The majority of the city’s designated bike lanes are unprotected: basically nothing more than around thee-feet wide stretches of asphalt marked by strips of paint and an occasional bike lane symbol. That has to change.
‘We should pass a state law authorizing and requiring the city to install traffic cameras wherever a person has been killed, where people have been injured, or where violations have been issued.’
The proposal is one of several included in the city’s North Williamsburg Traffic Study, which is aimed at improving traffic flow and safety.
The NYPD has bulked up the unit that investigates serious collisions. But as hit-and-run incidents have increased in number, arrests have barely kept pace. Read our print and video investigation.
‘Little of what the NYPD does in the name of Vision Zero actually fits the definition of the term. Just the opposite. Punishing cyclists with mass ticketing each time a lawful bicycle rider is killed or seriously injured by a reckless driver undercuts safety.’
When we hear about traffic crashes, there’s a tendency to question the intentions of the victim first and immediately put fault on them, instead of a reckless driver. That has to change.
A thoughtlessly opened car door knocked the author off her bike, for a year. Deeper than the asphalt wounds was a terror of cars and new insight into what a genuine commitment to Vision Zero will take, from all New Yorkers.
An op-ed: “It is long past time for everyone to admit that the NYPD is incompatible with safe streets. They cannot be reformed in any meaningful way. Wherever possible, their enforcement should be eliminated.”
Vision Zero is edging us closer to a pedestrian-safe city. But New York won’t get anywhere near that goal until we reverse decades of street design intended to make the world work for cars, not people.
Critics still grumble over lower speed limits and the use of cameras to catch offenders, but the city has seen a decrease in the number of deaths and serious injuries in traffic accidents, although the number of crashes is up slightly.
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