Claire Valdez: In Congress, I Will Fight For Transit and Bike Lanes - Streetsblog New York City

"For more than half a century, federal transportation policy has been written by and for auto industry CEOs. Working-class New Yorkers got the bill: poisoned air, gutted neighborhoods, and a mass transit system starved of funding. The highway system was a political choice that channeled public dollars toward private gain."

"Car culture didn't just reshape our roads. It reshaped our neighborhoods. The postwar push to move Americans into cars and suburbs was also undermining shared spaces - the sidewalks, the subways, the stoops - where urban, working-class, multiracial solidarity was built. The highway didn't just bring noise and pollution to North Brooklyn and western Queens. It was designed to divide."

"In the Seventh District, approximately 79 percent of commuters get to work using public transportation, walking, or biking, with an overwhelming majority (66 percent) relying on transit alone. That's true for a majority of the working-class across New York City. But federal transportation dollars still flow overwhelmingly to highways and roads, funding a car-centered system that most people in this district don't use or can't afford."

Federal transportation policy has historically favored automobile infrastructure over public transit, disproportionately benefiting auto industry executives while working-class New Yorkers bear the costs through pollution, neighborhood destruction, and underfunded mass transit. In the Seventh District, 79 percent of commuters use public transportation, walking, or biking, yet federal dollars continue flowing to highways and roads. Highway construction was a deliberate political choice that dismantled urban communities and shared spaces where working-class solidarity thrived. Projects like the BQE and Federal Highway Act expansion destroyed commercial corridors and divided neighborhoods in North Brooklyn and western Queens. Public opinion supports this shift, with 76 percent of Americans favoring safer, more connected, less car-centric transportation systems.

Read at Streetsblog