In the complicated megalopolis of New York, with millions of pedestrians, thousands of light and heavy vehicles, and a growing number of bicycles, scooters and other micromobility devices, interacting at the same time on the streets, as is almost predictable, reports of Accidents, some with painful balances, are part of the daily records.
But although at first glance, it seems that with the appearance of more alternative means of transportation, chaos reigns and more risks for the residents of the Big Apple, the official numbers say otherwise.
New York City was the first in the country to draw up a detailed strategy ten years ago to minimize road disasters. The Vision Zero plan, launched in 2014, was the path forward to stop these tragedies based on three pillars: engineering, education and law enforcement.
Overall, in the statistics, traffic deaths decreased by more than 12%, and pedestrian deaths decreased by 45%, when comparing data between 2023 and 2013, the year before the launch of this plan.
Furthermore, according to municipal records, the year 2023, based on the data on the number of dead pedestrians, was the period with the fewest traffic fatalities in the last 113 years, if 2020 marked by the pandemic is taken out of this account, where the streets were deserted.
Against road violence
For Ydanis Rodríguez, the first Hispanic commissioner in the history of the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT NYC), the municipal agency that carries out this strategy, the City’s criterion is that drivers who go at high speed and do not respect traffic rules traffic, are “highly violent” people who put the lives of pedestrians and cyclists at risk.
“Something new in the Administration of Mayor Eric Adams is that all reports of crashes and accidents have been incorporated into the statistical data of the New York City Police Department (NYPD). “This allows us to have better precision regarding the application of the law to this very minority group of violent drivers,” Rodriguez highlighted in an interview with El Diario.
The leader of the largest municipal transportation agency in the country, considers that the Vision Zero plan, with the support of urban planning professionals, has redesigned and installed surveillance devices in road spaces that for years were a “guillotine.” Such is the case of Queens Boulevard where the trend of 25 deaths on average per year was reduced. Likewise, he reflects on how much of Grand Concourse Avenue, in the Bronx, was transformed for the safety of pedestrians and cyclists.
Other regulatory steps that the DOT commissioner associates with the reduction of traffic fatalities on the streets are the approval by the State Assembly of the reduction to 25 mph of the minimum vehicle speed in the Big Apple and the fact that since 2022 speed cameras operate 24 hours a day.
There is now a 30% decrease in irresponsible drivers in the monitored segments and also a 25% reduction in deaths in traffic accidents.
“While the trend throughout the country is an increase in fatalities. And last year was considered one of the most tragic since 1987, New York has become a role model for the measures taken to make pedestrians and cyclists safer,” said Rodríguez, of Dominican origin, who previously After occupying this high position, he had a seat on the Municipal Council, where from the Transportation Commission, he participated in laying the legal foundations for the Vision Zero plan.
The chaos of motorcycles and electric bicycles
10 years ago, when this formula was designed to flatten the curve of tragedies on the roads, the meteoric expansion of the use of electric bicycles, scooters and motorcycles was not in any equation. More than means of transportation, they are currently a means of subsistence or survival for thousands of delivery workers, who work for technological applications for shipping food and other items.
The most constant complaint that appears in various surveys is that New York residents must overcome thousands of these two-wheeled drivers on their sidewalks daily, generating a feeling of chaos at almost every intersection in the city.
For the DOT-NYC commissioner, the proliferation of these means of transportation is due to changes in society that are being understood and addressed from his office.
“Many people who complain are the same ones who want their food orders delivered quickly to their doors. Or they are part of the 80% of New Yorkers who order items through digital applications every week. Or 22%, who place orders four times a week. It was our turn to face this reality. And we are doing it by incorporating several agencies. Soon we will give the clearest details of a unique model in the country, based on the education of deliverists. But also giving responsibility to digital applications that require their workers to be faster in deliveries,” he highlighted.
Rodríguez reinforced that, as Mayor Adams has reiterated in several speeches, “the law is the law” and it must always be emphasized that driving electric bicycles and motorcycles on sidewalks is absolutely illegal.
The data:
- There has been a 36% decrease in deaths of people of color, as a result of traffic accidents in NYC, in the last two years. And there has been a 21% drop in incidences of serious injuries since 2019, according to a DOT statement regarding the 10 years of the implementation of the Vision Zero Plan.