Streetsblog New York City

In the wake of the death of Dashane Santana, the 12-year-old girl killed by a minivan driver while she was crossing Delancey Street earlier this month, Lower East Side leaders are demanding safety improvements for the many pedestrians who cross this approach to the Williamsburg Bridge. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Borough President Scott Stringer, State Senator Dan Squadron and City Council Member Margaret Chin have each called on DOT to take action to prevent one more life from being taken by Delancey Street traffic.

A report from DNAinfo this morning lays out just how hostile the design of Delancey is to pedestrians. To cross Delancey at Clinton Street, where Santana was killed, pedestrians must traverse ten lanes of moving traffic in just 22 seconds.

That’s far less crossing time than pedestrians have at some of the city’s most notoriously dangerous intersections, which DNAinfo went out and measured. Reports DNAinfo’s Julie Shapiro:

For example, pedestrians crossing the eight-lane Queens Boulevard at Union Turnpike have a full 30 seconds to make it to the other side.

People traversing the six-lane Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard at 145th Street have 40 seconds, nearly double the crossing time on Delancey Street.

Other busy intersections with longer crossing times than Delancey Street include West Street at Albany Street, where pedestrians have 31 seconds to cross eight lanes; Houston Street at Essex Street, where pedestrians have 30 seconds to cross eight lanes; 12th Avenue at 23rd Street, where pedestrians have 34 seconds to cross six lanes; Ocean Parkway at Church Avenue in Brooklyn, where pedestrians have 45 seconds to cross 10 lanes; and Atlantic and Flatbush avenues in Brooklyn, where pedestrians have 60 seconds to cross four lanes.

DNAinfo’s report also includes the above video, which includes an interview with one of Santana’s schoolmates.

The area’s elected officials are primarily calling for pedestrian crossing times to be extended, a move that would surely make it easier to cross. Shrinking Delancey down from ten lanes should also be on the table; no matter how long the light is, that’s a wide street to ever cross safely.

DOT will present its plan for improving Delancey Street next Wednesday.

Just one of the many problems with running an interstate highway through the heart of an urban area is what to do with the on-ramps and off-ramps. Motorists accustomed to freeway speeds, or eager to reach them, can drive more aggressively than normal and without as much regard for pedestrians and cyclists. At one on-ramp to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, where increasing numbers of people are crossing to reach the new Brooklyn Bridge Park, DOT hopes to make things safer with a new intersection design and an end to right turns on red [PDF].

DOT proposes putting a new traffic island in the middle of the Atlantic Avenue/BQE on-ramp. The island cuts the crossing distance for pedestrians, previously 80 feet, into two pieces, creating a safer path for those headed to the park.

Extending back from the island will be a line of bollards and striping to more clearly divide the right turn lane from the through lane: no more right turns from the left lane. The drivers waiting in the right turn lane will also have to wait for a proper green light to turn onto the highway. The intersection had been one of the few in the city where right turns on red were allowed, though only during the morning rush.

Last year, DOT reduced the right-turn-on-red hours at the on-ramp, but neighborhood leaders including City Council Member Brad Lander and State Senator Dan Squadron continued to push for additional safety upgrades.

Read more…

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.”

There’s a University of Maryland study making the rounds today that links pedestrian fatalities with the wearing of headphones — a three-fold increase over the last seven years. Judging from the breathless headlines, the causation is clear. “Study Shows Sharp Rise in Accidents Involving Tuned-Out Pedestrians,” reads the Chicago Tribune. “Fatal Distraction,” says MSNBC. “Music to Die For,” sneers the Post.

But a closer look reveals some major caveats. First, the study relied on notoriously unreliable media reports to come up with 116 cases, between 2004 and 2011, in which pedestrians were killed or injured while wearing headphones (total U.S. pedestrian deaths during those years numbered in the tens of thousands). The majority of victims cited in the study were struck by trains, not cars, which as much as anything could call into question the perils of walking on train tracks — or the need for safer pedestrian thoroughfares.

Researchers noted that the overall use of headphones probably increased during the study period. If the study has any evidence that not wearing headphones is safer than wearing headphones, none of the press accounts we’ve seen have picked it up.

Then there’s this detail, reported by NPR:

The study is not the last word on the subject, the researchers concede. Because the data are drawn from media reports, they cannot say conclusively whether accident victims might have also had mental problems or drivers might have been at fault, for example.

Come again? With no accounting for driver error, this study isn’t worth the paper its printed on. In taking motor vehicles and their operators out of the equation, you might as well pin pedestrian deaths on Chuck Taylor tennis shoes or Orbit chewing gum.

Even if you start from the premise that the onus is on pedestrians to protect themselves from powerful multi-ton vehicles, the findings here are suspect at best. And though lead author Richard Lichenstein acknowledges that the study is basically a conversation-starter, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Stories like the ones circulating today lend credence to the idea that traffic crashes are as unpreventable as natural disasters, and the best we can do is remain vigilant and hope we don’t die. When a paper like the New York Post sees a chance to pen a victim-blaming headline, it doesn’t sweat the small print.

We have a late breaking addition to the Streetsblog calendar. Tonight the transportation committee of Brooklyn Community Board 14 will be discussing DOT’s plan to add more pedestrian space and realign the intersection of Parkside Avenue and Ocean Avenue at the southeast entrance to Prospect Park [PDF]. The redesign will be made possible by relocating a park loop entrance for cars from this intersection to Lincoln Road. An average of 20 people are injured in traffic at this location every year, and the project is expected to cut that number in half.

Neighborhood residents campaigned long and hard for safety improvements here, but Community Board 14 has a spotty record on livable streets. If you live in the area and want to see this project move forward, tonight’s meeting gets underway at 7:00 at 810 East 16th Street, by Avenue H.

Last month we noted that Ray Kelly’s NYPD made a highly visible show of bike enforcement in Prospect Park in response to a pair of crashes where cyclists injured pedestrians. Normally, police don’t react so decisively to locations with high crash rates, but in Prospect Park, the 78th quickly handed out more tickets to cyclists at one spot than they do to speeding motorists in the whole precinct in an average month.

If only NYPD targeted the most dangerous intersections with similar vigor. Streetfilms’ Clarence Eckerson and Streetsblog publisher Mark Gorton went out to Canal and Lafayette, which saw 13 crashes in the month of August alone, to see how traffic is being policed. Here’s what they found.

After years of neighborhood activism, the Department of Transportation plans to install much-needed safety improvements at the dangerous intersection of Ocean Avenue and Parkside Avenue, at the southeast corner of Prospect Park. By closing a park entrance to automobiles, DOT will simplify the intersection and shrink the space dedicated to traffic, preventing an estimated ten injuries per year [PDF].

On average, 20 people are injured every year at the corner of Ocean and Parkside, placing it in the top two percent of the most dangerous intersections in Brooklyn, according to the Department of Transportation. The juncture of two wide avenues is complicated by the further intersection of a park drive entrance. The five-point intersection is right next to a subway station; thousands of people cross the street to get to the train every say.

Neighborhood residents have been pushing for a safety fix for years; Streetsblog first covered their campaign in 2008. Now, the redesign is set to be put in place by July, 2012, according to local activist Carrie McLaren, who attended a meeting about the project with DOT Tuesday night.

The key to the safety improvements is closing the park drive entrance to automobiles. That shift allows DOT to create some new pedestrian space and realign the heavily-traveled crosswalks. By putting the crosswalks closer to the points where drivers execute their turns, the redesign should make motorists more aware of people walking across the street. That should help reduce the incidence of dangerous failure-to-yield violations: More than half of the pedestrian crashes at the intersection took place when the pedestrian had the walk signal.

All told, the redesign will shrink the space between the crosswalks from around 6,900 square feet to 3,400 square feet. DOT is predicting big safety gains: By their estimate, the number of crashes and injuries should drop by half, preventing ten people from being injured every year.

“I’m thrilled with the plan because it closes off the park entrance to cars, shrinks the intersection, and makes it much easier for everyone involved to travel safely,” said McLaren.

Read more…

It was supposed to happen circa 2005. Then in 2009. Now the city says the restoration of a crumbling block-long staircase that serves as a pedestrian-only street in Inwood will be finished by summer 2013.

The 215th Step-Street connects Broadway to residential blocks at Inwood’s northern end. For years its cracked stairs and broken lamps have posed a hazard — neighborhood residents have been asking the city to rebuild it since at least 1999. In 2007 a woman tripped on a hole in the stairs, cutting her legs and face, prompting renewed calls for action.

In 2008, DOT officials and then-Assembly Member Adriano Espaillat announced that a reconstruction project would be completed the following year. Instead, in the summer of 2009 the city backed off its pledge.

Now the Department of Design and Construction says plans are moving forward.

“The project is in Final Design and that phase is scheduled to be completed by July 2012,” a DDC spokesperson told Streetsblog. “The project is scheduled to begin construction in FY 13.”

While the news is promising, Inwoodites could be forgiven for not holding their breath.

The Department of Transportation presented the findings [PDF] of its five-year study of transportation in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood at a packed public meeting last night. The massive transportation analysis included many critical projects that have already been announced, such as the 34th Street Select Bus Service route and extensions of the protected bike lanes along Eighth and Ninth Avenue, as well as a full slate of new improvements for the neighborhood, from signal retimings meant to improve pedestrian safety to new plaza space and a continuous sidewalk by the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.

The neighborhood study emerged from a pedestrian safety campaign conducted under the banner of the Ninth Avenue Renaissance, which started in 2006. DOT received federal funding for a study, solicited hundreds of public comments, walked through the neighborhood five times, built a powerful traffic model for the complicated Midtown area and analyzed 86 separate intersections.

Certain improvements were implemented as DOT studied the neighborhood. Leading pedestrian intervals, which give pedestrians time to establish their presence in a crosswalk before traffic gets the green light, were installed at six dangerous intersections, while pedestrian signal times were extended to provide for slower walkers.

Some of the biggest changes within the study area, which runs from 29th Street to 55th Street between Eighth Avenue and the Hudson River, are projects that have already been announced. Select Bus Service along 34th Street will speed bus trips, add new loading space and shorten pedestrian crossing distances with new bus bulbs. The extension of Eighth and Ninth Avenues, by far the two most dangerous corridors for cyclists and pedestrians, according to DOT, is expected to significantly improve safety for all users.

Other improvements, though, will be brand new. Pedestrians will again be able to walk down the west side of Ninth Avenue past the Lincoln Tunnel under DOT’s recommendation. Currently, the sidewalk is interrupted at 36th Street by an unsignalized tunnel entrance. “We would provide a crosswalk and a stop light for the traffic,” said Andrew Lenton, the project manager for the transportation study.

Another sidewalk will be restored around the corner on 36th Street. “Right now, it’s occupied by NYPD vehicles parking on the sidewalk such that you can’t even walk,” said Lenton. Under DOT’s proposal, the sidewalk and parking lane would be turned into green space.

At Ninth Avenue, the two sides of 41st Street don’t quite line up, forcing drivers to maneuver to the right and slowing traffic. By installing what they called a “mini-plaza,” DOT can smooth traffic flow while shortening crossing distances for pedestrians and creating new public space. Read more…

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.