Wednesday, February 25, 2026, 10 a.m. (New York City time), 250 Broadway - 8th Floor - Hearing Room 1
Committee: Committee on Fire and Emergency Management
The Committee on Fire and Emergency Management, chaired by Council Member Joann Ariola, held an oversight hearing on the City's implementation of Local Law 6 of 2025, which requires DOT to consult with FDNY on certain bike lane, open street, and major transportation projects and to confer with affected firehouses. FDNY officials testified that 95 project plans had been received, all firehouses were sent plans and feedback forms, and roughly 40% of feedback forms were returned; they acknowledged a project backlog and said light-duty firefighters were being added to the City Planning Unit. DOT officials acknowledged that some projects were implemented without receiving firehouse feedback and defended the safety benefits of protected bike lanes and open streets, while noting design changes made in response to FDNY and community input. Council members sharply questioned DOT using photographs and videos of planters, boulders, and barricades near fire hydrants and on closed streets that impeded fire apparatus, and several members criticized DOT's coordination practices. Public testimony came from firefighter union representatives, firefighters, residents, and EMS advocates, largely supporting stronger FDNY consultation and, in some cases, EMS pay parity and reform. No votes were taken; the committee discussed compliance and follow-up data requests.
0:10 Knock off.
0:10 Good morning and welcome t
0:11 othe New York City hybrid
0:12 hearing on the committee on
0:13 fire and emergency management,
0:15 please. Silent, all electronic
0:17 devices at this time also,
0:18 please do not approach the who
0:20 have if you have any questions
0:22 , please, johan, one of us is
0:24 sergeant at arms will kindly
0:26 assist you ready to begin.
0:33 Good morning. I am joanne
0:36 arriola and I am chair to the
0:39 fire and emergency management
0:40 committee for the New York
0:41 City Council. This is our
0:44 absolutely honored to again
0:52 chair this committee. I would
0:53 like to acknowledge members of
0:55 the committee who areere h
0:56 today, the council members
0:59 wang council Maloney council
1:02 member counseled member of
1:04 purina Sanchez is joining us
1:08 via zoom. Today we will
1:09 examine the city's
1:09 implementation of local or six
1:11 of 20 25, which is a bill I
1:14 sponsored last session that
1:17 requires the city's department
1:19 of transportation to consult
1:20 with the fbi
1:25 . Certain by cling projects
1:28 and further requires the f y
1:30 to confer with any affected
1:32 firehouse prior to approving
1:34 open street applications bike
1:36 lanes and major transportation
1:40 projects
1:40 . When we passed local lost
1:41 six of 20 25. We did so in the
1:45 spirit that as elected
1:46 officials as well as affected
1:49 community boards. We should be
1:50 notified in a timely matter
1:56 for any transportation
1:57 projects any major
2:00 transportation projects such
2:01 as the introduction of bike
2:02 lanes and open street
2:04 applications
2:04 . These types of roadway
2:06 projects have created an
2:09 unintended burden to certain
2:11 neighborhoods we have heard
2:12 numerous complaints of fire
2:14 trucks nearly colliding with
2:15 plant yards and bollards that
2:17 have been suddenly place too
2:18 close off a street. We've also
2:20 seen more traffic congestio
2:23 ndo too closed off planes,
2:24 resulting in drastic increase
2:27 year by year two emergency
2:30 responses. Additionally, my
2:31 office has been contacted
2:33 regularly by constituents not
2:35 being able to access have
2:37 access to crosswalks due to
2:40 transportation projects
2:41 recently. We have heard from
2:43 the disabled community
2:45 regarding inadequate
2:46 accessibility to sidewalks
2:47 .the impetus behind the local
2:49 or six was to prevent these
2:50 types of issues from her
2:53 happening and by addressing
2:54 how the City is conducting
2:57 business
2:57 . Prior to date today's
2:58 hearing we provided the ft
3:00 with a list of specific
3:03 projects that require
3:04 notification under local law.
3:06 Six. We anticipate the
3:07 administration will supply the
3:09 committee with a full and
3:11 thorough demonstration that
3:11 they are in compliance with
3:13 the law, we will also look to
3:15 do has sent representatives
3:17 and thank you for coming to
3:20 answer questions on their
3:21 compliance to local lore, si
3:22 xof 20 25. We want to know how
3:26 they are using the feedback
3:28 from the members of the ft, n.
3:31 Y a lifesaving agency that
3:33 always puts safe the safety of
3:35 the city's residents. First. I
3:36 would like to thank our
3:37 committee counsel josh
3:39 kingsley are seeing senior
3:41 political animal list will
3:42 hunger, ash and my amazing
3:44 chief of staff, bill, said
3:46 cirillo, for their important
3:47 work on this committee, I
3:48 would also like to thank those
3:50 from the public as well as
3:52 representatives from the
3:55 administration who are here t
3:56 oprovide testimony. I will now
3:57 ask for committee counsel to
3:59 administer the oath folks on
4:06 the dais on the the the we
4:08 have Kevin woods, chief of
4:12 fire operations, James aaron's
4:14 chief of City planning unit
4:17 ,Kevin molloy, captain City
4:19 planning unit y sean quinn.
4:28 Yeah. Thank you. Chair
4:30 . Convinced all raise your
4:31 right hand just affirms how
4:32 the truth, the whole truth and
4:33 nothing but the truth and t
4:34 oanswer honestly to council
4:38 member questions. Okay, seein
4:39 gthat you acknowledge that you
4:40 go ahead. Thank you. Wall!
4:52 Good morning chair, areola
4:53 remembers of the fire and
4:55 emergency management committee
4:58 . My name is Kevin woods. I am
4:59 the chief of fire operations
5:01 at the New York City fire
5:03 department. I'm pleased t
5:04 oappear before you today to
5:06 discuss the implementation of
5:08 local low six of 2025, which
5:11 places requirements on the
5:12 department of transportation
5:13 and the fire departmt wenith
5:16 regard to proposed open street
5:18 applications and major
5:19 transportation projects
5:20 affecting cities streets,
5:23 including open street
5:24 applications and bicycle lanes
5:25 .
5:25 I am joined today by chief
5:28 James aaron's, who oversees
5:29 City planning unit as well as
5:30 captain Kevin molloy and
5:34 colleagues from the department
5:38 of transportation in the case
5:39 of a fire or emergency the
5:40 time that it takes for the
5:41 local fire company to reach
5:43 the scene is critical, it is
5:47 not hyperbole to say that time
5:49 lost in transit can be a
5:49 matter of life and death the
5:52 fire department is always
5:53 seeking the most effective
5:55 path to carry out our mission
5:56 to save lives and property.
5:59 We are grateful to the
6:00 council council for your
6:01 attention to this issue, we're
6:04 also grateful to the
6:05 department of transportation
6:07 for their collaboration and
6:08 coordination a key part of
6:08 their mission is to make the
6:10 streets safer for everyone is
6:13 the uae personnel who respond
6:16 to crashes and accidents, so
6:19 we support dots efforts t
6:19 oreduce these injuries and
6:23 deaths. The city's vision zer
6:24 oinitiative includes
6:25 redesigning streets using
6:27 proven safety treatments,
6:27 which involve bike lanes,
6:31 pedestrian crossing
6:32 interventions lane reductions
6:33 or other major transportation
6:37 projects that require
6:37 coordination with us and other
6:39 New York City agencies.
6:43 In his densest City is New
6:44 York. Our challenge as
6:45 government agencies is to find
6:46 a way to accomplish both
6:49 missions at once local lost
6:51 six of 25 passed by chair
6:52 arriola in this committee
6:55 provides a roadmap for both
6:56 agencies to improve our
6:57 working relationship for the
6:59 benefit of all New yorkers.
7:01 The fire department works with
7:02 the department of
7:04 transportation on street
7:06 redesigns, including major
7:07 transportation projects in
7:07 several different ways
7:10 importantly, vlt engineers
7:12 incorporate standards that
7:13 both agencies hav
7:14 ecollaborated on over the
7:15 course of a decade as part of
7:18 their designs. This includes
7:19 modeling custom vehicles to
7:22 ensure necessary turning the
7:22 radio I and providing
7:24 emergency access lanes through
7:28 closed streets.
7:29 Additionally, we have
7:29 several points of contact
7:32 senior leadership from both
7:33 agencies meet to discuss
7:35 challenges borough commanders
7:36 meet with their deal t burrow
7:39 commissioners periodically, so
7:40 they can discuss challenges
7:41 they are experienced in the
7:43 field and can provide advanced
7:45 notice of major transportation
7:47 stages as prescribed by local
7:51 or sixth the department of
7:54 transportation provides plants
7:54 to the fire department in
7:57 order to coordinate feedback
8:00 . Those plans are submitted to
8:01 the fire department City
8:03 planning unit. They then see
8:04 kthe input from local divisions
8:04 and firehouse or firehouses
8:06 that respond within the
8:10 project area.
8:10 In addition to seeking input
8:11 from the firehouse, the City
8:12 planning unit is staffed by
8:14 experts who review each plan
8:15 and where appropriate conduct
8:17 an in depth analysis. The
8:20 ywork to understand how the
8:21 changes to the street would
8:23 affect emergency response and
8:24 what changes to the plan would
8:27 mitigate delays or
8:28 encumbrances on operations,
8:31 then feedback is provided t
8:35 othe department.
8:35 In some instances in the
8:36 fire department staff also
8:37 meeting in the field to run
8:39 fire apparatus through the
8:40 proposed of the project, a
8:43 process that has resulted in
8:44 modifications to the design
8:45 before the project is
8:49 finalized, the department of
8:49 transportation reviews the
8:50 feedback from the fire
8:51 department and at times makes
8:52 changes to the projects as a
8:56 result
8:56 , changes can be made during
8:57 the design phase or after
9:00 implementation to give the
9:01 council some idea of the types
9:01 of changes that occur. Some
9:03 recent examples are as follows
9:07 involving plants or granite
9:08 block jersey barriers based on
9:11 one put input at west hundred
9:13 third street in manhattan,
9:15 manu and scott street in
9:18 brooklyn park avenue in the
9:19 bronx, queens boulevard in
9:21 queens, 31 avenue in queens
9:23 and recent design coordination
9:25 at woodside and queens and two
9:27 projects in manhattan, 35
9:34 23617. This process is not
9:35 without its challenges t
9:36 obegin with. There are a lot of
9:38 major transportation projects
9:41 and the permanent staffing of
9:42 the planning unit consists of
9:44 an officer and two
9:46 firefighters the number of
9:47 major transportation projects
9:48 can be quite large.
9:51 As a result, the unit has
9:52 been working on a large
9:53 backlog of projects since the
9:54 low and into effect.
9:58 This team is also
9:58 responsible for conducting
9:59 planning analysis of numerou
10:00 sother projects that are
10:01 unrelated to the streets
10:03 ,including a typical buildings
10:06 design large constructio
10:06 nprojects and other private
10:07 development throughout the
10:09 City. So the work of reviewing
10:10 bike lane proposals is only
10:12 one aspect of their portfolio
10:17 . Though City planning
10:17 disseminates all the bike lane
10:18 plans to the local firehouse
10:20 is for review. It can be a
10:22 challenge for the effective
10:22 firehouses to produce feedbac
10:26 k. Members of the City planning
10:27 unit have specialized training
10:28 the background and analysis of
10:29 projects, for instance, this
10:33 unit includes a firefighter
10:33 who is a professional enginee
10:34 r. That's not the case for the
10:36 typical fire officer or a
10:37 firefighter in the firehouse
10:40 ,the projects are not
10:41 necessarily spread evenly
10:42 across all firehouses, some
10:43 fire houses are in areas that
10:45 contain many major
10:47 transportation projects and
10:48 those firehouses receive a
10:49 large volume oflans p to
10:52 review naturally their primary
10:55 duty is responding to fires
10:57 and emergencies, and
10:57 . The training and preparation
10:59 that goes along with those
11:02 operations when the list of
11:03 projects grows and creates a
11:04 backlog of requests for
11:07 feedback, the process slows
11:10 down
11:10 . That said, I'm happy t
11:11 oreport to the council that
11:11 over the course of the year
11:12 that this law went into effec
11:14 t. We have learned from our
11:16 experiences and we are taking
11:18 concrete steps
11:18 . To improve and refine this
11:22 process, we know that we could
11:23 do a better job of providing
11:24 timely feedback and
11:25 coordinating with the
11:26 department of transportation
11:27 to mitigate issues that affect
11:29 emergency operations and
11:33 street safety both the fire
11:34 department, the department of
11:35 transportation of New
11:35 commissioners at the helm, and
11:37 the commissioners and their
11:38 senior teams have already met
11:39 to discuss these topics t
11:40 oensure open lines of
11:44 communication. One of the
11:45 changes under the
11:45 consideration includes
11:46 amending the letters that the
11:47 planning unit provides a lot
11:51 to provide more of a specific
11:52 information that needs order
11:53 to better comply with local
11:57 laws. Six. The fire department
11:57 is also looking at ways to
11:59 support the needs of the City
12:03 planning unit. As it stands,
12:03 an enormous amount of work I
12:04 sbeing done by a small group of
12:07 people, and they are not able
12:08 to do it as efficiently as we
12:11 would prefer
12:11 . We're exploring ways t
12:12 oassist with the workload that
12:14 is created by the numerous
12:15 proposed major transportation
12:16 projects and open street
12:20 applications. One recen
12:21 tchange that we have already
12:21 made is that we are adding to
12:23 light duty firefighters to the
12:25 unit that assist reviewing
12:27 projects and communicating
12:27 with local firehouses. We
12:30 expect these additions to pay
12:32 dividends and improve the
12:33 productivity of the unit. The
12:36 fire department is reviewing
12:36 the lessons that we learned
12:37 during the first year of the
12:39 local o six. We know that we
12:41 could do a better job will
12:43 continue making improvements
12:46 to this process so that w
12:47 ecreate better outcomes for the
12:48 fire department, the
12:49 department of transportation
12:52 and all New yorkers, thank you
12:58 . Hey
12:59 , thank you so much for your
13:03 testimony. I'd like to
13:03 recognize that we've been
13:05 joined by council members
13:07 Felder and De La Rosa, so I
13:11 just I just like that. You
13:13 mentioned a number of areas
13:15 that you recently had to
13:20 remove, um, implementations
13:21 that were hindering fire fire
13:23 trucks from getting to fire
13:25 hydrants. So when you say,
13:27 recently removed. These wer
13:31 egiven to you. How how did you
13:32 become aware of these
13:36 locations, the open streets. I
13:37 don't believe we, um any of
13:39 the plans of the open streets
13:40 we're shared with us, I
13:43 somehow it came to us through
13:45 .maybe a complaint process and
13:46 what we do is we have the
13:50 borough commanders coordinate
13:50 with the bureau commissioners
13:52 will go out to the site and we
13:55 put boots on the ground and we
13:57 have a conversation and we
13:59 maybe they don't know that we
14:00 need to 15 feet, access to a
14:03 hydrant
14:03 , or on are blocking a affect
14:07 an alternative radius of the
14:07 apparatus where we have to get
14:09 into that open streets with
14:11 the open streets projects? Um,
14:15 yeah, we we take that into
14:16 consideration. They do give us
14:17 a 15 foot lane access lane,
14:19 but sometimes there are blocks
14:21 on the front of those streets
14:22 and we have to maneuver our
14:24 apparatus around that
14:24 . So again additional
14:27 coordination and communication