Streetsblog New York City

This sign on Park Avenue in Clinton Hill is one of 11 displays DOT puts out citywide warning drivers to obey the speed limit. Photo: Stephen Miller

It’s that time of year: DOT is breaking out electronic signage at dangerous locations throughout the city, warning drivers to slow down and obey the speed limit. Speeding was the top cause of traffic deaths in New York City last year.

The first electronic sign installed this year went in at Atlantic Avenue and Clinton Street in Brooklyn Heights, where Martha Atwater was killed on the sidewalk by an curb-jumping driver.

A sign has also gone up on eastbound Park Avenue between Washington Avenue and Hall Street in Clinton Hill, where drivers have been clocked speeding as fast as 53 mph. The Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership has been working with community groups and elected officials on a pedestrian safety plan. One of the early results is that DOT will be installing more street lights on Park Avenue, according to News 12 Brooklyn. The plan also includes a number of physical infrastructure recommendations — no word on those yet, although DOT will be removing a few parking spots at intersections to improve visibility.

DOT will be installing 11 of these electronic signs and rotating them monthly throughout the city. It looks like this year, the signs have all been set to display the correct citywide speed limit, which is 30 mph.

The end of May is an important time for livable streets in New York — and not just because of bike-share’s Memorial Day launch. On May 31, Slow Zone applications are due to DOT. Grassroots groups have been working to build support for their applications among neighbors, businesses, elected officials, and community boards — all with the goal of reducing dangerous speeding on local streets.

A Slow Zone installed last year in Corona. Neighborhoods across the city are preparing applications before the program's May 31 deadline. Photo: Stephen Miller

Speeding was the leading cause of traffic deaths in New York City last year, and the fatal crash rate increases four times faster than the corresponding increase in speed, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

Under the DOT program, Slow Zones are in primarily residential areas bounded by major barriers or streets, and cannot contain fire stations, hospitals or truck routes. In addition to the 20 mph speed limit, a Slow Zone area receives speed humps and new striping and signage to slow drivers.

A similar 20 mph zone program in London has prevented 27 traffic injuries or deaths each year, and Slow Zones have been shown to exert a spillover effect on driver speeds in adjacent neighborhoods there, as well.

Although there is no complete tally of applications underway right now, the program has remained popular since it began two years ago. “We’ve had dozens of folks tell us they’re interested in applying,” Transportation Alternatives spokesperson Michael Murphy told Streetsblog via e-mail. Last year more than 100 applications were submitted, with only 13 selected for implementation. The city’s first Slow Zone was installed in the Claremont section of the Bronx in 2011.

DOT has not said how many Slow Zones it is aiming to green-light this year, but communities are lining up to be selected. On Tuesday evening, Brooklyn Community Board 1 voted to support a Slow Zone application from the Greenpoint Renaissance Enterprise Corporation for streets near Cooper Park. Another group is proposing a Slow Zone for the area around McGolrick Park.

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The question of the Prospect Park West bike lane, posed by WNYC’s Andrea Bernstein at the Park Slope mayoral forum on Monday, may have been intended as red meat. But it’s also a serviceable litmus test.

If a candidate can’t get behind one of the city’s premiere cycling facilities, which grew from the grassroots and transformed a dangerous speedway into a humane neighborhood street, it’s a pretty good indication as to where that candidate stands on the issue of street safety in general.

So congratulations to Sal Albanese for setting himself apart from a pack of know-nothings and fence-sitters. From CapNY:

Sal Albanese, the former Brooklyn councilman who is probably the most pro-transit Democrat in the race, said he “absolutely” would have been installed the bike lane, and that there was “enough community input.”

An honorable mention to Bill de Blasio. Though he repeated the fiction that public input was lacking, said de Blasio: ”I think in practice it has worked. In the end, I think it has worked.”

Yes, Bill, it has.

It’s getting to be a task keeping up with pending City Council bills that deal with electric-assisted bikes. Legislation proposed by Council Members Jessica Lappin and Dan Garodnick would hike fines for riding an e-bike, and two new bills would reportedly shift fines away from delivery workers to their employers and grant enforcement power to DOT and Parks Department personnel, who, if the bill passes, would have the authority to confiscate bikes. Meanwhile, Council Member Brad Lander wants to establish an e-bike task force — a possible sign that lawmakers are looking to streamline the council’s seemingly haphazard e-bike offensive.

Under New York code, this man is an outlaw. Photo: NYT

One question that tends to come up when an e-bike bill surfaces, or resurfaces, is why they’re illegal in the first place. Restaurant workers do long shifts, in all weather and terrain conditions, for very little money. Not all of them are young. Why would the City Council expend so much effort to take away a tool that makes their jobs easier?

We called up Transportation Alternatives’ Juan Martinez for the lowdown on e-bikes in New York. About 10 years ago, Martinez says, the federal government passed a law that classified certain electric bikes as bicycles, exempting them from regulations that apply to street-legal motorcycles. But Albany never updated state code to reflect the change. Since electric bikes don’t come from the factory with vehicle identification numbers — because VIN plates aren’t required by federal regulations — they can’t be registered with the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

Most e-bikes used by restaurant workers weigh about the same as conventional bikes and have a top speed of around 20 mph. Yet in the eyes of the law, they are unlicensed motorcycles driven by unlicensed operators.

Martinez says the Assembly routinely passes out a bill that would bring state code in line with federal law, but the Senate has yet to pass a companion bill — not because there is opposition, but mainly because, well, it’s Albany.

And why doesn’t the City Council simply adopt a home rule message urging state lawmakers to finally make e-bikes legal to ride, like conventional bicycles? “That’s a rhetorical question,” says Martinez.

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The truck involved in today's fatal Brooklyn crash has New York plates, but does not have required crossover mirrors. Photo: Ian Dutton

Update: NYPD has identified the victim as 83-year-old Irvin Gitlitz.

Another NYC pedestrian has been killed by a truck driver, this time at the intersection of Flatbush and Fourth Avenues. The crash happened this afternoon.

The victim, a male in his 40s, was struck at around 12:50 p.m., and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to NYPD and a DNAinfo story. An NYPD spokesperson said the preliminary report “looks like [the victim] was walking between two parked vehicles.”

Streetsblog was alerted to the crash by reader Ian Dutton, who took photos of the scene. It appears as if the victim is in the street on Flatbush, slightly east of Fourth, and the trucker came to a stop in the intersection, with the truck’s trailer in the crosswalk.

One picture seems to indicate that, though the cab has New York plates, the truck is not equipped with crossover mirrors, which are designed to allow drivers of trucks like this one to see what is directly in front of them. Trucks registered outside New York are exempt from the mirror requirement, but trucks registered in New York State and operated within the city are mandated by law to have them. Trucks exceeding 55 feet in length, as this one appears to be, are not allowed on surface streets without a permit.

NYPD had no information regarding summonses, and the spokesperson said the investigation is ongoing.

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Images: London Cycling Campaign

In the last few weeks, truck drivers have taken the lives of at least two NYC pedestrians: a 6-year-old child and a 60-year-old woman. Though the physics of the crashes were different — one driver was turning, the other accelerating into a crosswalk — in both cases the driver was said to have hit a person he did not know was there.

NYC is not the only world city that suffers truck-involved pedestrian and cyclist fatalities. In London, trucks account for some 5 percent of vehicle traffic, yet their drivers are responsible for approximately half of all cyclist deaths, according to the Guardian. Most of those crashes involve construction trucks, with many resulting from a driver failing to see a cyclist while making a left turn.

At present, half the cycling fatalities in Greater London involve lorries, and about three-quarters of those vehicles are from the construction industry. A large proportion of pedestrian fatalities also involve lorries. Tellingly, the most frequent response from lorry drivers after a fatal collision is to say they didn’t see the victim in the moments leading up to the crash.

The London Cycling Campaign has proposed a new design for the urban truck — one that is lower in height, puts the driver closer to the street, and replaces “blind spots” with windows. The design is based on existing trash trucks, which are built with the safety of refuse collectors in mind.

“Already a common sight in town and city streets, these vehicles have the same low driving position and high-visibility cab seen on our Safer Urban Lorry,” write LCC staffers Charlie Lloyd and Mike Cavenett. “All we’ve done is to marry this type of cab with a lower chassis from a construction lorry.”

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Does Eric Ulrich really believe that motorists who drive at up to 45 mph on neighborhood streets “pose no threat to anybody else on the road,” as he said at a City Council hearing Monday? You be the judge.

Eric Ulrich is in favor of traffic calming, when he's not ridiculing it.

We contacted Ulrich’s office yesterday to see if he was aware that motorists have killed at least four pedestrians in his district in the last 11 months. The victims include John Eberling, 76, an active retiree killed by an alleged drunk driver; Sheena Mathew, 38, a mother of young children struck by a motorist who did not stop; Francisco Camacho, 59, hit head-on by a driver on Cross Bay Boulevard; and Rohan Singh, 47, an immigrant from Guyana left to die in the street by a hit-and-run killer.

In an email to Ulrich’s office, we asked if he knew the identities of these victims, and if he has spoken with their families. We asked if he knows that speeding is the lead factor in NYC traffic deaths, and that the probability of pedestrian death increases dramatically with motorist speed.

Ulrich has publicly ridiculed proven safety measures, and his reaction to a bloody crash outside his own district office was to tell those concerned about vehicular violence to “get a life.” In light of his performance on Monday, his opposition to speed cameras, and previous dismissive remarks regarding street safety, we also asked what Ulrich is doing to reduce traffic deaths in his district, assuming he considers them an issue.

Here is his response, in its entirety:

First, let me begin by thanking you for your concern for the safety of my constituents. I share this concern and want you to know that I am committed to ensuring the safety of pedestrians, motorists and cyclists alike — not only in my district but across the five Boroughs. I believe that greater traffic enforcement by the NYPD and installing traffic calming measures such as speed bumps and stop signs in speed prone locations is the best way to achieve this goal. If the State Legislature approves the use of speed cameras, I believe they will be used primarily as revenue generators for the city’s coffers. Therefore, I am opposed to Res. No. 916-A and will be voting “no” at tomorrow’s stated meeting.

Strip away the platitudes and what we know for sure is that, once again, Eric Ulrich opposes definitive action to reduce crashes and save lives.

The Wall Street Journal yesterday published the results of a study on how sensitive kids and adults are to the sounds of oncoming vehicles. The findings should be a wake-up call to parents of young children in NYC, where speeding in the vicinity of schools is rampant.

Marty Golden doesn't want speed cameras near NYC schools, where motorists are putting kids' lives at risk.

Using headphones to listen to the sounds of a car approaching at 5, 12, and 25 miles per hour, participants pressed a computer key when they heard the vehicle, when they identified its direction, and when they thought it had arrived at their location. From the Journal:

Adults detected the car significantly earlier than children, though 8- and 9-year-olds heard the car before 6- and 7-year-olds. Adults detected the vehicle traveling at 5 miles per hour at a distance of about 48 feet, compared with 35 feet for younger children and 41 feet for older children. On average, the vehicle was significantly closer to children than adults when it was detected.

Researchers found that the car was detected earlier at 25 mph, when the noises were loudest, but noted that pedestrians have less time to react to faster-moving vehicles, which are more likely to cause serious injury and death. The study said that the detection abilities of kids age 10 and older tend to resemble those of adults. “Older children were better than younger children at determining when a vehicle had arrived at their location,” the Journal said.

The Journal points out that the study did not include environmental sounds that pedestrians usually are exposed to, in addition to car noise.

The study was published by Accident Analysis & Prevention, and was funded in part by Nissan.

More than 13,000 children ages five to nine are struck by motorists while crossing the street in the U.S. every year, according to figures cited by the Journal. According to crash data compiled by Streetsblog, at least six kids under the age of nine have been killed by NYC motorists since March 2012. Speeding was the leading factor in fatal NYC crashes last year.

Streetsblog has an message in with Golden’s office concerning his reported campaign to keep speed cameras out of NYC.

(h/t to krstrois)

This afternoon, the City Council’s transportation committee held a hearing on resolutions asking Albany to move forward on two street safety initiatives: legislation allowing New York City to start a speed camera demonstration program, and a bill to close a loophole in the state’s careless driving law. Votes on the resolutions are expected at the full City Council meeting on Wednesday.

Eric Ulrich: Speeding drivers "pose no threat to anybody else on the road." Photo: City Council

Most of the hearing today was consumed by heated rhetoric about speed cameras.

Two camps became instantly clear. On one side are council members who support automated enforcement, led by Jimmy Van Bramer of Queens and committee chair James Vacca of the Bronx, who had the backing of advocates including Transportation Alternatives and Tri-State Transportation Campaign. On the other side sat the considerably noisier opposition, led by council members Dan Halloran and Eric Ulrich, both of Queens, backed by AAA New York and related lobbyists.

Ulrich, in particular, used the hearing to dismiss the dangers of speeding, saying that people who drive 10 to 15 mph over the limit (that would be up to 45 mph on local NYC streets) “pose no threat to anybody else on the road.” In fact, the risk of killing a pedestrian skyrockets as vehicle speeds escalate over 20 mph, and speeding was a factor in 81 fatal crashes on NYC streets last year.

After stating that speeding is no big deal, Ulrich attacked the safety record of speed cams. “These are not proven to improve safety. The statistics are bogus. The numbers are fudged,” he claimed. Then Ulrich joined AAA in casting doubts on the city’s implementation of automated enforcement. ”I don’t believe them, and I don’t trust them,” he said of NYC DOT.

Ulrich and Halloran, like the police union and State Senator Marty Golden, say that the city should hire more officers for traffic enforcement instead of pursuing an automated enforcement program, because cameras cannot determine if a driver is drunk or has a suspended license.

Vacca and Van Bramer pushed back. “I am supporting this legislation,” Vacca said, “because these cameras can be another weapon in our arsenal.”

“It is not an either-or approach,” Van Bramer said. “It’s been done successfully in over 100 large cities across the country. There’s no reason to believe it can’t be done on the streets of New York City.”

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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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