Vision Zero
Streetsblog Basics
TA: Unfocused, Ineffective NYPD Enforcement Isn’t Helping With Vision Zero
Since the launch of Vision Zero more than two years ago, NYPD has yet to develop a comprehensive strategy to target dangerous driver behaviors that are known to cause most injuries and deaths. To the contrary, a new Transportation Alternatives report finds that NYPD enforcement often targets the people most vulnerable to traffic violence, while motorist violations like speeding, failure to yield, and even leaving the scene of a crash go unchecked.
July 28, 2016
Behold the Transport for London Traffic Collision Map
As City Hall staffers work on improvements to Vision Zero View, hopefully they're taking cues from Transport for London’s collision map.
July 27, 2016
NYPD “Bicycle Safe Passage” Stings Aren’t Creating Safe Passage for Cyclists
Earlier this year, when City Hall announced NYPD's "Bicycle Safe Passage" enforcement initiative to ticket drivers for blocking bike lanes and failing to yield to cyclists, it sounded like a step up from predecessors like "Operation Safe Cycle" -- which were notorious for fining cyclists, not protecting them. But the new NYPD bike safety approach still looks a lot like the old.
July 26, 2016
Crash Data Show NYC Is Losing Ground on Vision Zero
After a four-month hiatus, City Hall is again updating its Vision Zero View map with new crash data, and through the first six months of 2016, traffic deaths rose slightly compared the same period last year. Through the end of June, 111 people lost their lives to traffic violence, up from 107 in the first half of 2015.
July 26, 2016
Naomi Doerner on How Street Safety Advocates Can Support Racial Justice
When a police officer in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, shot and killed Philando Castile earlier this month, the encounter began with a traffic stop. The stop fit a pattern: Castile had been pulled over many times before -- 46 times in 13 years -- but few of those citations were for dangerous driving. More prevalent were stops for minor issues like vehicle defects or misplaced license plates -- the type of justifications that police are more likely to use when stopping black and Latino drivers throughout the country.
July 22, 2016
Wider Sidewalks Coming to Flushing’s Crowded Main Street
Main Street in Flushing gets more foot traffic than anywhere else in New York after Times Square, but its sidewalks are too narrow to handle all those people. So later this month, the city will begin expanding the sidewalks on four blocks of Main Street, Council Member Peter Koo, DOT, and the Department of Design and Construction announced this afternoon.
July 19, 2016
DOT Overrides CB 10, Advances E. Tremont Safety Project After Cyclist Death
DOT will implement a road diet on the stretch of East Tremont Avenue where a motorist killed cyclist Giovanni Nin in June. Last year DOT had dropped the project in response to a hostile reception from Bronx Community Board 10.
July 19, 2016
TA: City Hall’s Spending Decisions Are Limiting Life-Saving Street Designs
Transportation Alternatives says the de Blasio administration's failure to fully fund Vision Zero street improvements is limiting the number of split-phase traffic signals DOT can install to prevent collisions at dangerous intersections.
July 14, 2016
Advocates Don’t Expect Judge’s Ruling Against Right of Way Law to Hold Up
In rejecting the case against a school bus driver who struck and killed an elderly woman in a Queens crosswalk, a criminal court judge deemed the city's Right of Way Law unconstitutional. The constitutionality of the law had previously been upheld in a different court, however, and street safety advocates don't expect the new ruling to hold up. Applying the same logic would render criminal statutes against drunk driving unconstitutional as well, they say.
June 28, 2016
NYC Traffic Deaths Fell in First Five Months of 2016
Traffic fatalities in NYC declined 11 percent through the end of May compared to the same period last year, according to NYPD crash data.
June 27, 2016