Independent transportation research · New York and the region

Find the open question before the decision closes.

I help public-interest organizations and the people advising them test transportation claims, reconstruct the record, and make credible alternatives understandable.

Also useful to journalists, funders, and legal or public-records teams working on the same decisions.

Liam Blank, transportation policy researcher
Current civic role

Chair, Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, The City Club of New York.

Policy and governance

Former Associate Director at PCAC to the MTA; policy and communications work at Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

Research and visual work

Public-records investigations, commissioned transportation research, and visuals used by public-interest organizations and media.

The work is most useful when…

01

A planning claim doesn't match the record.

I build the document archive and the chronology that show what was analyzed, what wasn't, and when.

Deliverables: records archive, FOIA/FOIL appeals, planning chronology

02

An operating assumption needs independent testing.

I check capacity, cost, and service claims against agency documents and comparable systems, and write up what holds.

Deliverables: briefing, memo, testimony

03

An alternative exists but is hard to explain.

I turn it into diagrams, renderings, and plain-language explanation that a board, a newsroom, or the public can evaluate.

Deliverables: diagrams, renderings, public-facing explainers

Two efforts that shaped public decisions.

Penn Station · Research and records2023–present

Penn Station: the record behind the expansion case

Problem

Expansion advanced on capacity and cost claims the public record did not fully support.

What I did

Agency-document archive, FOIA and FOIL appeals, and a reconstruction of the planning chronology.

What changed

The gaps in the record are documented and public. The Federal Railroad Administration later opened a Penn Station Service Optimization Study.

Read more

Penn hub  ·  Records archive

NJ Transit · Policy and governanceenacted 2018

NJ Transit: making the case for an accountable board

Problem

NJ Transit's board structure left riders unrepresented and the agency with weak public accountability, despite years of service failures.

What I did

Contributed policy analysis, testimony, communications, and public-facing advocacy to the reform effort at the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

What changed

New Jersey enacted NJ Transit governance reform in 2018, reshaping the board and strengthening independent oversight — the product of sustained advocacy, legislative action, and negotiation.

Read more

NJ Transit case study

Concept rendering of the BQE corridor near the Brooklyn Bridge

BQE / Off-Ramp NYC

A corridor reused, not rebuilt.

Off-Ramp NYC concept renderings, featured at CityNerd LIVE and in CityNerd's BQE video, showing how the corridor could be reused without full reconstruction.

View BQE work

Unofficial conceptual rendering

Public-facing aerial of the Middletown Town Commons developer proposalPublic-facing aerial of the developer proposal

Completed work · Middletown, Rhode Island · 2025–2026

Middletown Town Commons: making a resident alternative visible

A developer had a site plan; residents had testimony, public records, and a different set of priorities. I translated the proposal into a public-facing aerial and developed a resident-informed alternative preserving Pottsy Field while concentrating development on previously disturbed land.

The town's amended agreement later reflected a broadly comparable division of the site — an outcome residents won through organizing, testimony, negotiation, and town approval.

See the Middletown work
Conceptual rendering of programmed public space beneath the Culver Viaduct, Gowanus ArcadesConceptual rendering · Current work

Current work · Brooklyn · 2026–present

Gowanus Arcades: programming public space under the Culver Viaduct

Public-records research and site-specific visualization for an evolving proposal to restore the former Fran Brady Under-the-Tracks Playground to public use.

The current plan gives food, performance, vendors, and green space each a distinct zone under the viaduct, tested against transit access, noise, and the residential blocks next door.

Follow the Gowanus work

Visual futures · The Greater New Yorker

One region, seen from both rivers.

An illustrated pair compressing the through-running argument into a single scene — the eastern and western halves of the network read together.

The Greater New Yorker, East plate
Plate · East
The Greater New Yorker, West plate
Plate · West

Through-running is the operating spine of an all-day regional rail network. Its value lies less in producing isolated end-to-end trips than in making the region’s employment centers, universities, hospitals, airports, and housing markets accessible from more directions throughout the day.

See the visual futures series

How I work

Reconstruct the record

Agency documents, contracts, FOIA and FOIL requests, planning chronologies.

Test the claim

Capacity, cost, and service assumptions checked against the documents and comparable systems.

Show the alternative

Diagrams, renderings, briefings, and testimony that non-specialists can evaluate.

2023–Present

Chair, Transportation & Infrastructure
The City Club of New York

2022–2023

Associate Director
Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA

2018–2022

Policy & Communications Manager
Tri-State Transportation Campaign

2014–2018

Transportation Analyst
ReThink Studio

Working on a transportation decision that needs a stronger record?

Tell me what is still open, what evidence exists, and what your audience needs to understand. Available for commissioned research, briefings, and visual explanation, alongside independent public-interest work.