Automated traffic enforcement cameras and lockboxes to protect transit funding are at the top of the legislative agenda for transportation advocates in 2012. Image: Wikipedia.

Many of Albany’s biggest transportation issues this year — the bloated and transit-free Tappan Zee, the unfunded MTA capital plan — will be decided by Governor Cuomo. But transportation advocates also have a slate of bills they hope to see make it through the legislature. Last year, the complete streets bill passed after a few prior attempts. Here’s what’s on the table for 2012.

Transit Lockboxes

Last year, lockbox legislation sponsored by Assembly Member James Brennan and Senator Marty Golden passed the legislature unanimously, only to have Governor Cuomo “eviscerate” the bill by amendment. The sponsors have vowed to try for the original language again.

The politics of the lockbox could be different this year if downstate legislators team up with their colleagues upstate. Buffalo Republican Mark Grisanti has introduced his own lockbox meant to protect dedicated funds for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority. He is amenable to working with those hoping to protect the MTA. “If we can get the upstate folks talking about a lockbox bill in the same breath as the MTA, then maybe that sends a louder message to the governor,” said Nadine Lemmon, Albany legislative advocate for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

Speed Cameras

Assembly Member Deborah Glick’s legislation to allow speed enforcement using automated cameras hasn’t gone anywhere in the past, but advocates have declared it a top priority for this year. “It’s speed cams all the time when it comes to Albany,” said Juan Martinez, general counsel for Transportation Alternatives.

The bill has support not only from transportation advocacy groups, but the New York City DOT and public health organizations. “There is a good coalition that’s gotten around it,” said Lemmon. That said, the bill still doesn’t have a Senate sponsor, an indication of how much work is left to be done.

Red Light Cameras

Three bills to increase the number of red light cameras permitted by the state, one each for New York City, Nassau County and Suffolk County, passed the Senate last year only to die in the Assembly transportation committee. Assembly transportation chair David Gantt has a history of blocking bills that would allow localities to implement life-saving traffic technology.

The red light camera bills didn’t have sufficient outside support last year, said Lemmon, who expects more action on the issue in 2012. If necessary, she said, the bills’ Assembly sponsors might be willing to use a parliamentary procedure to force a vote in committee. In the Senate, the bills are sponsored by Marty Golden, Chuck Fuschillo and Owen Johnson, respectively.

Transit Commuter Tax Benefit

The federal government may have let the tax benefit for transit fall to $125 per month while raising the parking perk to $240, but that doesn’t mean New York State has to. Senator Chuck Fuschillo’s legislation would reinstate the full benefit for state taxes. The benefit reduction doesn’t matter much for New York City residents — even now, the tax benefit covers a monthly MetroCard — but for those commuting into Manhattan on the LIRR or Metro-North, it’s a major incentive to take transit.

Fuschillo’s bill passed the Senate but died in the Assembly last year. Though it previously didn’t have outside advocates behind it, that will change in 2012.

Commercial Cyclist Responsibility

It seems that almost every community board in Manhattan has complained about unsafe riding by working cyclists. In order to effectively and equitably improve commercial cyclist behavior, Transportation Alternatives is lobbying for a bill sponsored by Senator Liz Krueger and Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh.

The legislation would place responsibility for traffic violations by working cyclists on their employers. “It’s the business owner who is in the best position to guide the cyclists’ behavior,” explained Martinez. “In order to make those deliveries, they feel they have to ride the wrong way or ride on the sidewalk.” On construction sites, Martinez said, employers receive violations for workers who don’t wear hard hats; he said the principle should be the same for cyclists.

Transportation Alternatives’ push for the bill comes as City Council Member James Vacca is launching his own campaign to regulate commercial cyclists. Under Vacca’s proposal, police would step up enforcement of existing rules and working cyclists would be required to take a new bicycle safety course.

Curbside Bus Regulation

The curbside bus industry is booming, to say the least. In 2007, 4.2 million people rode MegaBus, Fung Wah and other curbside buses along the Northeast Corridor, compared to zero a decade before, and the number of riders continues to grow rapidly. That means it’s easier to travel the East Coast in a way that’s both affordable and sustainable, but it’s also created significant pressures on the neighborhoods in which the buses load and unload, where passengers and luggage cramp the sidewalks.

A bill sponsored by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Senator Dan Squadron would, for the first time, allow the city to regulate how curbside buses work. In theory, the city would be able to shift curbside operations toward streets with more room, or to locations that otherwise fit the city’s transportation vision. Legislation along these lines was proposed by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign in a 2009 report on improving regional bus service.

The bill doesn’t allow for a situation like that in Washington, D.C., however, where the city attempted to charge bus companies an $80,000 annual fee, which the industry said would result in higher fares. Under Silver’s law, the maximum annual fee for a permit is $275.

Last year, the Assembly passed the bill but it died in the Senate. With Silver’s name at the top, its future likely depends on his willingness to wheel and deal with the Senate.

Kids are more likely to be injured while walking or biking in East Harlem and the Lower East Side than the wealthier areas between them. Click to enlarge. Image: T.A.

Children growing up in Manhattan’s low-income communities are at significantly higher risk of being seriously injured or killed in traffic than their neighbors in wealthier districts, a new study from Transportation Alternatives finds [PDF]. Intersections near public housing appear to be particularly dangerous for children trying to cross the street.

In East Harlem and on the Lower East Side, the number of children younger than 18 who are killed or seriously injured while walking or riding their bikes is significantly higher than on the Upper East Side or in Gramercy and East Midtown, even though there are more total crashes with pedestrians in those wealthier neighborhoods.

The most dangerous intersection for kids on the East Side is Lexington and 125th, where 34 children were injured and one killed between 1995 and 2009.

The disparity can’t be explained by differences in population. In fact, the Upper East Side has the greatest share of residents under the age of 18 of the four areas studied. Rather, children are more at risk of getting hit by a car than adults in the low-income neighborhoods, while they are at lower risk in the high-income areas.

Transportation Alternatives hasn’t pinned down a cause, but they theorize that the design of public housing projects could be the culprit. Nine of the ten most dangerous East Side intersections for children were near public housing. The creation of large superblocks at many public housing developments could be encouraging children to cross mid-block, for example.

Twelve-year-old Dashane Santana, a resident of the East Village’s Jacob Riis Houses, was hit and killed last Friday while crossing Delancey at Clinton Street, across from NYCHA’s Seward Park Extension at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge.

Leaders from East Harlem and the Lower East Side have decried the unsafe conditions their children face. “My district contains the greatest concentration of public housing in the city and is located in an area of Manhattan where traffic can be quite heavy. That means the children of my district are at risk,” said City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito. “We need immediate action to address dangerous driving habits and must improve traffic patterns in high risk areas. Bike lanes in East Harlem are certainly one part of the solution, but more can be done.”

“This map shows us an injustice, pure and simple,” said Damaris Reyes, the executive director of the neighborhood organization Good Old Lower East Side. “Our kids living in public housing on the Lower East Side, including my own children, deserve safe streets just as much as any other child in the city. The NYPD needs to get its priorities straight and crack down on dangerous driving.”

Among likely Democratic voters in New York City, 64 percent support bike lanes.

Despite the millions of New Yorkers who ride subways and buses and the thousands of life-altering traffic injuries suffered by residents of the five boroughs every year, transit and safe streets are typically second- or third-tier issues in the city’s big-time political campaigns. The 2013 mayoral election could be different: NYC DOT’s program to re-orient city streets for transit, biking and walking has raised the profile of transportation and public space issues. And that’s before any bike-share stations have hit the streets.

A new poll commissioned by Transportation Alternatives [PDF] indicates that New York’s most dedicated voters — the ones who’ll head out to the polls in September and pull the lever in primaries — support livable streets policies, including some that politicians tend to shy away from. Mayoral candidates, take note.

The telephone survey of 603 likely voters conducted by Penn Schoen Berland found high approval levels for bike lanes — 60 percent of respondents support them — similar to the results of recent polls by Quinnipiac and Marist.

When framed in terms of public safety, increased traffic enforcement also appeals to voters. Three quarters of respondents said it’s very important to “crack down on reckless driving to improve safety.”

Transportation and livable streets issues still have an uphill battle for mindshare. When asked to name the single most important issue facing the city, 68 percent of voters placed “growing the economy and creating jobs” higher than priorities like fostering walkable neighborhoods and maintaining a quality transit system. The poll suggests that it’s extremely important for advocates to make the connection between bus improvements and job access, for instance, or between pedestrian safety and retail performance.

In addition to surveying attitudes about transportation and street safety policies, the poll reveals a wealth of information about how New York City voters get around. Among transit aficionados, it’s a well-known fact that most New York households don’t own cars and an even larger majority don’t drive to work. But the travel habits of NYC voters are less well-understood.

The TA poll indicates that while 55 percent of voters own cars, the vast majority rely on trains, buses, and their own two feet to get around. Windshield perspective, it seems, is more deeply ingrained in the people who hold office than those who elect them.

Here are some of the poll results that stood out:

• 55 percent of voters own cars, but just 34 percent say driving is their primary way to get around New York, and only 24 percent say they drive four or more times per week.
• 53 percent use transit as their primary mode, eight percent mainly walk, and one percent mainly bike.
• 64 percent expect more people to be riding bikes five years from now.
• A plurality of voters — 35 percent — hold the mayor most responsible for the recent MTA service cuts. The state legislature, which wasted golden opportunities to increase transit funding via congestion pricing or bridge tolls, was named by only 23 percent. Just seven percent named the governor, and while Andrew Cuomo wasn’t in office when the last round of cuts took effect, it’s the governor who selects the MTA chair, appoints most MTA board members, and sets the agenda on MTA funding to a much greater extent than the mayor.
• Driving while talking on a handheld phone was the most commonly noticed traffic violation (46 percent see it “almost every day”), followed by speeding (35 percent).
• Among car owners, overall support for bike lanes was the same as among voters without cars (60 percent), although support among car owners is somewhat less intense (22 percent strongly support bike lanes, compared to 33 percent among car-free voters).

Transportation Alternatives today delivered over 2,500 citizen letters to Ray Kelly demanding that NYPD crack down on dangerous driving, and announced a comprehensive probe into how the department handles traffic crash investigations.

Flanked by dozens of supporters and victims of traffic violence at 1 Police Plaza, TA executive director Paul Steely White excoriated NYPD for what he called a “cavalier attitude” toward lawless driving. While hundreds are killed and thousands are injured by reckless drivers in the city every year, enforcement of traffic laws is relatively rare, and drivers who cause suffering and death are routinely excused by police and prosecutors without as much as a summons.

“It’s the NYPD’s job to keep dangerous driving in check by holding reckless drivers accountable,” said White, “but they are simply not taking that job seriously.”

Calling for a zero tolerance approach to a “public safety crisis,” TA will have attorneys review NYPD reports on recent crashes that resulted in serious injury or death. Evaluations will focus on whether police followed proper post-crash procedure and if victims were “guaranteed a full and fair investigation.”

Erika Lefevre, whose son Mathieu was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bike in East Williamsburg in October, said that her family is still waiting for definitive information about the crash. Initially, police told reporters that Mathieu ran a red light at Morgan Avenue and Meserole Street and was struck by the driver of a flatbed truck making a right-hand turn. The NYPD report, however, indicates that Mathieu was hit from behind, and makes no mention of either Mathieu or the driver running a light.

The report identifies the driver who struck Lefevre as Leonardo Degianni of College Point. Degianni, 48, was driving a truck registered to Imperium Construction of Ridgewood. After hitting and dragging Lefevre, Degianni left the scene. Police found the truck a short distance from the crash site but did not locate Degianni for days. He was not charged.

Erika Lefevre said police have video of the crash along with other evidence, none of which her family has been allowed to see.

“We appreciate that NYPD has a difficult job in trying to investigate this crash and determine what happened,” said Lefevre. “We want NYPD to take the time it needs to conduct an unbiased, thorough, professional investigation. But NYPD has caused us great pain with the mishandling and withholding of information, and their rush to clear the driver of any wrongdoing.”

Juliana Berger, former wife of Mathieu Lefevre, urged Ray Kelly to beef up the department’s accident investigation squad and to implement targeted enforcement of dangerous behaviors including failure to yield, speeding and failure to exercise due care.

Also speaking at today’s rally was Donna Ganson, whose husband was seriously injured in 2009 by a motorist as he walked his daughter to school in Park Slope. Though witnesses said the driver was traveling some 20 mph over the 30 mph speed limit, and though Ganson’s husband was crossing legally, no charges were filed and no summonses were issued. The collision put the victim in a coma and left him with brain damage.

“My life, his life, and the lives of our three daughters will never be the same,” said Ganson. “How can a speeding driver who hits a pedestrian in a crosswalk in broad daylight not get a ticket for anything?”

Though he was not present for the rally himself, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio sent over a statement, read by spokesperson Wiley Norvell, announcing that his office has asked NYPD for data related to the application of vulnerable user laws and information on when the department deploys the accident investigation squad.

"All we know is what we have read in the papers," said Erika Lefevre about the hit-and-run collision that killed her son Mathieu. Photo copyright Dmitry Gudkov

The family of Mathieu Lefevre, the 30-year-old artist killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bike in East Williamsburg last week, was joined by dozens of supporters outside 1 Police Plaza today to demand that NYPD rein in deadly driving and end its policy of silence when it comes to fatal traffic crashes.

Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, began the rally by reading from a list of cyclists, pedestrians and drivers killed this year at the hands of motorists who faced no charges of any kind. While drivers continue “killing with impunity on a daily basis,” said White, NYPD has “consistently failed” to take action to stop the violence.

In 2010, White said, 269 people died in New York City traffic. Traffic crashes are the leading cause of preventable death for the city’s children, and from 2000 to 2009 more New Yorkers were killed by cars than guns. Addressing his remarks to NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, White said: “You are failing to enforce a basic standard of due care.”

The devastation wrought by the city’s traffic fatality epidemic is made worse by NYPD’s practice of withholding crash information, even from family members of victims. Lefevre’s parents traveled from western Canada immediately upon hearing of their son’s death. Since then, said his mother Erika, they have learned little about the crash.

“All we know is what we have read in the papers,” said Lefevre. Last Friday, the Lefevres waited all day at NYPD headquarters, but were told nothing. No one was available to speak with them over weekend, said Lefevre, and since Monday they have been passed from desk to desk. NYPD revealed to the family that the truck that hit Mathieu, identifiable from visible damage, was found two blocks from the crash site, and that the driver was located through the company that owns the truck. The Lefevres were not given the name of the company or the driver. As for the crash itself, the only details they have been made privy to are time and location. Lefevre said the family was told today that “charges were dropped” against the driver, though she isn’t sure charges were filed in the first place.

Lefevre said that, according to police, the driver of the truck that killed Mathieu was “likely unaware” of the collision.

Intensifying the agony of the families of crash victims is as deeply ingrained in NYPD culture as the department’s laissez-faire approach to traffic enforcement. White said the buck stops at the top.

“Ultimately, what needs to happen is we need leadership,” said White, calling on Kelly and, especially, Bloomberg to tap the city government talent pool to reduce traffic deaths and injuries.

In the case of Mathieu Lefevre, White believes the driver should at minimum be charged under the state’s vulnerable user laws, which have yet to be applied with any regularity by NYPD since they were adopted a year ago.

In the meantime, the Lefevres continue to wait for answers. Erika Lefevre said the last time she talked to her son, who rode his bike regularly during the one and a half years he lived in Brooklyn, was when he called her on October 10, her birthday.

“Mathieu’s life was cut short before he had a chance to develop into what he would become,” Lefevre said. “It is very important that we know the circumstances of our son’s death.”

While recent improvements have made streets safer, from '95 to '09 more pedestrians were struck in Midtown than in any other district. Image: TA

On Monday Transportation Alternatives released a report tallying pedestrian-involved crashes in each of the city’s community board districts, based on numbers from the state Department of Motor Vehicles, between 1995 and 2009. Not surprisingly, the data reveal that the most collisions occurred in Midtown Manhattan, where high-density auto and foot traffic led to 8,604 crashes in District 5 alone.

The TA study, along with the relaunch of CrashStat and the (however convoluted) release of crash data from NYPD, have raised the profile of the city’s traffic violence epidemic. This is undoubtedly a positive development, and one that will hopefully continue to generate headlines as stats become more accessible. But as noted by Streetsblog readers, raw data accumulated over such an extended period of time can be misleading, and could potentially be used to undercut future efforts to improve safety.

So we ask you: How would you put to use the influx of city- and state-generated crash data? What would your criteria be for employing data to guide tangible street safety measures?

Share your ideas, from the pragmatic to the fantastical, in the comments.

Graph: Transportation Alternatives, based on data from New York State DMV

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of the adoption of Hayley and Diego’s Law, which established the charge of “careless driving” in New York State and gave police and prosecutors a new tool to hold motorists who injure pedestrians and cyclists accountable. Unfortunately, says Transportation Alternatives, over the past 12 months the law has gone largely unenforced by NYPD.

Intended to demarcate a middle ground between moving violations and more serious criminal charges, Hayley and Diego’s law prescribes that drivers who caused injury “while failing to exercise due care” be required to take a drivers education course and be subject to fines of up to $750, jail time of up to 15 days, and a license suspension of up to six months. But a law is only as effective as those who enforce it, and TA has found that applications of VTL 1146, the statute that includes Hayley and Diego’s Law as well as Elle’s Law, are as rare as ever.

Diego Martinez and Hayley Ng were killed in January 2009 when an idling, unattended van jumped a curb in Chinatown. The driver was not charged.

T.A. filed a Freedom Of Information request in May with the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles and found that the number of applications of VTL 1146 has remained more or less steady for the last few years. T.A. estimates that there will be approximately 77 citations of the statute in 2011 based on a total of 32 citations issued as of June this year, while 97 tickets were issued under 1146 in 2010, 87 in 2009, and 92 in 2008.  These statistics show that a year after these new penalties meant to protect New Yorkers went in effect, they are barely being applied.

“Our family worked hard for these laws to deter motorists from dangerous and lethal behavior,” said Wendy Cheung, Hayley Ng’s aunt. “Nothing can undo the crash that took Hayley away from us, but we can prevent tragedies like this from happening to other families. And we can hold someone who breaks the law and takes a life responsible for their actions. We hope the police will use all the tools at their disposal to bring justice to our streets and protect others from the pain of losing a loved one to traffic violence.”

It should be noted that, in the city, VTL 1146 is enforced by NYPD and the Department of Motor Vehicles and, while district attorneys may advise police to apply it in certain cases, it does not fall under DA purview except for repeat offenders.

Streetsblog has a message in with NYPD regarding TA’s findings.

In Harlem, 125th Street, 135th Street and Broadway are particularly dangerous for children and teenagers. Image: CrashStat

Transportation Alternatives launched an updated version of its CrashStat website today, providing a wealth of new data about street safety in New York City and where pedestrians and cyclists are most at risk. The upgrade adds four years of geo-coded data about traffic injuries and fatalities, a smoother interface, and a wealth of interactive features.

More than 13,000 pedestrians and cyclists are injured or killed by motor vehicles in the city every year, according to state DOT data, and CrashStat puts information about those crashes at New Yorkers’ fingertips. If you want to know which streets in your neighborhood are most in need of safety fixes, CrashStat lets you to locate the most dangerous intersections and corridors. Before this update, the most recent data on file in CrashStat was from 2005; the new version includes information up to and including 2009.

The new version also allows users to see who is affected by unsafe streets and what’s causing pedestrian and cyclist injuries. You can filter the crash information to see where children or seniors are particularly vulnerable, for instance, or to highlight the crashes caused by excessive motor vehicle speeds or distracted driving. Users can look at safety stats by legislative district, police precinct or neighborhood, helping activists marshal data specific to their area.

“By revealing where and why motor vehicle crashes occur, CrashStat gives all New Yorkers the information they need to demand better enforcement of our traffic laws,” said TA director Paul Steely White in an announcement about the upgrades. “This is critical to changing behavior on our streets.”

According to the new CrashStat data, the most dangerous intersection for pedestrians in the city is the corner of Park Avenue and 33rd Street, where 163 crashes injured pedestrians from 1995 through 2009. However, safety improvements at that intersection put into place in 2008 reduced total injuries at that intersection by 74 percent.

Crash data is also supposed to be provided monthly by the NYPD under a law passed by the City Council last winter. City Council Member Jessica Lappin’s “Saving Lives Through Better Information” bill required the police to provide regularly updated crash data searchable by intersection. The NYPD only put its first month’s worth of crash data online last night in response to questioning by the New York Daily News.

Considering that streets and sidewalks make up 80 percent of New York City’s public space, the pedestrian plazas, car-free spaces, neighborhood bike networks and world-class bicycle lanes you have created are vital to the public health of our city. In piloting Safe Routes to School and Safe Streets for Seniors programs, reducing car hours in our largest parks and producing events like neighborhood play streets and Summer Streets, you are pioneering the redistribution of our public space for health’s sake.

While one can imagine a tsunami of ink engulfing the city if over a hundred doctors and other providers had joined up to condemn bike lanes and public plazas, with media types refusing to print a positive word about measures that are making streets safer, it will be quite a feat if this ringing endorsement pierces the news cycle.

Read the text of the letter after the jump; see the original with signatures here.

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

We, the undersigned medical professionals, write to acknowledge and encourage your efforts to calm traffic and make New York City streets safer for bicyclists and pedestrians. As a result of your efforts, from re-envisioning Times Square to building the first protected bicycle lanes in the U.S., more New Yorkers are biking and walking than ever before. Mayor Bloomberg, we urge you to continue to set ambitious goals for how our streets and public spaces can help make all of New York City more healthy and safe.

Considering that streets and sidewalks make up 80 percent of New York City’s public space, the pedestrian plazas, car-free spaces, neighborhood bike networks and world-class bicycle lanes you have created are vital to the public health of our city. In piloting Safe Routes to School and Safe Streets for Seniors programs, reducing car hours in our largest parks and producing events like neighborhood play streets and Summer Streets, you are pioneering the redistribution of our public space for health’s sake.

These changes help pave the way for a city that breathes cleaner air and is in better physical condition. Commuting to work by bicycle or increasing the distance of daily walks has been shown to promote weight loss better than any exercise program or medication we could prescribe. Vital to fighting the epidemics of asthma and obesity is the opportunity for children to have safe places to play and clean air to breathe. The traffic calming infrastructure you have built is as valuable as a playground toward encouraging active youth and instilling healthy habits that will last a lifetime.

Thanks to your leadership, bicycling is the fastest growing mode of transportation in New York City and pedestrian safety is at an all-time high. Mayor Bloomberg, we enthusiastically support your efforts to improve bicycling and walking in New York City. As you shape your legacy, please continue to make safe, complete streets part of the prescription for a healthy New York City.

Transportation Alternatives counted cyclists at three locations: one with no bike lane, one with a painted bike lane, and one with a protected bike lane. More cyclists used the safer lanes, which also had a narrower gender gap. The count at Sixth Avenue was taken from 8 - 10 a.m. and the counts on Seventh and Second Avenues were taken from 5 - 7 p.m.

One of the best ways to narrow that gap, many experts agree, is to create space to bike separated from motor vehicle traffic. New bike counts from Transportation Alternatives provide a bit more support for that theory in the New York City context.

T.A. tracked the number and gender of cyclists at three Manhattan locations over two-hour spans. On Seventh Avenue at Charles Street, cyclists had to ride in mixed traffic; on Sixth Avenue at 26th Street, cyclists could ride in a painted bike lane; and on Second Avenue at 9th Street, cyclists enjoyed a protected lane separated from traffic by parked cars.

As the roads offered more separation for bikes, T.A. counted dramatically more cyclists using them. The effect was particularly dramatic for women: Only 15 percent of the cyclists on Seventh were women, compared to 32 percent on Second.

Those aren’t apples-to-apples comparisons — the share of female cyclists might vary based on the neighborhood in addition to the street design. More telling, perhaps, is a comparison of T.A.’s counts on Second Avenue to older data from the Department of City Planning.

DCP tracked the gender gap of cyclists on Second Avenue two blocks further south, at 7th Street, from 2000 to 2008. During those years, Second Avenue had a buffered bike lane, but not the physically separated one implemented by NYC DOT in 2010. Over the DCP study period, there were an average of 3.74 men riding the lane for every woman. In 2008, the ratio was 3.26:1.

T.A.’s count, in contrast, showed 2.17 men riding the protected Second Avenue lane for every woman, just three years later. That’s a fast, though obviously incomplete, closure of the gender gap, and it points the way forward.

Photo: Sabrina Porter

The Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives have chosen the winners for their best and worst of New York City Transit photo contest. The top “Good Transit Scene” was “Break of Day ” by Sabrina Porter, while John Wehmeyer took the prize for best “Bad Transit Scene” with “”Reassuring? Not so much!”

Photo: John Wehmeyer

Porter and Wehmeyer will each receive a 30-day MetroCard. Check out honorable mentions here.

“These photos show our transit system at its best — and its worst,” said TA Executive Director Paul Steely White. “It’s time we had more of the former and less of the latter. The winning photos shine a spotlight on the real-world consequences of transit funding cuts and remind us what we stand to lose if nothing is done.”

Not to diminish Wehmeyer’s victory, but White reminds us of another transit tableau that is sure to go down in history as one of the most repulsive of all time:

Photo: Liz Benjamin

Pursuant to the Saving Lives Through Better Information Act, which took effect Wednesday, the department will begin posting monthly updates on summonses and crashes, differentiated by mode of travel and contributing factors and broken down by precinct and borough. Eventually, crash data will also be mapped.

The first data dump is limited to summonses, issued in May and in the year to date. At first look it appears that NYPD is concentrating on cell phones and seat belts — with 81,639 and roughly 82,000 summonses, respectively, handed out this year. Meanwhile, only 36,660 drivers have been ticketed for speeding citywide as of the end of May, and the vast majority of them were cited by the Transportation Bureau, which includes NYPD Highway Patrol. When you drill down to the neighborhood-level data on local streets, speeding enforcement is almost non-existent.

In Manhattan’s 34th Precinct, where I live, no speeding tickets were issued in May. The number of drivers cited for speeding so far in my precinct in 2011? Seven, or about as many as can be observed whipping down a neighborhood block every minute or two on any given day.

Officers with the 94th Precinct joined TA's bicycle ambassadors to hand out flyers at a dangerous intersection in Williamsburg. Photo: Transportation Alternatives

The value of this information can hardly be overstated, and we wouldn’t have it without Transportation Alternatives and Jessica Lappin, who shepherded this bill through City Council. There’s a reason advocates have for years pushed to make crash data available to the public. Says TA: “Formerly, traffic’s chaos was anecdotal; vocal citizens storytelling too many crashes and nary a summons in response. Now the NYPD is required to publish exactly what they do to curb dangerous traffic. New York City is a safer place than it was 20 years ago because of NYPD crime data: analyzed, transparent, published. Now, with traffic data published too, TA expects equivalent reduction in traffic’s danger.”

Another positive development is the collaboration between TA and NYPD to use traffic data to promote safety. Officers from the 94th Precinct in Brooklyn joined TA Wednesday in handing out flyers to pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers at North 6th Street and Kent Avenue, an intersection revealed by traffic stats to be particularly dangerous. TA will also be coordinating with neighborhood advocates to discuss data at precinct community council meetings this summer.

The transit photo contest held by the Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives has moved into the final round. Five finalists have been selected for the photo that most captures New York City’s transit system at its best, and five have been chosen to represent the system at its worst. You can vote for your favorite here.

The winning photographers will each receive a free monthly MetroCard, while the winning photographs will be used in an ad campaign making the case for better transit, so choose carefully.

Not to influence your vote or anything, but I voted for the two photographs above. In the “best of transit” category, I thought this shot of light streaming onto a subway was just beautifully composed, though the image of three boys showing off for the camera best represents my favorite moments on the train. In the “worst of,” I had to vote for the picture of sludge piled up at the Canal Street station; that station is right next to Streetsblog HQ, so that pick was personal. Let us know in comments which you voted for.

Be sure to check out the full photo galleries as well. Some of the best photos in each category didn’t make it into the final round at all, and they’re well worth a look.

New Yorkers are killed in traffic crashes at a far higher rate than residents of peer cities. Bringing New York's traffic safety into line with Berlin or Paris would save more than 100 lives per year. Image: Transportation Alternatives

Traffic deaths need to be treated as an ethical imperative to save lives, said representatives from Transportation Alternatives, the Drum Major Institute, and the medical community today at the public release of the new report, “Vision Zero” [PDF].

“It is simply unacceptable for people to die in traffic,” said T.A. Executive Director Paul Steely White, who called for the number of fatalities and serious injuries caused by traffic crashes in New York City to be brought to zero by 2030.

New York City has made impressive gains at improving traffic safety over the last decade, and has the safest streets in the United States. Yet compared to international leaders, the city still lags. In New York, 190 people are injured in traffic crashes on city streets every single day. Ten of them suffer life-altering injuries, losing a limb, perhaps, or receiving traumatic brain damage. Every 35 hours, someone is killed.

“These are all preventable injuries and preventable deaths,” said Mt. Sinai pediatrician Michael Chatham Stevens. “As the CDC [Centers for Disease Control] says, this is a winnable battle.”

To save lives and prevent as many serious injuries as possible, the report authors argue, New York City needs to first comprehend and then communicate the moral implications of allowing violent traffic crashes to continue, when available solutions have already been demonstrated and proven. While dramatic reductions in traffic deaths are within reach, the necessary changes require a coordinated response — including engineering, enforcement, and legislative actions — that cannot succeed without widespread public understanding and buy-in. At a time when local electeds are mobilizing against proven safety measures, the Vision Zero report suggests that the moral necessity of stopping preventable deaths and injuries should guide a campaign to capture the public imagination and sustain political commitment.

The report calls for the mayor to make a high-profile speech committing the city to a “vision zero” policy where traffic deaths are no longer tolerated. Right now, said White, life-saving traffic redesigns are routinely weighed against the convenience of an additional parking space. “By adopting Vision Zero,” he said, “we put this on a moral plateau.”

More New Yorkers died in car crashes over the last decade than were murdered with guns.

The Vision Zero approach earned the support of many members of the medical community. “Street safety is a major public health concern,” said Dorian Block of the New York Academy of Medicine. In addition to saving lives directly, said Block, safer streets would help promote physical activity, reduce chronic diseases, and make it easier for New Yorkers to age in place.

Vision Zero would mark a radical acceleration of the city’s street safety goals. While the city is currently committed to halving the number of traffic deaths by 2030, White called for eliminating deaths and serious injuries entirely by that time. Halving the number of traffic deaths should happen in the very near future, said White.

Cutting the number of road deaths in half is an eminently achievable goal, the report shows. Cities like Berlin, Paris, and Tokyo already have achieved traffic fatality rates half of New York City’s. “The cost of inaction is 100 lives a year,” said the Drum Major Institute’s John Petro. “We need to accelerate the schedule.” Paris cut its traffic fatality rate in half in only six years, pointed out Petro.

“We can in fact achieve Vision Zero,” said White. While certain interventions have had dramatic results (20 mph speed zones reduced road deaths and injuries in London by 42 percent, according to the report, while speed detectors reduced fatal crashes by 65 percent where installed in France), the goal of zero serious injuries in traffic crashes has not been achieved elsewhere. After Sweden launched Vision Zero as a national campaign in 1997, traffic deaths fell 34 percent by 2009. The country has pushed back its initial goal of achieving zero deaths, shifting the target date from 2020 to 2050.

After the event, White said that Vision Zero could serve as more of an ethos than an achievable goal. A good model, he said, might be construction site safety or air travel. When people are killed while repairing a road or in an airplane, said White, “heads are rolling, there’s an investigation.” Vision Zero might not eliminate serious traffic injuries, but it can mean that no serious injury is ever again considered acceptable.

“No family should have to endure the pain and sorrow that myself and others have had to suffer,” said David Shepherd, whose fiancee was killed by a speeding hit-and-run driver while walking in the Bronx in 2009. “We need the mayor.”

The Drum Major Institute and Transportation Alternatives today called on the city to step up efforts to reduce vehicular deaths, and implored the Bloomberg administration and the New York City Council to change the widespread “culture of acceptance” that leads many New Yorkers to view thousands of preventable, life-altering injuries as an inevitable byproduct of urban traffic.

“Vision Zero: How Safer Streets In New York City Can Save Over 100 Lives A Year” reveals that between 2001 and 2009 more people were killed in New York traffic than fell victim to gun homicides. On average, one person dies every 35 hours in a city traffic crash, while every year some 70,000 are injured.

DMI and TA were joined by health care providers and victims of traffic violence at Essex and Delancey Streets, the most dangerous intersection on Manhattan’s East Side, to announce the release of the report, which draws on technical studies from the World Health Organization, World Bank, the European Conference of Ministers of Transport and others.

“Inaction comes at a heavy human cost,” said DMI’s John Petro. “If New York’s roads were as safe as Paris or Berlin’s, we’d save over one hundred lives every year. It’s time that we as a city rethink the way that traffic fatalities seem to be accepted as a matter of fact in New York. It doesn’t have to be this way. We know because other cities have done it.”

You can find the report here. We’ll have more on its recommendations and this morning’s event later today.

This gorgeous photograph of the Beverley Road subway station in full bloom, brought to our attention by Brownstoner, somehow manages to make peeling paint look beautiful. Photo: flatbushnelson via Flickr

We often describe the importance of transit in numbers, like the fact that 54 percent of New York City households don’t even own a car. But even the most convincing stats can get a little dry. To help capture what the subways and buses mean to a city where the transit system is the closest thing to a shared experience for eight million people, the Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives are launching a photography contest. A picture is worth a thousand words, after all.

The contest will feature two categories: the things we love about transit — only-in-New York juxtapositions, for instance, or the system’s speed and ease — and the problems that make us fed up with the MTA. The winners will be featured in an ad campaign intended to make the case for better transit, said Straphangers Campaign Coordinator Cate Contino, while photos showing specific problems, like the mysterious dripping at certain subway stations or the shuttered bus stop a community once depended on, will be sent along to the MTA in the hopes of resolving the issues.

“We know that the MTA has been forced to make some really tough choices,” said Contino, explaining the goal of the ‘bad transit scene’ category. “We want to capture these declines that we’re seeing mostly anecdotally.”

The winners will each receive a 30-day unlimited MetroCard. To enter, submit your photos at straphangers.org by June 10.

In driver-on-pedestrian crashes, a few miles per hour can be the difference between life and death. Graph: Transportation Alternatives

Legislation allowing the city to curb deadly driving through the use of speed enforcement cameras will soon resurface in Albany.

A bill introduced last year called for a pilot program of 40 cameras, to be installed at crash-prone city intersections. Photographs would be taken of license plates (not of drivers), and tickets issued to vehicle owners. Tickets would not result in license points and could be contested in court. The bill included a five-year sunset provision.

A spokesperson for Manhattan Assembly Member Deborah Glick, sponsor of the original bill, told Streetsblog a draft is now being prepared for the current session.

In the meantime, Transportation Alternatives has been drumming up support, finding receptive audiences across the boroughs. Says TA’s Lindsey Ganson:

Five resolutions in support of using speed cameras in NYC have already passed full community boards — in Manhattan, Community Board 2, 4, and 7; in Staten Island Community Board 2; and in Brooklyn Community Board 7.  Many other community boards are in the process of showing their support. The transportation committees of Staten Island’s Community Board 1, Manhattan Community Boards 11 and 12, Bronx Community Board 4 and Queens Community Board 8 will be presenting resolutions to their full boards at their next meetings.

Speed cameras have the endorsement of NYPD, NYC DOT, and the city’s Department of Health. And with good reason. Speeding-related crashes killed 71 people in New York City in 2009, and injured 3,739. Not only have cameras have proven to be a potent deterrent — reducing the number of drivers speeding by 10+ mph by up to 88 percent, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety — they offer a cost-effective means of enforcing the law, and allow police departments to direct manpower to other crimes.

“Safe speed detectors will save lives,” Ganson says. “In New York City speeding is the number one cause of deadly crashes, claiming more lives than drunk driving and distracted driving combined. Speed detectors have cut speeding and reduced crashes in the 89 U.S. communities in 14 states where they’ve been authorized.”

Manhattan’s Tom Duane sponsored last year’s Senate version of the speed camera bill. He could not be reached for comment as of this writing.

The guide includes tips on each step of the process, from choosing what to measure (speeding, though dangerous, is hard to measure without a radar gun) to targeting the right officials (don’t go for your police precinct’s commanding officer but his number two, the executive officer). The toolkit includes form letters for writing to your community board chair and City Council member, templates for counting traffic violations, and survey questions to pose to pedestrians walking by.

“To understand why there are so many injuries and fatalities on our streets every year, we need accurate, localized data,” said T.A. executive director Paul Steely White in a statement. “The Neighborhood Traffic Monitoring Toolkit empowers ordinary people to make their communities safer.”

Of course, the toolkit is just to get activists started; you can always contact T.A. for more hands-on assistance.

The new web form looks just like a traffic ticket, so you can just copy the information onto the site, box by box. Collecting that data “really helps us get a better perspective on where to target our advocacy efforts,” explained Aja Hazelhoff, a bike advocate with T.A.

As an example, she explained, T.A. is working with a number of other cycling groups on the police ticketing of Central Park cyclists. “This helps us in our meetings with the NYPD and the city to help characterize the nature of what’s going on in Central Park as opposed to other areas of the city,” said Hazelhoff.

Soon, luckily, there won’t be quite so much need for this kind of ticket tracking. Once the Savings Lives Through Better Information Bill goes into effect, said Hazelhoff, accurate information about every traffic summons in the city will be available monthly. That summons information, though, will still only be available at the precinct level, rather than broken out into individual locations, meaning that finer-grained geographical detail will still be important to flesh out the picture of police enforcement in New York City.

In addition, T.A. is currently filing a freedom of information request with the police department to see what violations the current bike ticket blitz has been focusing on and in what locations. “We’re going to be making the argument that if it doesn’t align with safety priorities, it should,” said T.A. general counsel Juan Martinez.

Fatal crashes in one portion of Queens City Council Member Eric Ulrich's district, 1995-2005. With the new CrashStat, you could specifically map City Council districts. Image: CrashStat

CrashStat, the interactive map of cyclist and pedestrian injuries and fatalities, is one of the most important tools for New Yorkers who want to make their streets safer. Nothing else lets you quickly access the safety stats for your community or visualize the injury rates at specific intersections and streets.

Transportation Alternatives is now looking to deploy a new and improved CrashStat, adding more kinds of data and giving users more flexibility in how they access it. Currently, you can see safety stats at the borough, community district, or intersection level. The upgrade will add legislative districts, police precincts, and neighborhoods, and users will also be able to see data within boundaries they draw themselves.

The new CrashStat will also make accessible additional information about each crash on the map. T.A. already has access to information like the age and sex of the victim, the collision type, and the contributing factors to the crash, and the new platform would put that data online.

“CrashStat 3.0 would allow you, for example, to look at speed-related crashes in a specific state assembly district,” said T.A. IT director Mike Infranco. That could allow local residents to petition their representative to support speed cameras. If most pedestrian injuries in a particular neighborhood were caused by motorists failing to yield at an intersection, said Infranco, that could inspire a community group to request leading pedestrian intervals.

Separate from the upgrade, T.A. is currently adding 2006-2008 data to CrashStat. CrashStat 3.0 would integrate 2009 and possibly 2010 crash data. T.A. also wants the new CrashStat to be embeddable onto other websites.

T.A. is currently asking for proposals from developers to build the new CrashStat. The deadline to submit a bid is February 28.