Brian Howald
3:54:58
Thank you, madam chair, council member Wan, and other members of this committee.
3:55:02
My name is Brian Howell, and I'm a member of Brooklyn Community Board two and Transportation Committee, though I speak today in favor of intro eleven thirty eight only in a personal capacity.
3:55:11
On Rosh Hashanah, it is inscribed in Yom Kippur, it is sealed.
3:55:14
How many will pass from the earth and how many will be born?
3:55:17
Who shall live and who shall die?
3:55:19
Who will die at their time and who before his time?
3:55:21
Who by water and who by fire?
3:55:23
Who by sword and who by beast?
3:55:25
Who by famine and who by thirst?
3:55:26
Who by upheaval and who by plague?
3:55:28
Who by struggling and who by stoning?
3:55:31
These words from the Unetana Tokef recited each year in Yom Kippur remind us that life is fragile and fleeting, that our time is uncertain and that so much is beyond our control, but not everything is.
3:55:42
It's easy to dwell on the everyday inconveniences, just missing the train, a long line at the bank, circling endlessly for a parking spot.
3:55:50
What's impossible to remember are the tragedies that never came to pass not because of luck but because people before us in rooms like this urgently to put public safety first.
3:56:00
If not for antibiotics, the polio vaccine, seat belts, pasteurization, airbags, how many of us would not be sitting here today?
3:56:07
These tools, these policies have saved countless lives, but whose?
3:56:12
None of us can say for certain whether we were the ones spared.
3:56:15
That's the thing about prevention.
3:56:16
When it works, it's invisible.
3:56:19
Some have spoken today about the frustration of fewer parking spaces without considering that daylighting, this simple change to make our intersection safer may one day save their lives or the lives of those they love.
3:56:30
This moment calls for clarity.
3:56:31
The inconvenience of looking for parking is not equal to recognize the difference between the nuisance of looking for parking and the tragedy of being injured, being paralyzed, of being called before our time.
3:56:45
I cannot say for certain if daylighting will save my life or my grandmother's or my brother's or my nieces or my parents or my cousins' lives, all New Yorkers by the way.
3:56:55
I cannot say for certain whether it will save your life, but I can say with confidence it will save some of our lives.
3:57:01
To these weighing this bill today, thinking not only of policy or parking, but rather of people, I offer you the words of Rabbi Hillel Nipurke Avot, if I am for my if I am not for myself, who will be for me?
3:57:11
But if I am only for myself, what am I?
3:57:13
And if not now, when?
