Introduction

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The recent manuvering by David Gantt to kill bus camera legislation in Albany is an example of the worst sort of disfunction in the New York state assembly.  Unfortunately, a dismissive attitude toward both mass transit and good enforcement of traffic laws seems to pervade Albany.  Assemblyman Gantt’s rationale for killing the bus camera bill is hard to know.  His public statements seem to indicate a poor understanding of the problems facing New York city and recent innovations in public transit. 

Poor understanding of good public policy seems to be all to common in Albany.  New York City has made great strides in absorbing transportation policy innovations from around the world.  However, these ideas have not traveled far in Albany. 

The bill Mr. Gantt killed was a good one that had the support of the vast majority of elected officials in New York City, and it applied only in New York City. The procedural games that Assemblyman Gantt used to defeat the bill are a stark example of the distorted legislative mechanism used in Albany.

This group’s purposes is to convince David Gantt that his opposition to legislation which supports the dual purposes of speeding mass transit and enforcing existing laws is wrong minded. This issue highlights much larger issues of structural problems with the legislature in Albany. Fixing the dysfunction in Albany is beyond the scope of this group, so I have created a separate group called Bestocracy for people who are interested in the issue of Albany reform.

The livable streets movement in New York has too much important work to do to allow one misguided assemblyman to stand in its way. We need to communicate to Assemblyman Gantt the passion and determination of the livable streets movement to fix the horribly broken streets of New York.

At this point in time, we know relatively little about David Gantt. In order to better share information about David Gantt, I have created a StreetsWiki page for him.  Please help me gather information about Assemblyman Gantt.  We need to find people who know David Gantt.  If you know anyone who knows him or you know someone who lives in his district, please contribute that information to this group. We can create an online community to move Assemblyman Gantt on this issue.

Please feel free to innovate using this group. TOPP has built livablestreets groups for purposes of online organizing.  Let’s use this issue to show the combined power of our movement and these tools.