Streetsblog New York City

Earlier this week, Laurence Renard was killed as she crossed First Avenue when a dump truck driver turned into her path from 90th Street, hitting her from behind. Renard was one of at least six pedestrians and cyclists who have lost their lives in traffic crashes on East Side streets since last August.

People are seriously hurt and killed with terrible frequency on the East Side of Manhattan: 148 pedestrians and cyclists died on its streets between 1995 and 2008, and more than 15,000 were injured. The area is rife with wide streets and intersections that invite speeding and reckless driving. At the same time, the East Side is home to high percentages of walk-to-work commuters, car-free households, and senior citizens. East Siders lead walkable lifestyles and make many trips by foot or bike, but their streets are extremely dangerous.

Last night, more than 100 people gathered at St. Mark’s Church on East 10th Street for the unveiling of Transportation Alternatives’ East Side Action Plan [PDF], which outlines a broad vision for making this part of Manhattan safer and more livable.

In a series of public workshops, more than 600 East Siders helped TA put together recommendations to redesign their streets and put walking, biking, and transit first. The Action Plan came out of those workshops to serve as “a tool for local East Side experts to use as citizen planners, so they can educate their communities and generate the local support needed to engage decision makers around design and policy change,” said TA’s Julia De Martini Day. Dozens of community groups from Chinatown to Harlem have signed on to the campaign.

With political attacks on pedestrian and bicycle improvements fresh in everyone’s mind, the kick-off event last night was something of a rallying cry for the coalition. New Yorkers who want safer streets have to organize and mobilize as effectively as possible, a point that former Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa brought home when he told the audience that the allocation of street space “is a political decision, not a technical decision.”

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Camera enforcement of the First and Second Avenue bus lanes began today. To mark the occasion, State Senator Daniel Squadron and Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh held a press conference gathering together community leaders and taxi drivers to get the message out to drivers: Block the lane and face the fine. As Squadron and Kavanagh explained, however, drivers may enter the bus lanes to turn right or to quickly drop off or pick up passengers.

Hopefully, starting up camera enforcement will keep the bus lanes clear and allow the East Side’s Select Bus Service to run even more smoothly. Even before the cameras were turned on, the introduction of Select Bus Service had cut trip times by between 12 and 16 minutes compared to the old limited service. That’s an improvement of between 14 and 19 percent.

Said Kavanagh in a press release:

“Almost a year ago, we called on the City and the MTA to implement a true Bus Rapid Transit system along First and Second Avenues.  We’re not quite there yet, but new enforcement mechanisms like bus cameras and clarification of the rules for taxi drivers and other car users should help get us one step closer to the full transit potential of our streetscape.”

After rallying on the steps of City Hall this afternoon, Transportation Alternatives delivered 2,500 handwritten letters urging Mayor Bloomberg to complete the protected bike lanes on First and Second Avenues. Joined by elected officials and more than forty supporters, T.A. called on Bloomberg to fulfill the promise of safe walking and cycling on Manhattan’s East Side and to complete the bike and pedestrian improvements up to 125th Street.

T.A. Executive Director Paul Steely White said he’s urging the city to complete the corridor by the end of next year. To meet that goal, he said, an announcement from the city needs to come in the next six weeks or so.

A completed corridor has received strong support from the East Side. Before designs for First and Second were announced, 19 electeds signed a letter calling for protected bike and bus lanes for the length of the route. After the plan was first released with protected lanes from Houston to 125th, every community board along the corridor supported the design, said White.

The fight to complete the unfinished lanes has earned the endorsement of 39 organizations, including transportation and planning groups, environmental advocates, and public health organizations like the New York Academy of Medicine and the East Harlem Aging Improvement District.

Today, elected officials continued to press for safer cycling and walking. Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh said he was “calling on the city to finish what they started.” The city had already budgeted funds for the full corridor’s construction and received community approval for the full plans, said Kavanagh. “We don’t want bike lanes to nowhere,” he argued.

State Senator José Serrano argued that shifting street space from the automobile to biking and walking would improve health in his neighborhoods. “If we reduce carbon emissions along these stretches of First and Second,” he said, “we can reduce asthma in East Harlem.”

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“Careless driving is unacceptable.” That’s the message that State Senator Daniel Squadron and Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh delivered today as they announced that Hayley and Diego’s Law, which they sponsored and ushered through the legislature, is now in effect.

“You can suffer serious consequences,” Kavanagh warned drivers. “That has not been true up to today.”

“Careless driving is not just something to fix next time,” said Squadron.

Hayley Ng and Diego Martinez, for whom this law is named, were killed when a van driver carelessly left his vehicle idling in gear and unattended; the van sped backwards into the two preschoolers, who were walking on a Chinatown sidewalk with their classmates.

“When people are injured and people lose their lives,” said Kavanagh, “people want a sense of justice and that is not provided by a speeding ticket.” By filling the gap between tickets and felony charges like criminally negligent homicide, said Kavanagh, Hayley and Diego’s Law will allow prosecutors to give victims and their families that sense of justice.

The two legislators said they have more they would like to accomplish for pedestrian and cyclist safety. After deadpanning that “New York State law is now perfect. It’s the platonic ideal,” Squadron said that he was looking into whether legislation could help improve the enforcement of the laws already on the books. He cited Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s recent study showing that the city’s bike lanes are frequently illegally obstructed to illustrate the need for better enforcement.

On Friday evening, New York Governor David Paterson signed two bills intended to make streets safer by giving law enforcement greater leeway to bring charges against reckless drivers.

As Streetsblog readers are well aware, New York City pedestrians and cyclists are seriously injured or killed by vehicular mayhem on a daily basis, but in the vast majority of cases, the motorist remains free to get right back behind the wheel. Even on crowded city streets, it's exceedingly rare for drivers who maim or kill to face consequences more serious than a traffic ticket.

One reason prosecutors hesitate to bring charges is that the standards for proving criminal negligence or recklessness can be difficult to meet. Hayley and Diego's Law, sponsored by Dan Squadron in the State Senate and Brian Kavanagh in the Assembly, creates an intermediate charge -- a traffic violation called careless driving -- which prosecutors can use in cases where criminal convictions seem unlikely. Motorists found guilty of careless driving will have to complete a driver education course and face fines up to $750, jail time up to 15 days, and license suspensions up to six months -- or a year for repeat offenders.

"We expect that the NYPD and District Attorneys are always looking at all the different options to hold people accountable for actions that lead to injuries and deaths," said Transportation Alternatives' senior policy advisor Peter Goldwasser. "With this law, we expect that they will be able to do that to an even greater degree and create a deterrent effect."

Joseph McCormack, chief of the Vehicular Crimes Bureau at the Bronx District Attorney's office, said he would have applied the careless driving charge to Randolph Belle, the motorist who executed an illegal U-Turn on West Kingsbridge Road last week, causing a livery cab driver to veer into a bus shelter, killing one person and severely injuring several others.

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Elected officials gave plans for redesigning First and Second Avenues positive reviews today, tempered by the desire to improve the initial outline presented by the MTA and NYCDOT. They were faced with a complex project that defies easy categorizations. The proposal unveiled last night would constitute a historic re-purposing of New York City's streets -- but stop short of creating an urban corridor where pedestrians, cyclists, and transit take precedence over the automobile.

After two years of breaking new ground and raising expectations for sustainable street design -- with the city's first Select Bus Service route on Fordham Road, its first protected bikeways, and the complete transformation of Times Square -- DOT now faces pressure from elected officials who want to see an even better outcome for the majority of their constituents who walk, bike, and ride the bus.

Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh, who called the presentation "a good beginning," was skeptical of the agencies' claim that the package of bus improvements in the plan -- which did not include physically separated lanes -- would deliver 20 to 25 percent reductions in travel time.

"We want to see a rigorous analysis of the tradeoffs they're making between transit improvements and maintaining traffic flow," he said. "I think that 20 percent is optimistic... Even if we were to achieve 20 percent, I think that there may be opportunities to improve bus service even further."

The Assembly member took issue with the contention of the MTA's Ted Orosz, who postulated that illegally parked trucks would disrupt bus service in separated lanes. "Other cities, and certainly New York, can figure out how to prevent a Snapple truck from parking in a bus lane," he said. "There are certainly ways to configure this that would reduce the chance that traffic's going to block it."

City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, who represents East Harlem and parts of the Bronx, called the plan "a great start" in an email to Streetsblog, while also calling on the MTA and NYCDOT to "move forward with an even better plan."

"I am particularly encouraged by the proposed creation of protected bike lanes, which will go a long way to promote the use of bicycles," she said. "However, I urge the MTA and NYCDOT to consider including separated bus lanes into their plan for the East Side. Many of my constituents depend on the First and Second Avenue buses to get around, and separated bus lanes will make their everyday trips both quicker and safer."

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Legislation prompted by the deaths of two children in Chinatown would mandate a safety course and community service for drivers who seriously injure or kill a pedestrian or cyclist in New York State.

The bill was announced Thursday by Senator Daniel Squadron and Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh. They were joined at a City Hall presser by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, whose staff helped write the draft, and Transportation Alternatives. The "Hayley Ng and Diego Martinez Law" would establish the offense of careless driving, and would define pedestrians, cyclists, road workers and others as "vulnerable users" of public thoroughfares.

If passed, drivers who hit people with their vehicles would face "suspension or revocation of a driver's license when the violation resulted in the serious injury or death of a vulnerable user of a public way." As we read the bill, that penalty would be suspended pending the completion of a traffic safety course and up to 60 days of community service. Failure to complete the course and community service would result in action against driving privileges and a fine of up to $10,000.

"We want everybody to stand behind this cause," said Wendy Cheung, aunt of Hayley Ng. "We don’t want this to happen to anyone else. We need justice here." 

Oregon and Illinois have recently established similar "vulnerable user" laws.

While it must be said that -- considering the severity of the senseless devastation caused by reckless drivers -- the penalties prescribed by this bill would be a far cry from true traffic justice, its adoption would nevertheless be a huge step for New York State, and could lay the foundation for tougher laws in the future. After the jump, a sobering passage from the bill summary encapsulates the current "stark reality," where drivers who kill are almost always protected by lax prosecutors and weak state laws.

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