New York, NY – Massive Street Makeover for Pedestrian Safety to Be Unveiled

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    New York, NY – Sixty miles of streets will be redesigned annually, 1,500 intersections will get countdown clocks and the number of slow-traffic zones around schools will triple as part of a new city push to reduce pedestrian injuries and deaths caused by automobiles.

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    These latest changes to the New York City streetscape are the result of study of over 7,000 accidents involving pedestrians that took place between 2002 and 2006. Mayor Michael Bloomberg is set to unveil the plan Monday.

    The city will focus on especially dangerous corridors and intersections identified by the study, like those along major cross-town streets in Manhattan.

    “This is a landmark safety report that is going to transform the streets of New York, making them safer and better to walk around on,” Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said. “It’s unprecedented reengineering of our streets.”

    But the plan is really only the latest step in an unprecedented reengineering of streets that Sadik-Khan has implemented since her appointment by Bloomberg in 2007. The city in 2008 set a target of cutting traffic fatalities by 3% each year until 2030. Half of those who die in city car crashes are pedestrians.

    The city has taken space from cars and given it to bicycles and buses on major corridors like First, Second, Eighth and Ninth avenues in Manhattan and Fordham Road in the Bronx. It has installed islands meant to slow traffic and give pedestrians a place to pause as they cross busy roads. Some streets — like Broadway in and around Times Square — have been closed permanently; others are temporarily given over to cyclists and pedestrians, including Park Avenue on Saturdays in August.

    Those moves have won the city praise from some, but have also angered critics. Most recently, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz called Sadik-Khan an anti-car zealot.

    The study released Monday — touted as the “most statistically ambitious ever undertaken by a U.S. city”  – includes some intriguing data points:

    Of the crashes that kill or seriously injure pedestrians, 80% involve male drivers and 79% involve private vehicles, not taxis, trucks and buses.

    The rate of pedestrians killed or seriously injured is four times as high per mile of street in Manhattan than in the other four boroughs.

    Certain people are more likely to be the victims of serious accidents than others, the study says. Those over 25 who haven’t received any post-high school education make up 70% of pedestrian fatalities, but 52% of New Yorkers.

    Male pedestrians older than 50 and between the ages of five and seventeen are most frequently killed or seriously injured in car crashes, followed by women older than 64.


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    9 Comments
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    frombp
    frombp
    13 years ago

    blome if you wane make us safe don’t lat them build the mosque

    Bezalel
    Bezalel
    13 years ago

    If they cared about pedestrians, they would prosecute drivers who kill pedestrians. Currently, they are only tough on drunk drivers. But if a driver is sober, he can pretty-much intentionally run over someone and just say, “Sorry, I didn’t see him; the sun got in my eyes; the dog ate my homework; etc.” and nothing will happen to him.

    Butterfly
    Butterfly
    13 years ago

    What about Brooklyn?

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    Manhattan is 4 times as many fatalities as other boros because the streets are 6 lanes.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    stop the bs. drivers tack back r steerts

    Bloomy out
    Bloomy out
    13 years ago

    Another way of making money.
    I understand that we need safe roads but putting more rules on it only makes it harder to drive and people tend to break the law faster so Bloomberg can fine some more.
    We need to find ways that people will want to drive safer the more laws the more we break them.

    mewhoze
    mewhoze
    13 years ago

    obviously someone somewhere has a friend in teh paint and cement business hence the islands and bike lanes.
    investigate it, im sure it will be there

    Askupeh
    Askupeh
    13 years ago

    The wool is being pulled over our eyes. We are being deceived into thinking that it is safer streets they are after, and who isn’t for safer streets? This is a trick disguising the makeover of the city from vehicle oriented to bike oriented, from family oriented to hippie/hipster oriented. They might as well change the name back to “New Amsterdam” or “Venice on the Hudson” and we’ll travel via gondola’s. They call it “a massive Street Makeover for Pedestrian Safety” when in reality it will be a massive makeover of the city from family oriented to single and hippie oriented. This city is turning fast into Sedom, Amora, Admoh and Tzevoyim with Birshah at its head.

    Safer streets, my foot. Bike injuries and fatalities is up up up. I personally have witnessed in the last two years about a dozen close calls, which were mostly prevented by the quick thinking of the drivers in spite of the bikers. The bikers and their bakers have turned the city into a living hell for us car owners. It’s time we retake the city and throw the bums out.

    13 years ago

    As a driver I think those count down clocks are great! I know when to speed up even before the light turns yellow.