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A car owned by Christina Melendez, a top Department of Education official, has racked up 66 traffic violations the past decade, including 14 since 2019 for being caught on camera speeding. Her ex-domestic partner, Department of Transportation Ydanis Rodriguez previously used her car for work before their breakup.
William Farrington
Two of the Big Apple’s top transportation honchos — known for talking tough at traffic scofflaws — need speed themselves, data reviewed by The Post reveals.
Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez and his baby mama Christina Melendez, a top director at the Department of Education, have racked up a staggering 66 traffic violations totaling at least $5,600 in fines the past decade using the same vehicle – including 14 since 2019 for speeding in school safety zones, according to city records.
The chair of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, Councilwoman Selvena Brooks-Powers (D-Queens), has cruised in a family car that racked up 25 tickets over the past 16 months, including 20 for speeding near schools and another for blowing a red light, records show.
It’s unclear how many of the summonses were handed out on Melendez’s Nissan Rogue when Rodriguez was behind the wheel.
As DOT commissioner for the past two years, he’s enjoyed the perk of having a city vehicle that comes with an assigned driver.
“Ydanis Rodriquez, who gets chauffeured in a giant SUV, and Selvena Brooks-Powers are prime examples of ‘do as I say, not as I do,’” fumed Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens).
They’re “hypocrites who act as if laws don’t apply to them,” he added.
Other lefty pols with a long history of being speed demons who’ve racked up plenty of traffic violations include Comptroller Brad Lander, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine.
Rodriguez regularly drove Melendez’s Nissan to work at City Hall when he was a Manhattan councilman — even obtaining a parking placard for it — but he and his former domestic partner, who share two daughters, have since split, according to sources.
The vehicle was slapped with six speeding tickets during the final five months leading up to Rodriguez’s January 2022 appointment by Mayor Adams as DOT commissioner.
Since then, the Nissan has received six parking tickets – including two for misusing a parking permit—and was caught speeding in July and November of last year.
On March 2, 2023, the vehicle was slapped with two tickets totaling $160 for illegally parking in a spot in lower Manhattan on Warren Street reserved for state senators and assembly members.
The traffic agent noted in the tickets that the car was flashing a Department of Education parking permit. Melendez works nearby as the DOE’s $195,000-a-year executive director of Family and Community Engagement.
A Post photographer on Thursday spotted Melendez getting into the vehicle, which was illegally parked in a truck loading zone.
Rodriguez, who has cheered congestion pricing and speed cameras and has helped promote City Hall’s anti-car agenda, earns $243,171 and now gets a free ride to work in a city vehicle.
He has not driven his ex’s car since being appointed commissioner two years ago “and is confident he has not received any [traffic] violations in this role,” said DOT spokesman Vincent Barone.
The DOE and Melendez declined to comment.
Brooks-Powers has been a longtime proponent of using speed cameras to help curb traffic accidents and has pushed legislation seeking to reward New Yorkers who report hit-and-run drivers fleeing deadly crashes.
However, a 2019 Nissan the pol has said she shares with her husband Demetrius Powers II racked up 25 tickets totaling $1,395 in fines since September 2022 — including the 20-speed cam violations, records show.
The couple has continued their rogue riding despite being outed in April 2022 by Streetsblog, which then reported them racking up 22-speed cam tickets and a red-light camera violation over the previous two years.
At the time, she said she’d try to “do better” by obeying the rules of the road.
But the car has continued to speed in school zones — including amassing summonses on consecutive days in late September — and it was caught in July running a red light at Seagirt Boulevard and Beach 9th Street in Far Rockaway, according to city records and the website HowsMyDrivingNY.nyc.
A spokeswoman for Brooks-Powers insisted the councilwoman has not used the car in “more than a year,” adding she “will continue to advance street safety measures, including those that hold drivers accountable.”
Adam White, a safe streets advocate and lawyer, said Rodriquez’s and Brooks-Powers’ actions undermine New Yorkers’ trust.
“Public officials and their families need to abide by speed cameras and red lights and obey them because people’s lives are at risk,” he said.
