Streetsblog New York City

Two colleges and two high schools are located on Howard Avenue, which is plagued by deadly speeding. Photo: Erika Reinhart

Staten Island’s Howard Avenue was once known as Serpentine Road. Though the moniker was mostly due to the serpentinite in the hill’s bedrock, the road also winds and writhes up Grymes Hill, the second highest point on Staten Island. The neighborhood is home to two college campuses, Wagner and St. John’s, the secondary schools Notre Dame Academy and P.S. 35, century-old homes and breathtaking views stretching beyond the north shore to encompass Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Bayonne.

Howard Avenue is also plagued by rampant speeding and careless driving, with poor accommodations for walking and biking. According to Crashstat, since 1997, 17 pedestrians and two bicyclists have been injured along Howard from Arlo Road to Clove Road — a span of less than a mile. Now, after a hit-and-run crash claimed the life of Wagner nursing student R.J. Tillman, a budding local movement for safer walking and biking is poised to make a difference in a borough where politicians are notoriously loath to buy into complete streets.

It was on Howard Avenue that Tillman was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bicycle on February 12. During the memorial ride tribute to Tillman that I participated in last month, the crowd of 50 had to congregate on the asphalt roadway, since there was no sidewalk on the side of the street where the ghost bike was placed. Two participants had to direct oncoming traffic around us, as cars sped around the curve and honked during the proceedings.

Last Wednesday, a group determined to improve safety along on the street gathered at the Wagner College campus for the Howard Avenue Traffic Safety Community Forum. The workshop was the latest effort in a years-long campaign to get the city to make Howard Avenue a better street for walking and biking. While several requests for safety improvements from Wagner staff had been rebuffed by Staten Island DOT Commissioner Thomas Cocola over the last three years, momentum for change is growing.

Recently Cocola has signaled greater willingness to work with community members concerned about safety; two weeks ago he agreed to tour Wagner to assess dangerous locations. And Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro and local City Council Member Debi Rose both sent representatives to last week’s workshop.

They heard Wagner students and staff and local residents describe the dangerous speeding and disregard for public safety that prevails on Howard Avenue today. Laura Barlament, who works for Wagner doing communications and marketing, has taken a leading role in advocating for safer conditions. Barlament was struck by a driver while biking on Howard in June 2011. “This is just a neighborhood,” she said. “To feel unsafe on a daily basis is just not right.”

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Adriano Espaillat

I nearly spit out my coffee when I saw that Adriano Espaillat had signed on in support of the Inwood slow zone application.

See, while he endorsed Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan, the state senator from Upper Manhattan adamantly opposes placing tolls on Harlem River bridges, preferring that Inwood remain a bypass for toll-shopping motorists bound for the Bronx and Westchester.

Public remarks indicate that Espaillat is well aware of the added burden on the neighborhood, but he believes it’s worth it to keep motorists’ expenses down. He also claims that most local residents, the vast majority of whom don’t own cars, feel the same way.

So now that he’s helped make sure there will be plenty of rat-running traffic through his constituents’ streets for years to come, Espaillat is concerned about those drivers putting lives at risk as they whip past the schools, parks and playgrounds of northwest Inwood.

I can hear the horns as I type. Thanks for the assist, senator.

Interest continues to grow in the Department of Transportation’s slow speed zones, which place 20 mph speed limits on residential streets. One month after the application deadline for the program, community boards across the city continue to pass resolutions in support of slow zones.

The city's first 20 mph slow zone, in the Claremont neighborhood of the Bronx, uses "gateway" treatments to slow drivers entering the zone. Neighborhoods across the city want to be the next to get the new safety treatment. Photo: Noah Kazis

In February, Streetsblog wrote about applications or expressions of interest from Mt. Eden and Wakefield in the Bronx, Rego Park in Queens, Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and Brownsville, Fort Greene, Prospect Heights and Park Slope in Brooklyn. Those appear to be only a fraction of the neighborhoods seeking safer, slower traffic. While DOT has not officially said how many applications have been submitted, an agency representative told attendees at a Brooklyn Community Board 7 this week that the department had received over 100 from across the city.

Last week, the transportation committee of Brooklyn Community Board 1 endorsed plans for a slow zone in Greenpoint. The zone, which is sponsored by the Greenpoint Renaissance Enterprise Corporation, had strong local support even before the community board weighed in. Letters of support have already come from Senator Martin Dilan, Assembly Members Joseph Lentol and Vito Lopez, and Council Members Diana Reyna and Steve Levin, as well as a slew of local civic associations.

Eric Brazaitis, who has led the push for the zone, said that the area’s location in between three truck routes makes it ideal for a slow zone. “We get a lot of shortcutters,” he said. “The police can’t be there 24/7 to write tickets on them.” Slow zones not only lower the speed limit, but install traffic calming infrastructure that help to make the lower speed limit self-enforcing.

The application, submitted before the deadline, covers an area roughly between Graham Avenue, Morgan Avenue, Metropolitan Avenue and the BQE. ”This is a perfect candidate area,” said CB 1 transportation committee chair Karen Nieves. “We have parks, we have schools, we have churches.”

This Tuesday, the full board of Manhattan CB 12 voted to support an application submitted for the Inwood neighborhood. “It’s a lovely spot, but the roads are hilly and narrow and tempting to speeders and toll-dodgers,” applicant Dave Thom told DNAinfo. ”A comprehensive neighborhood-wide program like this to reduce speed and deter traffic might be the answer residents have been looking for.”

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Under a plan approved by four community boards, Classon Avenue would become a one-lane road for much of its length. Shown here is a proposed transition from two lanes to a one-lane configuration. Image: NYC DOT

A plan to put Classon Avenue on a safety-enhancing road diet won unanimous approval from Brooklyn’s Community Board 8 last night. CB 8 was the fourth and final community board to vote on the proposal, according to the board. Each CB supported the plan.

Under the proposal from NYC DOT [PDF], the north-south corridor will be narrowed from two lanes to one in most locations. Where traffic is heavy or DOT thinks a turning lane is necessary, as at Eastern Parkway and Atlantic Avenue, Classon will remain two lanes wide.

The roadway space previously used for the second travel lane will be redistributed to widen the parking lanes on either side of the street.

DOT’s traffic calming plan stems from a request by City Council Member Letitia James, as well as community requests for speed bumps and other safety features.

Right now, Classon is more dangerous than three-quarters of all Brooklyn corridors, in terms of severity-weighted crashes. On average, 35 pedestrians, cyclists and motor vehicle occupants are injured on every mile of the road every year. In November, a driver killed a man walking across Classon at Fulton Street.

The road will be restriped early this year, according to DOT.

A four-vehicle collision on Classon last May ended with a UHaul truck in the side of a building and three people injured. Photo: Prospect Heights Patch.

The city's first 20 miles per hour slow zone, in the Claremont neighborhood of the Bronx, uses "gateway" treatments to slow drivers entering the zone. Neighborhoods across the city want to be the next to get the new safety treatment. Photo: Noah Kazis

The deadline to apply to NYC DOT for a neighborhood slow zone is tomorrow, and groups from many different corners of New York are making their case for bringing a 20 mph speed limit and traffic calming measures to their neighborhoods.

“We are hearing from people applying for zones all over the city,” said Lindsey Ganson, Transportation Alternatives’ safety campaign director.

One exciting application comes from the Bronx Helpers, the team of middle and high-schoolers who have been fighting for safety improvements near their school at 172nd Street and Townsend for two years. The group started by asking just for a stop sign, collecting over 1,000 signatures from their neighbors. When DOT rejected their request without explanation, the group teamed up with TA, measured speeding with radar guns and counted pedestrian volumes, and changed their request to emphasize traffic calming.

Now the Bronx Helpers are working through DOT’s new slow zone program to try and get neighborhood-wide safety fixes. “We thought it was a great opportunity to expand and make the whole area more pedestrian-friendly,” said Bronx Helpers staff member Molly Berman.

The group applied for the entirety of the Mt. Eden section of the Bronx, located between 174th Street, 170th Street, the Grand Concourse and Jerome Avenue. With four schools, two daycares and a senior center in the area, it’s a neighborhood with lots of pedestrians who need safer streets.

Signing on in support of the slow speed zone are a slew of neighborhood groups and some prominent political figures. Three school principals wrote letters of support, as did a tenants’ rights organization, Bronx Community Board 4, and the Deputy Borough President, Aurelia Greene.

Also writing in support of the proposal is Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.”I believe it is clear that their proposed Slow Zone — from 10th to 174th and Grand Concourse to Jerome Avenue — is based on strong stakeholder engagement and presents compelling evidence of the need for greater pedestrian safety,” de Blasio wrote in a letter to DOT.

In Rego Park, Queens, Council Member Karen Koslowitz is championing the neighborhood’s slow zone application. The Rego Park Green Alliance submitted the bid for the triangle between Woodhaven Boulevard, 63rd Drive and the Long Island Railroad tracks. In addition to writing DOT, Koslowitz promised to bring the department on a tour of the neighborhood, said Yvonne Shortt, who has helped lead the push for the slow zone.

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An exhaustive report published in the British Medical Journal found that traffic injuries declined in London's 20 mph zones and, to a lesser but still significant extent, on the streets immediately adjacent to the zones. Image: British Medical Journal

The Brooklyn Paper ran one of its trademark neighbor-vs.-neighbor stories today, turning a weekend public workshop about implementing a 20 mph zone in Park Slope into an occasion for more conflict-driven reporting:

Greenwood Heights activists claim drivers heading south on Sixth Avenue already speed up once they cross the Prospect Expressway and hit a five-block stretch between 20th and 25th streets with no stop signs.

“It’s already treacherous,” said resident Sarah Raskin. “This would divert unsafe driving from one neighborhood to another.”

Sounds like streets in Greenwood Heights need traffic calming too. And in fact, the Greenwood Heights residents quoted in the Brooklyn Paper seem to be saying they’d welcome a slow zone that encompasses their neighborhood.

It would be great to see a blanket 20 mph speed limit — pioneered by NYC DOT in the Bronx neighborhood of Claremont — extend to many neighborhoods at once. But if Park Slope gets a slow zone before Greenwood Heights, or if Greenwood Heights gets a slow zone before Park Slope, research suggests both neighborhoods will still be better off.

The definitive piece of research on 20 mph zones was published in the British Medical Journal in 2009. Reviewing 20 years of data, researchers found that London’s 20 mph zones, a patchwork of neighborhoods that expanded gradually over many years, prevent 27 traffic deaths and serious injuries annually. Within the zones, serious traffic injuries and deaths fell 46 percent, and children sustained 50 percent fewer casualties.

Significantly, the authors reported that the data “suggests that casualties inside 20 mph zones are not being displaced to nearby roads.” And on top of that, they found a spillover effect, with traffic injuries and deaths declining eight percent in areas adjacent to the slow zones (within 150 meters, or about two NYC blocks).

Adding slow zones is not a zero-sum game.

It only took Hilda Cohen and Ali Loxton ten weeks to collect 1,600 signatures supporting a traffic-calming redesign, including a bike lane, for Brooklyn’s Lafayette Avenue. Yesterday evening they took their petition to the transportation committee of Community Board 2 and made their case. The result: a 9-1 committee vote asking DOT to study Cohen and Loxton’s proposal.

Last October, two drivers traveling at high speeds crashed at the corner of Lafayette and Vanderbilt, jumping the curb. Photo: Fort Greene Patch

There’s still a long way to go before an official redesign moves forward, but Cohen and Loxton’s impressive organizing has revived the idea of redesigning Lafayette, and it’s a great case study in how to mobilize for safer streets.

Cohen and Loxton both live in Fort Greene and bike, walk and drive on Lafayette with their kids. They told the CB 2 committee last night that the street feels like it’s geared more toward fast-moving cars than people, with two eastbound traffic lanes and two parking lanes. The galvanizing moment for them came last October, when two drivers crashed at high speeds at the corner of Lafayette and Vanderbilt Avenue, jumping the curb outside a packed church.

The next week, they started gathering signatures supporting “traffic calming and a bike lane” on Lafayette. Their regular sign-up spot was the farmers market by Fort Greene Park. Since the weekend of the New York City marathon in early November, 1,500 people have signed the petition in writing and another 100 have signed it online.

“You would just say ‘Lafayette’ and people would want to talk to us,” said Loxton. “In the cold, they would stop.”

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An intersection redesign at Ocean and Parkside Avenues will close a Prospect Park entrance to automobiles. DOT predicts the change will prevent ten people from being injured every year. Image: NYC DOT

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.

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The "gateway" treatment at Longfellow Avenue and 167th Street marks the lower speed limit with prominent signage and stenciling on the street. A new speed hump is just visible in the background. Photo: Noah Kazis

The city’s first “neighborhood slow zone” officially opened this morning, bringing a 20 mph speed limit and new traffic calming treatments to the residential Claremont neighborhood in the Bronx. Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, joined by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., City Council Transportation Committee Chair James Vacca and local District Manager John Dudley, announced that the 20 mph zones would soon be coming to neighborhoods across the city. Starting today, residents and community boards can apply for their own slow zone.

The new Claremont zone covers the roughly 35 city blocks bounded by 167th Street, 174th Street, Southern Boulevard and West Farms Road/Boone Avenue. At each entrance to the zone, street signs flank the road announcing the 20 mph limit and that it is a residential area. Inside the zone, stencils and street signs continue to trumpet the lower speed limit. Nine new speed humps have been added to five already in place, which Sadik-Khan said makes the zone largely self-enforcing. In London, slow-speed zones incorporating traffic-calming treatments are preventing dozens of deaths and serious injuries each year.

Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., City Council Transportation Committee Chair Jimmy Vacca and District Manager John Dudley announced the opening of the Claremont neighborhood slow zone. Photo: Noah Kazis

“To some people, this neighborhood is nothing more than a shortcut,” said Sadik-Khan. That attitude, she noted, has had deadly results. In the last five years, 46 people were killed or seriously injured in traffic crashes in the larger community district between 2006 and 2010. The slower speeds would restore the streets to the community, she said. “Our streets are for New Yorkers. They’re where we live, where we play, where we shop.”

“The slow zone is now one where pedestrians will feel safe,” said Diaz, who said he’d been hearing complaints about safety in the area since he served in the state Assembly. Diaz touted the fact that the program would be expanding to other neighborhoods. “This is not going to stop at Claremont,” he said.

Vacca, too, celebrated the safety improvements. “They will save lives,” he declared. In addition to the speed bumps slowing down cars, he urged motorists to respect the speed limit voluntarily. “Look at your speedometers and see how fast you’re already going, and then slow down,” he said.

The form to get your own neighborhood slow zone is already live on DOT’s website, where the agency lays out the characteristics that will lead to successful applications. DOT is looking for zones that include schools, daycare centers, senior centers, and mostly residential uses, taking up an area roughly five blocks by five blocks and set off by clear boundaries, such as parks or major roads. The city wants to keep the slow zones separate from commercial areas, bus and truck routes and hospitals and fire stations.

Applications must come from community boards, business improvement districts, civic associations or elected officials, and are due by February 3. The first round of slow zones will be selected in March, according to DOT, and installed over the course of next year.

More photos of the slow zone below:

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Londoners are asking their mayoral candidates to expand 20 mph speed limits from neighborhood zones and onto streets citywide. Photo: Stephen Kelly/PA via Guardian.

Across London, 20 mph zones combine a lower speed limit with physical street engineering and camera enforcement to create pockets of safety across the city. According to the British Medical Journal, serious traffic injuries and fatalities have fallen by 46 percent within the zones; 27 fewer Londoners are killed or seriously injured each year because of the zones. Now, street safety advocates are looking to join those neighborhood-sized zones with signage-only 20 mph speed limits on connecting streets.

While the physically calmed zones can be installed by neighborhood-level officials, the new push requires mayoral support. With London holding an election for mayor in May, 2012, street safety activists are hoping to make lower speeds limits a campaign issue. A coalition of public health, environmental, and transportation advocates have launched a letter-writing campaign to each of the mayoral candidates, asking them to commit to instituting a 20 mph speed limit. Though the major-party candidates have not yet signed on, Green Party candidate Jenny Jones, whose party won about three percent of the vote in 2008, has promised to institute 20 mph speed limits if elected.

Here in New York City, our next mayoral elections will take place a year after London’s. The race is already well underway, though. With a crowded field for the Democratic primary, candidates are jostling for support wherever they can find it. So what’s one thing would you ask the New York City mayoral candidates to commit to?