More people are dying in traffic accidents in New York than at any other time, once again raising alarms about road insecurity in the most populated and visited US city by tourists.
In addition to armed violence, traffic accidents have been another great challenge for the new mayor, Eric Adams. This despite “Vision Zero”, a road safety plan created in 2014 by then-new Mayor Bill de Blasio, who promised to make the city safer for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists, with a goal of zero deaths by 2024.
This summer has been particularly disastrous on New York asphalt in the five boroughs. Eleven pedestrians were killed in July, including an elderly 99 year old woman, Bernice Schwartz, who was run over in the Bronx.
Four cyclists perished that same month, including Carling Mott, of 24 years old, run over on 26 July by a truck on the Upper East Side while pedaling a Citi Bike.
In addition, 15 people traveling in motorized vehicles died in July in NYC, including three Hispanic teenagers – fifteen-year-old Ashley Rodríguez and her friends the Fernanda brothers (16) and Jessie Gil (15)- in an accident on 10 July in Staten Island.
In total, 38 people died in road accidents in the month past, almost double the 15 victims of June . New York City had already experienced an increase of 38% in traffic accidents in April , NYPD warned. At the end of that month there was a tragic streak with an average of one person killed by a run over every day.
From 1 from January to 31 July of this year, about 150 people have died in road accidents, according to the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT): 71 people in cars, motorcycles or other vehicles; 62 pedestrians and 12 cyclists.
And in August the fatalities have continued, including a consciously provoked tragedy by a woman who pulled her car onto the curb Saturday in Queens, in broad daylight.
An analysis by the traffic safety advocacy group “Transportation Alternatives” found that the city of New York has registered 30 or more traffic fatalities during a calendar month only five times since former Mayor De Blasio launched the “Visión Cero” program.
Four of those months have been in the last two years. Reckless high-speed driving has increased since the start of the pandemic across the country, and there are also more riders – delivery people and strollers – on the streets. The rental and purchase of motorcycles and bicycles has been experiencing a boom in the city for some time, and many of its users disrespect the traffic lights and the direction of the roads and, in addition, have taken the sidewalks, threatening pedestrians even more, in a city who boasted of being very kind to walk.
Charles Lutvak, spokesman for Mayor Adams, argued that city and state officials have pushed a series of street safety policies this year. There they include the promise to redesign 1,000 intersections at 2022 and a move by state legislators to allow speed cameras to issue tickets at 24 hours of the day from the beginning of August.
“As we face crises of traffic violence and reckless driving across the country, the number of traffic deaths we have seen in New York City this summer is concerning,” Lutvak acknowledged to the Daily News.
But the new policies have not stopped the bloody streak and offer little comfort to those close to the victims on the streets of New York.
This month, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) reopened a stage of public consultations to launch the Program of Commercial District Tolls (CBDTP) or “congestion charges”, with a direct impact on those who travel by car through the streets of downtown NYC, which would reduce traffic and pollution.