Record Review
FOIA, FOIL, and OPRA strategy; document review; chronology building; and agency-claim testing.
Typical output: records matrix, chronology, issue map, or request strategy.Test the claim before it becomes the plan.
I help journalists, legal teams, funders, and civic organizations evaluate major transportation and infrastructure proposals before the public record hardens around them.
The work starts with records: agency documents, operating assumptions, cost claims, environmental review, procurement language, and the statements officials made before the story changed.
Bring a Claim to Test →
Outputs & Methods
Usable records and decision support.
Issue Memos
Short, usable analysis for counsel, reporters, funders, civic leaders, and public-interest organizations.
Typical output: briefing memo, source roadmap, claim check, or gap analysis.Public Alternatives
Technical alternatives translated into arguments, visuals, briefing material, and public-facing strategy.
Typical output: public comment, op-ed frame, concept package, or campaign memo.Decision Strategy
Identifying when a project is still movable and what record must exist before decisions harden.
Typical output: decision map, stakeholder map, hearing strategy, or legislative language.
Active Investigations
Choices framed as inevitabilities.
The alternative often arrives too late, too abstract, or without the record needed to survive institutional pushback.
Penn Station / Gateway
The railroads argue that the region needs to expand Penn Station south because no practical alternative can handle future Gateway capacity. The public record still does not resolve the operating assumptions behind that claim.
- Claim
- Penn must expand south because existing-footprint alternatives cannot support the future rail program.
- Work
- Records, operating assumptions, federal engagement, legislative language, and public alternatives.
- Stakes
- Block 780, through-running, regional rail, and whether distant future compatibility is being used to justify irreversible action.
Brooklyn-Queens Expressway
CityNerd’s investigation features the Off-Ramp NYC case for removing the BQE. The point is larger than one highway: an official reconstruction plan becomes less inevitable once the alternative is visible, costed, and legible.
- Claim
- New York must rebuild the corridor for another generation of highway use.
- Work
- Concept renderings, financial review, public-space framing, and media translation.
- Stakes
- Whether removal can be tested as seriously as reconstruction.
How the Work Moves
From official claim to usable record.
Most public infrastructure fights are lost before the argument starts. The record is scattered, the decision point is unclear, and the alternative is still abstract.
01
Recover the record
Agency documents, contracts, models, presentations, emails, environmental materials, and procurement language.
02
Test the assumptions
Cost, capacity, ridership, operations, phasing, governance, alternatives, and stated public benefits.
03
Find the decision point
The vote, approval, financing action, hearing, procurement step, or legal threshold that still matters.
04
Build the usable argument
Briefing memo, press frame, public comment, litigation support, visual alternative, or legislative language.
Contact
Bring a concrete claim.
I’ll tell you what the record shows, where the assumptions are weak, and whether the plan holds up.
liam.blank@gmail.com
Background
2023—Present
Chair, Transportation & Infrastructure
The City Club of New York
2022—2023
Associate Director
Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA (PCAC)
2018—2022
Policy & Communications Manager
Tri-State Transportation Campaign
2014—2018
Transportation Analyst
ReThink Studio