Gene Russianoff

Gene Russianoff is staff attorney and chief spokesman for the Straphangers Campaign, a New York City-based public transport advocacy group that focuses primarily on subway and bus services run by New York City Transit. At the same time, Russianoff has also served as a government reform advocate for NYPIRG.

Russianoff is a graduate of Brooklyn College and Harvard Law School, and has worked for New York Public Interest Research Group (Straphangers Campaign's parent organization) since his graduation from Harvard Law in 1978. In 1983, he was a Revson Fellow at Columbia University.

Gene Russianoff has agitated for subway commuters since about 1980. He lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Since 2002, he has promoted in coalition bus rapid transit for New York City. BRT—whose current New York City version is called Select Bus Service—gives buses priority, resulting in greater speeds and reliability at much lower cost than new subway lines. To further awareness of the need to provide better bus service in New York City, Russianoff and Transportation Alternatives annually bestow "uncovered" Pokey and Schleppie Awards to the slowest and least reliable bus routes in New York City. The 2013 "winners" were the M42 and M50. They were clocked at 3.4 miles per hour (5.5 km/h), a rate described as slower than a lumbering elephant or a wooden row boat.

As a government reformer in 1988, he lobbied successfully in coalition for New York City's campaign finance law, now a model for Campaign finance in the United States

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