Political Party: Democratic
Candidate Email: friends@friendsofbutch.com
Website: fitzsimmonsforassembly.com
1. Across Upstate New York, transit agencies are facing a fiscal crisis due to a lack of dedicated funding while the costs of operating transit continue to rise. In 2025, lawmakers fully funded the MTA while without addressing shortfalls upstate. Lawmakers have proposed raising STOA contributions from the general fund and increasing dedicated revenue streams directed to transit. Will you commit to ensuring that RGRTA and all upstate transit authorities are fully funded in your next term?
Yes, I commit to that — and I want to explain why this is not just a transit issue, but a fundamental question of fairness.
The numbers tell a clear story. Upstate transit aid has grown 115% over the past 15 years while downstate aid grew nearly 150%. Non-MTA systems like RGRTA receive state revenue that is 80% lower per resident than what the MTA receives. In the most recent budget, downstate systems received a 7% STOA increase while upstate got 3.4% — less than half. And RGRTA is staring down a structural deficit that will balloon over the next several years if state assistance stays essentially flat, potentially forcing service cuts to the people who need it most.
That is not an accident. It is the result of upstate transit having far fewer dedicated revenue sources. The MTA has 18 dedicated funding streams. Upstate systems have four. Closing that structural gap — through increased STOA, new dedicated revenue streams, and equitable capital investment — will be a legislative priority for me.
I also want to be direct about the path this investment should take: I support transitioning RGRTA’s bus fleet to electric vehicles as part of this funding effort. The state has already invested in non-MTA zero-emission programs, and RGRTA should be a full beneficiary of that pipeline. Electric buses cost more upfront, but reduce long-term operating costs and align with the state’s own climate commitments. Funding upstate transit and electrifying it at the same time is not a contradiction — it is the smarter long-term investment.
But I want to go further than buses. Rochester once had something remarkable: a subway system built in the bed of the old Erie Canal that opened in 1927 and connected the city with surrounding communities — Greece, Brighton, Pittsford — running on electric overhead wires for nearly 30 years. It was abandoned in 1956, not because it failed the public, but because highway policy and the politics of the automobile era made it easier to fill the canal bed with expressways than to invest in what we already had.
We made that mistake once. I don’t think we should accept it as permanent.
Modern light rail — the kind operating today in Buffalo, Seattle, and dozens of other cities — is exactly the subway-style rapid transit Rochester once had, updated for the 21st century. A well-designed light rail corridor connecting Rochester’s core to surrounding towns would reduce traffic, serve residents who don’t own cars, and give car owners a genuine alternative for commuting and recreation. It deserves serious study and serious advocacy at the state level, and I will bring that to Albany.
Fully funding RGRTA, electrifying the fleet, and beginning the long work of building rapid transit that extends into the surrounding towns — these are connected goals, not competing ones. The question is whether we have the political will to pursue all three.
2. Amtrak’s Empire Service has far exceeded pre-pandemic ridership numbers and trains to and from NYC regularly sell out Thursday-Sunday. As a state supported rail service, Amtrak operates the Empire Corridor as decided by the New York State Department of Transportation. What actions by the NYS legislature will you take to support the expansion of rail service and make other improvements to inter-city travel in upstate New York?
Thank you for raising this — rail service between upstate New York and NYC is something our family knows well. We’ve taken the Empire Service many times over the years and have always appreciated the convenience and scenery. I’ll admit, we do miss the dining car experience from years past — there was something special about having a proper meal while watching the Hudson Valley roll by!
You’re absolutely right that the Empire Service’s ridership numbers tell a compelling story. When trains are selling out Thursday through Sunday, that’s the market speaking loudly, and Albany should be listening.
In the legislature, I will actively support and advocate for:
- **Increased state funding** for the Empire Corridor through the DOT budget, ensuring New York lives up to its obligation as a state-supported service and doesn’t leave federal matching dollars on the table.
- **More daily frequencies** — the current schedule leaves too many travelers without options. Adding runs, particularly mid-week and early morning departures, would reduce sellouts and open the service to more commuters and occasional riders alike.
- **Station improvements** across upstate cities like Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse, and Albany — modernizing platforms, improving accessibility, and creating true multi-modal hubs that connect to local transit.
- **On-time performance accountability** — working with NYSDOT to hold Amtrak and CSX (which owns much of the corridor track) accountable for delays that undermine ridership confidence.
- **Empire Corridor High Speed Rail** — continuing to push for the long-planned upgrades that would dramatically cut travel times and make rail genuinely competitive with driving and flying.
- **Restored dining and amenity services** — I’ll advocate with our federal delegation to pressure Amtrak to restore meaningful on-board service, because the experience matters for ridership retention.
Robust intercity rail is an economic development issue, a climate issue, and a quality-of-life issue for upstate New York. I’m fully committed to using every legislative lever available to move this forward.
3. In 2024, Reconnect Rochester successfully advocated for $18 million dollars to be included in the New York state budget to bring Inter-City buses to Louise M. Slaughter Intermodal Station. As of now, the project has not started. What will you do as a legislator to move this project forward with NYSDOT and Amtrak to ensure that intercity bus riders are given dignified amenities?
Reconnect Rochester did exactly what civic advocacy is supposed to do — organized, petitioned, and won. $18 million in the state budget is a real victory, and the community deserves to see it become a reality.
I’ll be honest: I’m coming to this fresh, and one of my first priorities will be to formally request the complete project plan and budget documents behind that $18 million allocation. The public should know exactly what was designed, what the timeline was supposed to be, and who is responsible for each step.
What I’ve learned is that the stall comes down to a specific structural problem: NYSDOT holds the money, but Amtrak owns the station. Neither agency has a signed agreement assigning clear responsibility, and no developer has even been selected. That is a coordination problem, not a funding problem.
As your representative I would work to:
- Use budget hearings and DOT committee oversight to bring NYSDOT and Amtrak to the table and produce a public project timeline with real milestones and named responsible parties
- Advocate for a formal interagency agreement between NYSDOT and Amtrak so the project has clear ownership and can move forward
- Maintain an ongoing relationship with Reconnect Rochester so community advocates have a direct line into the process
Intercity bus riders have been waiting in a rundown trailer since 2012. The funding exists. I want to help make sure it gets used
4. In 2024, a Brookings report examining state DOT planning, investment, and accountability practices ranked New York 49th in the country, only outpacing Alabama. NYSDOT continues to prioritize the flow of vehicle traffic in the majority of its projects, has slow-walked strategic reform processes/plans, and keeps data such as crash reports out of the public eye. Proposed bike lanes on state roads are often symbolic and not safe or connected. Reconnect Rochester sits on both the New York Safe Streets Coalition and the New Yorkers for Transportation Equity Coalition which are advocating for systemic NYSDOT reforms. How will you work to advance NYSDOT transparency and accountability reforms in the legislature?
Being ranked 49th in the country is not a statistic to debate — it is a call to action. And it should embarrass Albany.
I want to share something about where I come from on this. Much of my professional background has been in research design and development across clinical products, health sciences, telecommunications, and robotics — work that led to holding several patents. In every one of those fields, the principle is the same: you cannot make sound decisions without reliable data, and withholding data doesn’t protect anyone — it protects bad outcomes. The fact that NYSDOT keeps crash reports out of public view is not just a transparency failure, it is an engineering failure. You cannot fix what you cannot measure, and communities cannot advocate for solutions they cannot see the evidence for.
So I want to ask you the same question you’re asking me: which specific reform processes do you believe NYSDOT has slow-walked most harmfully? I have identified two that stand out and would like to work with Reconnect Rochester and the coalitions you’re part of to prioritize them.
The first is NYSDOT’s Active Transportation Strategic Plan. Their current pedestrian and bike plan dates to 1997. A replacement has been in development for years and was projected for release in early 2026 — decades overdue and still not final. That delay has real consequences for how projects get designed and funded across the state.
The second is the NYSDOT Transportation Master Plan 2050, which advocates have noted still lacks clear, measurable commitments on Complete Streets funding, active transportation infrastructure spending, and vulnerable road user safety — despite extensive public comment pushing for exactly that.
On the legislative side, I will support the NY Safe Streets Coalition’s reform package, specifically:
- DOT Crash Data Transparency — requiring public access to the crash location, time, and cause data NYSDOT already collects but does not release. This data exists. There is no legitimate reason it should require a fight to make it public.
- Complete Streets Fiscal Reporting — requiring clear accounting of how Complete Streets project funds are actually spent, so we can hold NYSDOT accountable to its own stated commitments.
But I want to be clear: I would rather arrive at these priorities with you than hand you a predetermined list. If you can walk me through where you believe the most critical reform processes have stalled, I will bring that into the legislative work with me. That kind of partnership between advocates with deep knowledge and legislators with access to oversight tools is exactly how reform actually happens.
5. Many residents of the Rochester area either can’t, or can barely afford to own a car. Before the war in Iran caused gas prices to skyrocket, AAA estimated that car ownership costs over $11,500 a year. How will you support affordable transportation options such as walking, biking and public transportation in our community, and improve accessibility to jobs and resources for residents who don’t own or want to use a car?
The $11,500 annual cost of car ownership is not just a statistic for many Rochester-area residents — it is an impossible number. And it doesn’t get easier as you move into Wayne County, where the distances are greater and the alternatives are fewer. This is fundamentally an equity issue, and it requires a regional solution, not just a city one.
But I want to say something to everyone in this room who does own a car: this conversation is also for you. A well-connected trail network, a reliable regional bus system, a safe walking route to a local restaurant — these are not consolation prizes for people who can’t afford a car. They are amenities that make a region more livable, more enjoyable, and more economically vibrant for everyone. When you park the car on a Saturday morning and ride the Erie Canal trail to a coffee shop in a neighboring town, or take the bus to a Rhinos game without worrying about parking, that is the same infrastructure. The investment serves all of us — it just becomes essential for some of us.
I want to be direct about something else: the infrastructure we’re talking about — connected walking and biking paths, reliable transit routes, safe access to jobs and services — also happens to be good economic development. When you build a path that links a neighborhood to a coffee shop, a health clinic, a bus stop, and eventually a train station, you are building a corridor that serves people without cars and also draws people out of cars. Those are the same investment.
On the transit side, RGRTA already operates RTS Wayne serving Wayne County and RTS Monroe serving the city and suburbs — but the connections between them for people trying to reach Rochester, the train station, or the airport are limited and infrequent. That gap matters enormously to someone who depends entirely on public transit. I will advocate for increased state operating support for RGRTA to strengthen those cross-county connections, with particular attention to routes that link Wayne County residents to the Louise M. Slaughter Intermodal Station and the airport.
But transit alone won’t solve this. Here is how I see the broader picture:
- Multi-county planning coordination. City, town, and county planning across Monroe and Wayne counties needs to work together on a shared mobility vision — not separately. Active transportation paths that dead-end at a municipal boundary serve no one. I will push for joint planning requirements and funding structures that incentivize cross-jurisdictional coordination.
- Paths that go somewhere people actually want to go. A bike lane that leads nowhere useful is not infrastructure — it is decoration. Planned routes need to integrate local destinations: small businesses, restaurants, coffee shops, parks, employment centers. That kind of planning builds both ridership and community economic vitality for car owners and non-car owners alike.
- Longer-distance active transportation corridors linking Wayne County to Rochester. The Erie Canal trail and existing rail corridors offer real potential as spine routes that Wayne County residents could use to reach transit hubs — and that families could use for weekend recreation. • Supporting the Lake Avenue Bus Rapid Transit study. State funding has already been secured to study BRT on one of Rochester’s busiest and most dangerous corridors. I will support moving that from study to implementation.
- Expanding fare accessibility. Monroe County’s EBT bus fare pilot — which lets transit-assistance recipients tap their EBT card directly instead of waiting for a bus pass in the mail — is the right idea. I will advocate for expanding that model region wide, including Wayne County.
And then there is the question of culture — because infrastructure alone does not change behavior. In the early days of aviation, it wasn’t just the planes that built public enthusiasm for flight. It was the barnstormers and the air shows: events that brought ordinary people face to face with something new, made it exciting, and invited them to imagine themselves participating. We need the same energy around active transportation and trails.
That means organizing signature community events — trail openings, guided group rides along the Erie Canal corridor, walking festivals connecting neighborhoods to local businesses, ‘try the bus’ days with incentives for first-time riders. Not one-off gestures, but a sustained regional effort to make these options visible, fun, and socially normal. Small businesses along planned corridors should be partners and beneficiaries in that effort, not afterthoughts. When a coffee shop on a new trail route sees weekend foot traffic triple — from cyclists and walkers who drove there to start their ride — that story spreads faster than any public service announcement.
Finally, I want to say plainly: this region has under invested in the people who need these options most for far too long. Making this work requires treating mobility as infrastructure with the same seriousness we give roads and bridges — because for residents without a car, it is. And for everyone else, it makes this a better place to live.
6. Why should Monroe County residents who care about safer streets, better mobility, and better public transit vote for you?
Because I’ve spent this entire conversation doing something that doesn’t always happen at candidate forums: telling you what I don’t know yet, and what I intend to find out.
I haven’t promised you that I’ve been fighting for these issues for years. What I’ve promised is that I will show up with the right questions, the right tools, and a genuine commitment to getting to answers — and then act on them.
My background is in research and development — clinical products, health sciences, telecommunications, robotics — work that led to holding several patents. In every one of those fields, the discipline is the same: you define the problem clearly, you gather the data, you let the evidence point to the solution, and you build something that actually works. That approach doesn’t change when the problem is a stalled bus terminal, an underfunded transit agency, or a NYSDOT that ranks 49th in the country while keeping crash data out of the public eye.
Here is what I’ve committed to in this conversation:
On rail: I will advocate for more Empire Service frequencies, better on-time performance, and restored on-board amenities — because we use this train and we know what it used to be.
On the intermodal station: I will request the full project plan behind the $18 million allocation, identify who between NYSDOT and Amtrak is responsible for the stall, and use every legislative oversight tool available to break that logjam.
On NYSDOT reform: I will support crash data transparency, Complete Streets fiscal reporting, and hold the agency accountable to its own stated plans — because you cannot make sound decisions without data, and withholding it protects bad outcomes, not people.
On mobility: I will push for multi-county planning coordination across Monroe and Wayne, paths that connect to real destinations, longer Erie Canal corridor routes, and the kind of sustained community events that make these options visible and exciting — not just functional.
On transit funding: I will commit to full and equitable STOA funding for RGRTA, advocate for electric bus fleet transition, and carry into Albany the case for the light rail Rochester once had and gave up too soon.
But here is the deeper reason to vote for me. Every one of these issues — the stalled terminal, the underfunded buses, the missing crash data, the disconnected bike lanes — has the same root cause: decisions made without the right data, without real coordination, and without someone willing to ask the uncomfortable questions publicly and on the record.
That is what I do. It is what my career has been built on. And it is exactly what this work requires.
I’m not asking you to trust that I already have all the answers. I’m asking you to trust that along with you we will go get them — and bring them back to enable progress.
