Comments on: Pennies for Pedestrians: NY State Spends Small on Street Safety

By: glenn

glenn — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:04:31 +0000

Infrastructure is great, but you know what would really stimulate jobs in the city? Double or triple the number of Crossing Guards. Use them in midtown Manhattan instead of the “traffic agents” that just speed the cars and trucks though.

By: Donnie Jeffcoat

Donnie Jeffcoat — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:24:58 +0000

Wow, a post on this blog primarily focused on the pedestrian. What is this: “turn back the clock” night on Bikesblog?

By: Ian Turner

Ian Turner — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:20:23 +0000

Mark, agreed. Possibly the worst street out there in this respect is Park Avenue, all the more shameful given its history.

By: JK

JK — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:07:43 +0000

This is a good overall barometer of the still dismal state of bike/ped funding. But the irony is that if you rebuild streets as complete streets, the ped/bike/transit improvements would be paid for using plain old capital dollars, not dedicated funds. In other words, a city might be spending heavily on bike/ped improvements, but spending regular capital dollars that do not show up in reports like this. By far the most expensive bike improvements built in New York City,the bridge paths and Hudson Greenway, were part of bridge reconstruction and highway budgets and are not categorized in the TIP or anywhere else as bike/ped spending.

By: Mark Walker

Mark Walker — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:05:37 +0000

While NYS certainly should spend more on pedestrian safety, plenty of lives could be saved just by retiming traffic signals to give pedestrians more time to cross. There is a direct tradeoff here between the convenience of drivers and the safety of peds. Safety should be the primary consideration. See Streetfilms.

By: Shemp

Shemp — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:53:20 +0000

It’s always unsatisfying to see these odd Washington-generated reports that only look at federal funding, which is probably less than half of capital spending in NY State. There is no way of knowing the real story on the ground (in terms of spending) when state and local funds are not analyzed.