60s in the lowert manhattan expresswa, they could not have done that if not for the ones before.

no background in urban planning. before the city of new york expands the existing road. i don't want this road running anymore. not only do we want the road expanded but we don't even want the road already there so she got 30,000 signatures but moses by being moses, she cracked the code and focus on elected officials and put pressure on the former president and enough

that she could move an election and that forced to cancel the road and get rid of the road there. thatn' continued to work so focs on elected officials so not having that background, the bad man and woman prevents us from achieving as much as can. we can mitigate the impact. you sort of just here built this road, we are in where moses has

been dead for four decades, will be doing today to mitigate the impact of the road? >> the proposals and you talk about the role now in the issues around safety streets. i'm wondering the environment pace now and the daily newspaper town and an enormous impact leadership has declined precipitously. is there still a role for media?

and in the three of these. >> their very first cover washington square park. they were created in the village and we would say the fauci workers were moving out who wanted a more bohemian lifestyle and moving in to the village so they wanted this arts and culture policy the resources to reassign the cities they wanted so the media followed that it

was very important for that saga getting through washington square park. has media changed? yes. can it still make a difference? yes but it's much harder and it's not just -- the fracturing because a different result people don't think about, it's not just less coverage but people who may be focused on, i want to reduce traffic for i want to encourage more like lanes or bus lanes. that's wonderful be focused on that congested pricing but if you don't understand the context in which you push for this not for just local politics but state and federal politics so i'm pushing to get more people on subways but the crime level

skyrocketed, i need to understand how they work together, i can't just talk to people in my own little bubble and say people are stupid. that does not work and there is more of that today. i'm not sure the answer, i'm just aware this is not everyone reading the same newspaper. the article on a different topic that actually matters for what you're trying to do and you may not see that today. >> robert moses is able to build a highway in the middle and was unsuccessful building a highway to lower manhattan, how much is success in one area? wealthier and more justified as you m say in a working class and

the bronx, how much is at the time the coast highway was being discussed? concerns about the impact. >> a combination ofyo both, no question it is to force a population with less political capital and less time to focus on activism. it's easier to do that and build an expressway across lower manhattan but another factor less understood is working in a different way and if you try to widen a road, you got 100,000 people who live right there and they know each other and they live in larger apartment billings. it is easier to organize versus

building the expressway across the south bronx where it is a lot of people who are dense but dispersed so one thing was to build it in three phases. they don't know each other at all, we are going to this road and by the time but found out, you got to parts under construction so that matters, it is a generalization but easier to be successful if there are more densely populated --

>> the history of transportation policy, if you could go back down across from the mayor or policymaker saying you ought to do this and not that, what would be the one or two things could go back or not do? >> getting rid of the cars and trolleys was a big mistake. someti cities still have most of their car in fact in this was another decision to revoke tracks from the streets of new york city and replace them buses that happened before moses is time and premieres just after the turn of the 20th century the said we are going to get rid of trolleys, why did they do

that? broadly speaking it's because there isre pressure in the spice rack to the car. this will be better for cars because they don't have the tracks in the weight and they will have to be stuck. the transit people can get around so it did not work out and we questions today still very difficult to get dedicated space for a bustling and a billion people a year writing trolleys. in this system, it would rival the subways and with all around sufficiently. >> they built more subway lines? >> there is time where we could

have made different decisions about subway so staten island, no subway service across the bridge, is where they built the bridge people said to build it with the capacity for tracks but in this longer version they said it will grow into lincoln will and they were running and new passengers and the bridge built, who is going to pay to operate this? event most of the money to build

it may permit you deficit so he said who is going to let in the 64 work earlier, we wish to do this but if he about these difficulte questions, how do yu find this system and build more capacity? we haven't dealt with them very well on several parts including that one. >> new york city website between problems of scarcity. we have not enough people are to be.

behindwh equilibrium, we are now population has declined since covid blocks away ridership was declined. how do you see the problems today? too much or not enough? that. >> too well and we can have this because we can't do any more people on the surface the city, don't want to be the other so so one important lesson, even the simplest thing takes a long

time. a line of traffic and bicyclists or trying to put in place a bus line or something implementing during the pandemic is a great example and working king so later and now we are in this long process where we may not get the openha programs cities could have. a very long time and requires full-time assistance on the part of hundreds of activism in different areas. the other areas we tend not to think about things and places.

you don't want the subways to get back like they were in the early 80s in terms of physical neglect or early 90s. trying to move away from the environment. the only time have realized that recently was when cuomo did have some focus on a major infrastructure project he wanted to accomplish. very few mayors and governors focus on long-term infrastructure projects which long-term of the city needs in order to make sure they need the tax base to deal with the other issues.

>> the impact on the possibilities of changing. he talks about cycles of order and disorder. new york feels more orderly and get tired of that. we get to more disorder and it comes back. they want order again. criminal justiceab and our abily open up on subway ridership and an impact on all of these issues. >> the third lesson i took writing a book as hard as it is to get new yorkers to experiment with anything, it is much harder

if they don't feel a basic sense of public safety and public order a so have no career of congestion pricing for people are afraid to read on the subways in the argument that more people die in cars, it's true but if you are speaking about the away and risk something unpleasant company or doing it in the car almost certainly a r perfectly pleasant ride. if you don't feel a sense you can walk down the street and you don't feel amongst you so without that base of public safety and order it was built up in the 90s 30 years.

people felt safer and more willing and we have elected officials crime and these changes and restart it to side away from the slightly for political direction and partly because of how feel riding a bike. in the basic sense and feel good so let's try together. moved away from that base where we can try something new. >> one thing you said about elected officials -- >> we are going to leave this program briefly. live gavel to gavel cer