Streetsblog New York City

Since 2009, Friends of the Williamsbridge Oval and Bronx Community Board 7 have been asking DOT to improve pedestrian safety and access to the Norwood neighborhood’s central public space. Most intersections surrounding the park don’t have crosswalks, and sections of the road surrounding the park are also missing sidewalks. Now, after years of requests from neighbors, DOT has proposed changes that would make it safer to get to the park.

Trying to get to the park? There are no sidewalks or crosswalks now, but that's slated to change. Image: DOT

Williamsbridge Oval, also known as Reservoir Oval, had 15 pedestrian injuries and 22 motor vehicle occupant injuries from 2006 to 2012, according to DOT. Over the same period, there were no bicyclist injuries, while four of the motor vehicle occupant injuries were serious.

DOT’s proposal [PDF], presented at a meeting co-hosted by CB 7 last Wednesday, would reduce the speed limit on the oval from 30 mph to 20 mph and add signage alerting drivers to speed humps and curves in the road. It would also add painted curb extensions and crosswalks at the intersections of Holt Place, Reservoir Place, and at a park entrance near the tennis courts between Wayne Avenue and Bainbridge Avenue.

While painted curb extensions are now a common tool DOT uses across New York,  unlike its counterparts in other cities, the agency doesn’t normally suggest striping crosswalks where there are no traffic signals or stop signs.

“It’s a big step in the right direction,” said Jay Shuffield, a member of both CB 7 and Friends of the Williamsbridge Oval. Shuffield thanked DOT’s pedestrian projects group for the change in tone, since advocates felt they were stonewalled by the agency’s Bronx borough office. ”They suddenly dropped their resistance to common-sense solutions here,” he said.

The proposal also adjusts the oval’s two high-traffic intersections with Bainbridge Avenue. At the avenue’s intersection with West 208th Street, the proposal adds a painted pedestrian island, and at Van Cortlandt Avenue East, it shifts parking to create a painted sidewalk that connects to a park entrance.

Nine additional parking spaces would be added on Reservoir Place as it approaches the oval to calm traffic coming from East Gun Hill Road, and parking spaces are being shifted to accommodate the painted curb extension on the oval at Holt Place.

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Crosswalks weren't striped on Katonah Avenue in the Bronx until six weeks after a repaving.

A few weeks ago, a reader sent in a picture of an intersection on Katonah Avenue in the Bronx, which DOT repaved and striped with a double-yellow line — but not crosswalks. For more than six weeks, residents crossed this neighborhood artery without painted markings, which had parents at P.S. 19 especially worried.

Our tipster recently wrote back with good news: Two days after we posted about the missing crosswalks, DOT crews were out on Katonah Avenue, putting high-visibility markings in place.

The remains of a crash scene at 2nd Avenue and 23rd Street after a vehicle was removed from the sidewalk by FDNY. Photo: ddartley/Flickr

Yesterday at approximately 6:00 p.m., the driver of a silver Volkswagen involved in a two-car crash barreled onto the sidewalk at the southeast corner of Second Avenue and 23rd Street, crashing into the front door of a Duane Reade pharmacy. FDNY tells Streetsblog that two people were transported to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. Witnesses report that the injured were vehicle occupants, not pedestrians.

Video from Streetsblog reader ddartley shows another driver leaving the scene in a dented silver Infiniti SUV after speaking with police. Streetsblog has asked NYPD for more information about the crash; we’ll let you know if we get an update. More images of the scene are available from photographer Ethan Kavet.

Fourth Avenue in Park Slope is slated for a road diet that will shorten crossing distances for pedestrians. Image: NYC DOT

For years, Fourth Avenue has been identified as one of Brooklyn’s most dangerous streets for pedestrians. Recently, DOT has been working neighborhood-by-neighborhood — in Bay Ridge, Sunset Park, and Park Slope — to redesign Fourth Avenue for greater safety. Last week, the agency unveiled its proposals to calm traffic and add pedestrian space on 28 blocks of Fourth Avenue, from 15th Street to Pacific Street.

The Park Slope proposal [PDF] resembles the changes implemented last year in Sunset Park. On most of this stretch, traffic lanes would be reduced from three lanes in each direction to two, providing room for painted curb and median extensions. The northbound lanes from Union Street to Atlantic Avenue — where motor vehicle traffic is heaviest, especially during the morning rush — will retain the existing three-lane configuration.

DOT is also proposing to daylight intersections — removing car parking so motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians can see each other better — and introduce bike corrals and planters near St. Mark’s Place, Union Street, Carroll Street, and 10th Street.

The proposal calls for restricting left turns from Fourth Avenue onto Dean, Butler, Degraw, 8th, and 13th Streets. In addition, 3rd and 9th Streets would receive left-turn restrictions, but from southbound Fourth Avenue only. The restriction at 9th Street would eliminate the dedicated turn lane currently in place at the intersection, creating space for a wider median to accommodate the high number of people walking to the subway. (The 9th Street intersection sees more crashes than any other along this stretch of Fourth Avenue.)

Medians at intersections where turn restrictions are introduced would be widened from two feet to 18 feet. Many of these wider medians are near schools — specifically P.S. 133, P.S. 118, and P.S. 124. At intersections that retain turn lanes, the two-foot medians would be widened to six feet.

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Today, Transportation Alternatives is launching CrashStories, a new website where pedestrians and cyclists can report crashes or near-misses with motor vehicle drivers on an interactive map. Developed by Hunter College city planning graduate student Aaron Fraint, the project aims to fill gaps in official data sources and offer a place for crash victims to be heard.

CrashStories asks pedestrians and cyclists to report crashes or near-misses on a map of New York City.

Data mapped by TA’s CrashStat tool, which originates from NYPD and is filtered by the state DMV and state DOT, tends to skew toward collisions with major injuries, leaving fender-benders and other, less severe crashes underrepresented in the data. “Everything else tends to get underreported or not reported at all,” said TA’s Jennifer Godzeno.

TA, said Godzeno, gets calls every day from people involved in minor crashes. ”If we can start to record that information in enough detail, then maybe we can start to intervene on streets or at intersections before tragedy even strikes,” Godzeno said.

The project grew out of a prototype developed for TA by Columbia University city planning students last year. Over the summer, Fraint was considering developing a similar tool as part of his fellowship at Hunter but couldn’t reach a broad audience to collect data. Meanwhile, TA was looking to move the prototype to the next level but didn’t have the internal capacity to develop the tool. In November, Fraint met with Godzeno.

“It was really the right place at the right time on both accounts,” Fraint said. “I don’t really have a way to reach 100,000 people the way they do.” Fraint and TA came to an agreement, and Fraint got to work. The service uses Shareabouts, a platform developed by Streetsblog’s parent organization, OpenPlans.

Fraint hopes to use the data to analyze the effectiveness of street designs. He also wants to compare CrashStories data to police crash reports. “Ideally, the same intersections would be identified as hot spots,” he said. Eventually, he hopes to launch CrashStories with partner organizations in other areas, and compare data between cities.

TA plans to use the tool as a component of its street safety advocacy, encouraging residents to enter their stories along particularly dangerous streets, providing information that can help convince decision makers to take action for safety.

“This site is a way to humanize the experience of having been in a crash or a near-miss,” while also putting the data to good use, said Godzeno. “Everybody tells us about this every day.”

Fourth Avenue could get a road diet along 13 blocks in Bay Ridge, with added pedestrian islands and curb extensions. Images: DOT

Elevated from today’s headline stack: The Brooklyn Paper has a recap of DOT’s presentation to the Fourth Avenue Task Force last week, outlining options for the major avenue in Bay Ridge. The changes include a left-turn lane at 75th Street, a concrete pedestrian island at 86th Street, and a road diet along 13 blocks that would replace a four-lane configuration with two lanes plus turning bays.

The recommendations came after a January 24 workshop [PDF] where residents said their top concerns included speeding, double parking, and pedestrian safety. DOT’s measurements back up the concerns: on Fourth Avenue between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., up to 63 percent of drivers clocked in over the 30 mph speed limit.

A source who attended the meeting says the ideas were mostly well-received, and Bay Ridge has an active contingent of neighborhood street safety advocates, led by Maureen Landers. But of course, a presentation about traffic calming in Bay Ridge wouldn’t be complete without an appearance from Community Board 10 member Allen Bortnick, who infamously lobbied to acquire the curbside parking space in front of his home. While DOT’s models show the change will have a minimal impact on the street’s automobile capacity (as engineer Dan Burden explains in this Streetfilm, road diets help traffic flow in a smoother, more orderly fashion), Bortnick saw a conspiracy. “Sadik-Khan is really Sadist-Khan, and she never met a car she liked,” he told Brooklyn Paper. “They’re duping the public.” So, mystery solved. Bortnick, appointed to CB 10 most recently by Council Member Vincent Gentile, is the one person in New York who takes Post columnist Andrea Peyser seriously.

Fourth Avenue, running six miles from Atlantic Avenue in Park Slope to Shore Road in Bay Ridge, has already received a makeover in Sunset Park, and a companion effort is underway in Park Slope. The next step in Bay Ridge: DOT will modify the plan to address feedback before presenting to CB 10. A date has not yet been set.

A tipster sends in this photo of Katonah Avenue at P.S. 19, where pedestrians have waited more than a month for crosswalks.

In early February, DOT repaved Katonah Avenue in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx, leaving a smooth black surface with no markings. Shortly after a nearby resident called 311 a few weeks ago, a crew was sent out to mark where the crosswalks should be, and the double-yellow stripe was installed. Residents are still waiting for crosswalks. It’s a particular worry at P.S. 19, where students cross Katonah Avenue daily.

“I waited several weeks, and nothing,” our tipster says. “I just called it in. They still haven’t done the crosswalks.”

The hold-up, which brings to mind the national road paint shortage of 2010, doesn’t seem to be caused by other road work scheduled for Katonah Avenue: the only road construction permit for the street is for one block of gas line work over the next month.

Streetsblog has a few inquiries in about the delay. We’ll let you know if we get an explanation.

Eight city council members have put a portion of their discretionary capital funds up for a vote as part of an exercise in participatory budgeting, which allows residents to decide how the money will be spent in their own neighborhoods. Votes in each district are approaching soon, and there’s an opportunity to support livable streets projects.

With participatory budgeting, residents of a City Council district have a say in how $1 million in discretionary capital funds are spent. Photo: Daniel Latorre/Flickr

The participating council members are David Greenfield, Brad Lander, Stephen Levin, and Jumaane D. Williams of Brooklyn; Dan Halloran, Eric Ulrich, and Mark Weprin of Queens; and Melissa Mark-Viverito of Manhattan. Each has put up $1 million in discretionary capital funds, with residents submitting ideas that will appear in early April on a final ballot, open to district residents age 16 and older.

In Lander’s district, stretching from Cobble Hill to Borough Park, there are five projects related to pedestrian safety and livable streets:

• A Safe Routes to School project at Yeshiva Torah Temimah, on Ocean Parkway near 18th Avenue [PDF];
• Extending an upcoming DOT capital project on Church Avenue by adding curb extensions at Coney Island and McDonald Avenues [PDF];
• Constructing a larger plaza space at the triangle intersection of Church Avenue, 14th Avenue, and 35th Street;
• Adding capital funds to an existing DOT project on Hicks Street, to gain concrete curb extensions and improve visibility at the intersection with Congress Street;
• Creation of a new concrete pedestrian plaza adjacent to a community garden at Van Brunt Street and Hamilton Avenue.

Lander is hosting a science fair-style expo where residents can learn more about the projects on the ballot, this Thursday from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Park Slope branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.

Council Member Stephen Levin’s office identified two projects that may be of interest in the district, stretching from Park Slope to Greenpoint along the East River waterfront:

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Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer holds a petition signed by over 500 LaGuardia Community Colllege students in July asking DOT to improve pedestrian safety along Thomson Avenue. Photo: Stephen Miller

This morning, with constant horn honking and engine noise in the background, Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer called on DOT to study and implement traffic calming improvements along Thomson Avenue in the wake of the death of 16 year-old Tenzin Drudak, who was standing on the sidewalk when a driver jumped the curb and plowed into a group of pedestrians on Monday.

Van Bramer was joined by students from LaGuardia Community College, area high school students, Community Board 2 Chair Joseph Conley, and Transportation Alternatives.

“We cannot risk our lives to come into school any more. Please do something,” said LaGuardia Community College student government president Shah Amanat.

Last July, nearly 500 LaGuardia students signed a petition asking DOT for more signal time to get across the street. In November, DOT replied, saying that the signals were functioning properly and that it would not adjust them.

“We should never, ever, ever in this city sacrifice lives or put lives at risk in order to move cars faster. That is wrong,” added Van Bramer, who called on DOT to immediately study Thomson Avenue from Van Dam Street to Skillman Avenue for traffic calming, signal retiming, and additional bollards.

In the last few years, DOT has added safety improvements to other bridge approaches, including Delancey Street near the Williamsburg Bridge, on the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge, and nearby, at Queensboro Plaza and along Queens Boulevard – but not on Thomson.

DOT said it is in the process of evaluating curb extensions at the intersection where Drudak was killed. ”The agency was already working with LaGuardia Community College to improve pedestrian safety and access at this location as part of the college’s planned expansion,” said spokesperson Scott Gastel. Streetsblog asked DOT if the agency has a timeline for implementing traffic calming measures but has not received a reply.

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In front of an audience of about 60 residents at I.S. 145 last night, city representatives and advocates answered questions about traffic safety in Jackson Heights. The forum was held in the wake of the death of 11-year-old I.S. 145 student Miguel Torres, who was run over by a dump truck driver at Northern Boulevard and 80th Street while crossing with the light.

115th Precinct commanding officer Michael Michael A. Cody speaks at Tuesday night's forum. Photo: Stephen Miller

“It broke my heart when I had to see the mother on the corner of 80th Street, hysterical because she had lost her 11-year-old son,” Council Member Daniel Dromm said. “The urgency to have this kind of forum became even more apparent.”

Organized by Dromm, the Jackson Heights Green Alliance, and Transportation Alternatives, the forum featured the council member, DOT Queens Borough Deputy Commissioner Dalila Hall, TA’s Ya-Ting Liu, and Deputy Inspector Michael A. Cody, commanding officer of NYPD’s 115th Precinct.

“Speeding, unequivocally, is the number one cause of traffic deaths in New York City,” far outpacing distracted driving, alcohol and illegal drugs, Liu said as the meeting began.

Deputy Inspector Cody, who started at the 115th Precinct six weeks ago, said the precinct has issued 39 speeding tickets so far this year. That’s on par with last year, when it issued 177 speeding tickets — about one every other day. By comparison, the precinct issued 1,090 tickets for tinted windows in 2012.

The department’s current lack of attention to speeding stands in contrast with how Cody spoke about intoxicated drivers. “A lot of times when I was a young officer, DWI was not considered a fashionable arrest,” he said. “We’ve come a long way … it’s a key part of our crime-fighting strategy.”

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