Elderly & Disabled

I had to pull this Marcia Kramer segment out of the headline stack and post it, because you've got to see it to believe it.

Reader Lisa Sladkus sent in these photos of new pedestrian refuges on West End Avenue in the 60s. Above is the refuge that just went in at 66th Street, and after the jump you can see one on 61st Street. Both are awaiting plantings in their tree pits.

While receiving an honor from AARP last night, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn reiterated their support for the Age-Friendly New York City plan to make the city work better for senior citizens. Because New York's elderly pedestrians are at the greatest risk from motor vehicles, the Age-Friendly New York program includes a number of pedestrian safety components. Though Bloomberg and Quinn reiterated their support for these programs last night, perhaps the most enthusiasm for redesigning streets to better serve older New Yorkers came from Linda Gibbs, deputy mayor for health and human services.

More than 10,000 pedestrians are injured every year on New York City streets. The people who are most at risk are senior citizens, new research from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign shows. Pedestrians over 60 years old, and especially over 75, are far more likely to be killed by cars than younger walkers. 

If you ever need a laugh but don't feel like shelling out for the two-drink minimum, you could do worse than head over to a Brooklyn CB 15 meeting. At an info session last night about plans for Brooklyn's inaugural rapid bus line, the first question out of the audience was, "How many parking spots are we going to lose in Community Board 15?" The evening spiraled into absurdity from there.

Electeds and other officials gathered with representatives from AARP today to pledge support for street improvements and to call on Albany to pass complete streets legislation.

Select Bus Service’s new low-floor buses will make it easier for seniors to get on and off the bus. Image: Second Avenue Sagas. Last night the MTA and DOT continued their tour of East Side community boards, presenting plans for better bus service and safer streets to the Manhattan CB 11 transportation committee. Attendance was low, … Continued

As we've recently seen in Astoria, DOT doesn't always bring innovative traffic calming tools to streets that need them. What happens when they do? At a community board meeting in Rego Park last week, the agency rolled out a broad selection of ideas including neckdowns, road diets, and pedestrian refuges. The Queens CB 6 transportation committee seemed ready to listen -- except when discussion briefly turned to the possibility of eliminating parking spaces.

Hours after the Tri-State Transportation Campaign released a report yesterday identifying New York's deadliest roads, 13 AARP volunteers surveyed part of Third Avenue in an effort to make walking in New York safer.