Public Advocate Survey: Eric Gioia

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Political Party:
Democratic Party

http://www.EricGioia.com

Candidate Submitted Biography:

Eric Gioia was born and raised in Woodside Queens, where his family has owned a small flower shop on Roosevelt Avenue for over a century.  He attended public schools PS 11 and IS 125, and St. Francis Prep, and paid his way through NYU working nights as a janitor and doorman. After attending Georgetown Law and working in the Clinton White House, Gioia was elected to the City Council in 2001 to represent the neighborhood where he grew up and where he now lives with his wife, Lisa Hernandez Gioia, and their daughter Amelia.

On the Council, Gioia has been a forceful advocate for everyday New Yorkers. He has secured millions of dollars to put computers in classrooms, expanded after-school programs, and helped get teachers reimbursed for school supplies they were paying for out of their own pockets. He's defended tenants against crooked landlords and passed a landmark plan for new middle-class housing. And he has worked to expand economic opportunity – taking on predatory lenders and improving access to food stamps, including getting Costco to accept them. As Public Advocate, Gioia will fight to preserve the middle class and help those working to get there, ensuring that regular New Yorkers have a voice at City Hall.

Public Advocate Survey: Eric Gioia

Question 1:
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's website reports: "In New York City, obesity is epidemic: more than half of adult New Yorkers are overweight (34%) or obese (22%). Data show that obesity begins early in life: nearly half of all elementary school children and Head Start children are not a healthy weight. In New York City, 1 in 5 kindergarten students, and 1 in 4 Head Start children, is obese." Do you believe that increasing walking and biking in New York City would improve public health? If yes, what types of programs and policies would you pursue?

We need to combat New York’s obesity epidemic by utilizing a variety of approaches. There are several severe health consequences of obesity, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer, and obesity often begins in childhood.
Encouraging more New Yorkers to walk, bike, and exercise should become part of the City’s long-term transportation plan. In my district, I’ve helped create green space and opened access to the Queens waterfront, securing funding to create a greenway that would connect with Brooklyn and run the entire length of the East River, and I’ve spoken out to create bike lanes along Queens Boulevard. As Public Advocate, I’ll continue to support bike lanes and greenways that would allow more New Yorkers to safely walk and bike in the city.
But to combat childhood obesity, we also need to make sure that children, families, and all New Yorkers get access to fresh and healthy foods. I’ve supported efforts to help greenmarkets process food stamps and to provide breakfasts to students in school classrooms. When studies documented a clear link between obesity in 9th graders and fast food near schools, I proposed a plan to ban fast food restaurants within 0.1 miles of schools. As Public Advocate, I’ll continue to implement policy solutions to reduce obesity rates.


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Question 2:
What is your vision for New York City's transportation network? What needs do you see and what steps will you take as the Public Advocate to help ensure that New Yorkers have access to affordable, convenient and healthy modes of transportation?

New York has one of the most admirable mass transit systems in the world, which helps make us energy efficient, but we must invest in our infrastructure. Additionally, we must help New Yorkers walk, ride bikes, and commute without needing to use automobiles.
Transit riders already pay the highest burden of riders in any system in the country. Simply raising fares on riders while ignoring long-term needs can not continue. We need to take a serious look at the MTA's finances and identify cost-cutting measures like selling or leasing some of their prime real estate holdings. At the same time, there's no question that we need to fund long-term investment from a variety of places, including from automobile drivers and those who live outside New York City. That’s a prime reason that I supported congestion pricing when it came before the City Council and given the MTA's fiscal situation, that proposal should be revisited.
As Public Advocate, I’ll also push to implement bus rapid transit in areas where the subway can’t provide adequate service, and the City should subsidize ferry service and integrate ferries into the transit system with a universal farecard. And we need sustainable land use policies that situate growth in mixed use areas, with easy access to mass transportation.


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Question 3:
New York City's senior citizens make up a disproportionate number of the city's pedestrian injuries and deaths. What would your office do to protect senior pedestrians on our streets?

The city insufficiently provides for the safety of elderly pedestrians, and tragically too many seniors have become victims of crashes with motor vehicles.
However, targeted modifications would make our streets and sidewalks safer not just for senior citizens but for all pedestrians.
As Public Advocate, I would push for DOT to study additional key intersections that seniors use often and where accidents have repeatedly occurred, and target these intersections first when implementing changes. While DOT’s Safe Streets for Seniors is a good start, more needs to be done. For senior citizens, wide streets in particular pose special risk of injury due to the increased pace that pedestrians must use to cross safely. And as a result, far too many seniors “get a head start” and stand in the street rather than on the curb before crossing.
Where appropriate, the City should explore retiming traffic signals and increasing pedestrian crossing times. Additionally, ensuring that pedestrian ramps allow anyone with decreased mobility to easily ascend and descend the curb would increase safety greatly.
Finally, vehicles must slow down in intersections. This can be accomplished both with physical impediments and a public awareness campaign to inform drivers of the challenges seniors face.


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Question 4:
What relationship do you see between vehicular congestion on New York City's streets, highways and bridges and the quality of life for its residents? As Public Advocate, are there policies that you would pursue to reduce congestion?

Even though it was unpopular in my district and my borough, I was proud to vote for congestion pricing, a plan that would have reduced congestion in Manhattan's central business district and surrounding neighborhoods while addressing air pollution, reducing carbon emissions and providing a dedicated funding stream for the MTA. Anyone who voted against congestion pricing should be called to answer for that vote, and the city should revisit the proposal. We can also target congestion by eliminating parking permits for city employees and preventing misuse of permits currently in circulation, and by tracking parking needs in areas of rapid growth. For new developments, we should include parking needs in the Zoning Resolutions, and limit parking for areas near mass transportation.
Classifying blocking an intersection as a parking violation, in addition to being a moving violation, was a good step, and we need to make sure blocking the box is strictly enforced. The city should also ramp up enforcement of bus-only lanes – reserving these lanes for bus-only usage can limit pollution and encourage bus ridership by speeding up bus times. Increasing penalties for both of these violations will help address gridlock and improve air quality. I’ll pursue these measures as Public Advocate.


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Question 5:
In an effort to increase the safety, enjoyment and health of New Yorkers walking, running, skating or riding a bike in Central and Prospect Parks, car traffic has been gradually restricted on the loop drives within these parks. What do you think of these changes? Do you have an opinion on the idea of completely closing these loop drives (not crosstown transverses) to cars and reserving them strictly for recreational users? What effect do you think such an action would have on the people in surrounding neighborhoods?

In a city with as high urban density as New York, teeming with over 8 million people, increasing the amount of parks and green space available, and protecting access to existing parks, is vital. Many neighborhoods lack sufficient park space, which makes preserving urban jewels like Central and Prospect Parks even more critical.
In the City Council, I’m proud to have written a law that increases accountability over the Parks Department, making reporting more transparent and enabling New Yorkers to track upkeep and sanitation at parks across the City. And in my district, I’ve worked to create green space and opened access to the Queens waterfront, securing funding to create a greenway that would connect with Brooklyn and run the entire length of the East River.
As someone who enjoys running in Central Park whenever I can (regrettably less often during campaign season), I would support efforts to increase the safety and health of New Yorkers who use the Central and Prospect Park loops for recreational purposes, especially if such measures would enable more New Yorkers to use the parks.


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Question 6:
According to the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, in 2007 speeding was a contributing factor in over 3,000 motor vehicle crashes in New York City. Furthermore, the same data showed that the top human contributing factor to the 264 fatal crashes in New York City during 2007 was also speeding. Given these figures, what measures, if any, do you support to redress this problem?

The statistics on motor vehicle crashes, and on fatal crashes in particular, should be alarming for all New Yorkers. Representing Queens Boulevard, a roadway that historically has been the site of far too many accidents, has only heightened my appreciation for the need to improve safety measures. Clearly the relationship between speeding and automobile crashes indicates that the city must do more to enforce speed limits currently on the books, and to reduce speed limits especially in high-risk areas.
On the City Council, I’ve repeatedly brought pedestrian-safety issues to DOT, and have gotten results that protect New Yorkers, building cross walks and median dividers at the Pulaski Bridge exit, and implementing traffic calming speed humps in Sunnyside.
And working with Transportation Alternatives, I released recommendations to improve pedestrian safety around schools. New York’s children walk or bike to school 63% of the time, far ahead of the national average. I called on DOT to expedite school traffic pattern safety studies, and to implement leading pedestrian intervals, speed limit enforcement cameras, and real time statistic reporting.
As Public Advocate, I’ll continue to protect pedestrians from speeding vehicles, and to hold DOT accountable.


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Submitted by Eric.Gioia on Sun, 08/09/2009 - 19:25.
Submitted by Eric.Gioia on Wed, 08/05/2009 - 12:09.
Submitted by Eric.Gioia on Sun, 08/09/2009 - 19:25.