“We’ve had nine pedestrians killed in a little over two years,” the sleepy baritone of New York City Councilman Robert Holden gravely intoned on a recent rainy afternoon. The genial politician, a grey-haired Democrat who came to office almost a decade ago on a platform condemning the local homeless shelter, was speaking to a small crowd he had gathered on a street corner in Queens. To feel the full impact of the councilman’s stunt, they had taken shelter in the parking lot outside of a Speedway that overlooked a busy traffic intersection.

Children had been gathered and they waved cardboard signs aimed at the recently-inaugurated Mayor Eric Adams: “Swagger won’t keep us safe on Cypress Ave,” read one; “Mayor Adams, try biking here; tldr – IT SUCKS!,” read another. In recent years, Holden has searched for the latest issue to rally concerned voters over, gracelessly navigating from concern over abused animals to concern that prison inmates are not being punished enough. 

He assured the crowd of local TV cameras and minor online journalists that the interest in pedestrian casualties was a longstanding concern, as well. Like an old man yelling at the clouds, Holden had brought a pile of papers to wave in front of the stone-faced Ydanis Rodriguez, appointed last month by Adams to run the city’s Department of Transportation. These were requests for additional funding, getting damp in the rain, so long ignored by “the previous administration.”