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.

We’ve queried Weiner’s office to find out, but the Times piece, more than anything, should serve as a rallying point for those who support the work of NYCDOT. Whether or not Sadik-Khan has hurt feelings or ruffled feathers, her efforts continue to make city streets safer and more accessible for the majority of New Yorkers. Period.

With the axing of the 34th Street pedestrian plaza, you can bet the haters — the “real New Yorkers” for whom pedestrians and bus riders are obstacles on the other side of the windshield — smell blood in the water. Today’s sneering editorial from the Post calling for Sadik-Khan’s job is likely but a hint of what’s to come.

Several Streetsblog readers have posted their letters to Weiner and the Times. After the jump, read what John Petro of the Drum Major Institute wrote to the congressman. At this pivotal moment, consider adding your voice of reason to what is sure to be an ongoing war of words over the very future of the city.

The Honorable Representative Weiner,

I live in an area in New York City a bit west to your House district, but I wanted to write to express my concern about your comments related to bicycle lanes as they were quoted by the New York Times on Friday afternoon. I know that you have stood up and spoken out in favor of pedestrian and bicycle improvements before, so it is quite possible that your quote was taken out of context. All the same I would like to take the opportunity to discuss exactly why recent improvements to the city s streets are so important.

I am a policy analyst for urban affairs at the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a progressive-leaning think tank based in New York City. My comments today reflect my personal opinion, not those of the Drum Major Institute, but I would like to refer to my position with this organization because I am currently researching a comprehensive paper about street safety in New York City.

Through my research, I have found that about 270 New Yorkers are killed by traffic incidents, on average, every year. For every traffic fatality, there are thousands of life-altering injuries, including the loss of a limb, chronic pain, and immobility. I have found that among our peer cities in Europe, New York City s fatality rate is extremely high. I also want to point out that the threat that street safety poses to the city s general public is on the same level as gun violence. In fact, more people are killed by traffic in New York City than are murdered by guns.

Therefore, street safety is a very serious issue. If there were about 270 fatalities at Kennedy or LaGuardia every year, I’m quite certain that we would feel compelled do something about the situation. And yet, the same number of people is being killed on the city s streets every year.

This is even more alarming given that many our peer cities in Europe have fatality rates half of New York City’s. For example, Paris halved the number of traffic fatalities in the city in the short span of six years. The interventions that reduce fatalities are well known. They aim to limit automobile speeds to between 20 and 30 miles per hour when pedestrians are present. These interventions, such as the wide-spread introduction of protected bicycle lanes, have been associated with reduced fatality rates in the cities that have implemented them, as studies in medical journals such as Injury Prevention have shown.

As a progressive, and one that has been closely watching your admirable statements on the House floor, I hope that you will take these facts into mind when developing your position on bicycle lanes in built-up urban areas. This is simply a matter of life and death, an ethical issue that should be treated with the utmost seriousness. Personally, I do not feel that 270 deaths and thousands of life altering injuries on the city s streets every year are acceptable. Given the fact that they can be avoided, as the experience of European cities shows, I cannot accept that level of violence.

If you have any questions about how I ve arrived at these conclusions I would be happy to share the academic studies and reports by organizations such as the World Health Organization which have concluded: interventions such as the implementation of bicycle lanes have the potential to save hundreds of lives every year in New York City. Thank you.

John Petro

I'm not sure that this particular set of facts matters one bit to Traffic Mitigation Commission member Richard Brodsky, who claims to represent the little guy in the congestion pricing debate, but New York City's Independent Budget Office released a report today demolishing the argument that pricing is unfair to the poor and working class (download it here).

"Commuters who use private motor vehicles to commute to the congestion zone," the IBO found, "are generally better off than other commuters to the area." The median annual earnings of motor vehicle users exceeded median annual earnings of other commuters by 30 percent -- $51,021 for motorists versus $39,247 for other commuters.

Moreover, "Motor vehicle users were less likely to be in the lowest 10 percent of earners and more likely to be in the top 10 percent." Motor vehicle users also came from higher income households -- "The median annual household income was $97,136 for those who drove to work in the proposed congestion zone and $75,550 for other commuters to the zone."

"These findings largely counter concerns that congestion pricing would disproportionately affect workers less able to afford additional commuting costs," the report concludes. A Drum Major Institute study made similar findings earlier this year.

And who are these motor vehicle users? IBO found "striking contrasts between private motor vehicle users and other commuters." Motorists are "twice as likely as other congestion zone commuters to hold government jobs" -- 19.5 percent versus 10.3 percent. About a quarter of these government motor vehicle users work in the police or fire departments. "Indeed, very few congestion zone commuters in these occupations took other forms of transportation," according to IBO. Educators represented another one-fourth of government employee car commuters, "although many other educators used alternative transportation."

Conclusion: "Commuters who use private motor vehicles to commute to the congestion zone are generally better off than other commuters to the area."

And in case you forgot, back in July, a Transportation Alternatives study found that Manhattan-bound drive-to-work constituents in Brodsky's Westchester district earn on average $176,231 annually -- the highest of any New York county in the metropolitan area. 

First of all, like many on the government payroll, he's got his own ideas about parking policy:

Already late for a meeting, he guided his deputy chief of staff, who was at the wheel, into a parking lot. "Just take the handicapped spot," he suggested, but she thought better of it and found a legitimate spot of her own.

Brodsky learned politics at the feet of Ed Muskie and Bella Abzug. He viscerally rejects the market-based, technology-driven environmental policy of congestion pricing. In his fight to maintain the free, unfettered motoring that his generation grew up with, he claims to be defending the interests of New York City's poor and working class. And though he talks, sounds and acts like the quintessential, baby-boomer, New York liberal politician, that's not how he defines himself:

A self-described progressive known for having a point of view on pretty much everything, he is also emerging as a key player in the battle over congestion pricing, Mayor Bloomberg's plan to charge $8 to drive in core Manhattan on weekdays. Mr. Brodsky does not like it.

Everyone Schuerman talks to -- even his opposition -- seems to like Brodsky and think he's a genuinely smart guy:

"Richard is an extremely intelligent guy who I believe could bring consensus to this issue if he really has an open mind," said Kathryn Wylde, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, and a member of the commission. "For him to become an advocate of congestion pricing is unlikely, but convincing him that the process of getting there is fair and the plan is comprehensive enough are going to be very important to making the commission work."

However, some suggest that Brodsky may be confused about what sort of transportation policy would actually benefit the vast majority of poor and middle class New Yorkers:

"A lot of it is lazy thinking-using the language of the middle class to put fear into a large segment of the population for the benefit of a small segment," said another commission member, Andrea Batista Schlesinger, executive director of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy. "He confuses driving with a public good without recognizing that it is the streets that are the public good."

Photo: James Hamilton for the Observer

Transportation Alternatives ("T.A."), New York City's advocate for cycling, walking and environmentally sensible transportation, has raised serious questions about the motives and efficacy of a proposed alternative to congestion pricing that has been presented to the New York City Traffic Mitigation Commission.

"It's ironic that Transportation Alternatives should have to come out against a plan primarily comprised of traffic claiming measures we support or even initially proposed," said T.A. Executive Director Paul Steely White. "However, while each of the traffic calming measured offered in the proposal are valuable, presenting them as an alternative to congestion pricing rather than a supplement to it belies logic." White questioned the motives behind the proposal, stating, "if the 'Keep NYC Congestion' group was genuinely dedicated to reducing traffic and its negative consequences on our city, it would be joining Transportation Alternatives in supporting [the proposal's] measures as supplements to congestion pricing. But finding the best way to reduce traffic has never been the 'Keep NYC Congestion' group's mission, nor is it the true motive behind their proposal. Their actual motive, and the very purpose for which they were established, is to advance their rich funders' economic interests by defeating congestion pricing. I have no doubt the Commission will see through this smoke screen."

T.A.'s analysis of the proposal concludes that while its individual traffic calming measures are valuable, even collectively, they would be nowhere near as effective at reducing traffic as congestion pricing. Consequently, T.A. predicts the Commission will find they do not constitute a viable, alternative plan unto themselves.

T.A.'s Lobbyist Chad Marlow, President of The Public Advocacy Group LLC, was more direct in his criticism of the "ticky-tack proposal," calling it "nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to save wealthy Deadbeat Drivers from paying an $8 congestion pricing fee while, at the same time, increasing demand for the Manhattan parking garage space owned by the primary funders of the proposal and the group who submitted it."

According to T.A., the proposal's many shortcomings include:

• Failing to use pricing as the "principal mechanism" to achieve traffic reduction, thereby forfeiting the $350 million grant awarded to New York City by the United States Department of Transportation and the substantial transportation improvements the grant would have paid for;
  
• Employing Manhattan-centric traffic mitigation that does nothing to reduce the volume of single-occupancy cars commuting through the Bronx, Harlem, Greenpoint-Williamsburg, Long Island City and Downtown Brooklyn;
  
• Securing no traffic reductions on major arteries and no improvements in the speed or reliability of bus service;
  
• Containing no provisions to manage traffic on the free East River crossings, thereby providing further incentive to drivers to avoid underutilized tolled crossings like the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel; and
  
• Relying on enforcement-intensive measures that have never been successfully conducted on a sustainable, long-term basis by the City of New York.
  

One falsehood contained in the proposal drew particularly strong objections from T.A.: The claim that congestion pricing "disproportionately hits the pockets of middle class and working New Yorkers." Marlow called the statement "part of a specific, continuing strategy by wealthy individuals and their hired guns to confuse middle class New Yorkers about the overwhelming, virtually cost-free benefits they will receive from congestion pricing." White concurred, noting that "the 'Keep NYC Congestion' group has no credibility on this point. After all, the group was specifically created to represent the interests of rich Deadbeat Drivers and even richer parking garage owners - none of whom are middle class or particularly care about middle class interests. On the other hand, "White pointed out, "highly credible organizations with long histories of representing and protecting middle class interests, like the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, have unequivocally concluded that congestion pricing is in the best interest of current and aspiring middle class New Yorkers."

Is Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan, a regressive tax, unfair to New York City's poor and working class?

That's what Westchester Assembly member Richard Brodsky and quite a few of the other critics claim. Before last week's public hearing before the state legislature Brodsky cited a study commissioned by City Hall showing the mayor's plan would increase the average speed of vehicles in Manhattan from 8 mph to 8.6 mph, and said to the Daily News, "Why is this worth a regressive tax on the middle class and a new invasion of privacy to go only six-tenths of a mile further in an hour?"

There are a lot of different ways to address the equity question and rebut the claim that congestion pricing is a regressive tax. Bruce Schaller did a nice job of it for Gotham Gazette. And the Drum Major Institute has made a strong case as well.

But the best case of all might be made simply by handing Richard Brodsky and his fellow State Assembly members Metrocards and loading them all up on the M14 crosstown bus, winner of last year's Pokey Award for its 3.9 mph average speed.

New York City's fare-paying bus riders account for nearly 2.3 million trips on the average weekday. As a group, they are among New York's most disadvantaged -- disproportionately women, seniors, children and the disabled. Even relatively well-off bus commuters with full-time jobs, have household incomes $10,000, on average, lower than car commuters (see chart above). While bus ridership is surging, bus speeds are plummeting. Some New York City buses travel slower than a walking pace.

When London Mayor Ken
Livingstone was mustering public support for congestion pricing, he made sure that the public and the critics knew that bus riders would be some of the biggest beneficiaries of his traffic reduction plan. Mayor Bloomberg ought to do the same.

How much will bus riders benefit? While six-tenths of a mile per hour speed increase may not sound like much to Brodsky, it adds up to nearly 14 million hours a year in time savings for bus riders, according to calculations by economist Charles Komanoff.

Applying the speed-up projected in the mayor's PlaNYC report -- ranging from 1 percent in Staten Island to 7.5 percent in Manhattan -- Komanoff estimates that once congestion pricing gets under way, bus riders annually will spend 3.2 million fewer hours waiting at bus stops and 10.7 million fewer hours stuck in bus crawl (Download Komanoff's detailed spreadsheet).

The mayor needs to develop specific constituencies that feel they will benefit directly from pricing. If the city's one million plus regular bus riders feel they have a stake in pricing, it would help create a reservoir of support outside of Manhattan. Most New Yorkers outside of Manhattan seem to perceive pricing's benefits as diffuse and its costs as very specific. This is why a proposal that costs nothing to 95 percent of the public is having political trouble.

When underdog Bill Clinton ran for president, his campaign kept itself focused with the slogan "It's the economy, stupid." Similarly, Mayor Bloomberg's slogan could be, "It's the bus riders, stu… um, Brodsky."

Photo: Birdfarm on Flickr