CM Restler on pedestrian lighting mandate and funding

Thank you so much, Chair Lee and Chair Abreu for your leadership of this hearing.

And thank you to the DOT team for joining us today.

I will say I generally feel that we have leadership at City Hall and leadership in the agency that have the right values and the right vision.

I still think that there are areas where the bureaucracy within the agency is not working well, and I'm really hoping that we're going to start to see tangible progress on those fronts in the weeks and months to come.

So I want to highlight a few of those areas in my questioning today.

First up is pedestrian lighting.

Last year we passed a local law.

To require DOT to install pedestrian lighting on 300 commercial corridor blocks every year.

The law takes effect January 1st of 2027, so this fiscal year.

Has DOT added funding for this to comply with this legislation, and are you confident in your ability to be in compliance this coming year?

I can just, I'll start out and then maybe first deputy commissioner, you want to speak about the ped lighting.

Yeah, I just want to underscore in so many of the conversations I've had since starting this job, it's really become clear how important lighting is to New Yorkers and to council members and communities.

It's something that people really feel day to day.

So it's something I can assure you I'm very focused on, street lighting across the board.

But maybe you want to speak to the ped lighting specifically.

Yes, and before I mention that, I also want to mention that we do have significant funding in our budget to replace the LEDs around the whole city, which will also include a component that will alert us if any given

street light is out or needs attention.

So, you know, we're very committed to this area, both keeping up with what we currently have and then making sure we have additional lighting.

We are working through with OMB on how we're going to comply with the council law.

Just to be clear, there's no additional funding in the budget to comply with the law this time?

Well, we did get a lot of funding for street lighting, and we're going to have to work through that.

Do you have funding in the budget to comply with the law?

Do you have the funding to comply with the law?

It's just a yes or no question.

We're in active coordination with OMB and City Hall on all funding needs.

But you have your...

Executive budget.

Do you have the funding to be able to comply or not?

I just want a yes or no.

We're in active coordination with the law.

That's not a yes or no.

Could you please answer the question?

We have a significant amount of funding for lighting, and we're evaluating all needs.

Can you comply with the law with the resources you have?

That's exactly what we're evaluating, Councilmember.

Why can you not answer that question if you know what the funding is that you have in the executive budget?

Councilmember, we're in the planning stages.

Okay.

And as you noted, there's still more time to comply.

I just, you sense the frustration in my voice, A, because you're not answering the question, but B, because whenever we have lighting needs across our district, the best case scenario is three or four years to address them, and it's often much longer.