More and more people are dying on the roads of New York: what is the reason

In 2014, the mayor of New York, taking office, promised to end deaths from road traffic accidents by 2024. However, as of 2020, the situation has only worsened. What caused the increase in the number of deaths among pedestrians and cyclists, the newspaper writes Gothamist.

Jose Contla's story

Before 26-year-old Jose Contla was hit by a car in Brooklyn's Bensonhurst borough at the end of February last year, his wife had an unsettling feeling. “Six months before his death, all these six months, everything was perfect,” said Marisol Contla. “Once I told my mother-in-law, they say, I’m afraid that something might happen to him, because he seemed so perfect.”

Marisol and Jose met when they were 16 and 14, respectively, although Jose initially added two years to his age. He said then: “I had to lie to you, because I was afraid that you would not date me because of my age,” she recalls.

The couple moved to the mother of Jose Maria in Sunset Park and lived there for 10 years. Marisol described Jose as a hardworking and dedicated individual who earned an associate research degree from Kingsboro Community College. He worked full-time at Bensonhurst's Mexican bakery, about a block from where he died. An aspiring lawyer, Jose began attending classes at John Jay to pursue his bachelor's degree.

“We did everything together. That's it, ”said Marisol. - First we bought our first car together. Then they planned to save up money to buy a house, maybe in 10 years from now. We had so many dreams! He managed to fulfill everything that he promised me. "

Nearly 10 months after Jose's death, New York City police have still not arrested his killer. Police officials say they are still investigating, and a spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney declined to comment on the investigation.

Marisol and Jose's sister, Arleen Soto, said they were disappointed with the pace of the investigation. “They know who the driver of that fatal car is. And charges have not yet been brought against him, although almost a year has passed. It's disappointing, ”Soto said. "What other proof do they need?"

Soto said: “Drivers need to know and constantly remind themselves that pedestrians have the upper hand. These are people - people who have families. "

This year marks the deadliest year on the streets of New York since Mayor Bill de Blasio took office in 2014. He then pledged to end road traffic deaths by 2024 as part of his ambitious Vision Zero initiative.

As of December 14, 2020, 234 people have died in road accidents across the city, up from 208 in the same period in 2019.

At a recent press conference, de Blasio said the number of pedestrian deaths has risen due to the coronavirus pandemic. “Obviously, a lot more people have been driving this year,” explained de Blasio. - In the new year we will double (efforts within the initiative. - Ed.) Vision Zero, back to everything that has worked consistently over the years. "

Pedestrian deaths have dropped slightly this year from 113 to 96, the lowest since Vision Zero began.

The death rate for cycling is 24, close to 2019, which was historically the deadliest year for New Yorkers on bicycles.

On the subject: Mortality of cyclists in New York reached a historic high: what's next

This year, many more drivers and motorcyclists have died on New York City roads this year. The Department of Transportation explains this problem by the behavior of the drivers themselves, who began to exceed the speed in the early days of the pandemic, when the streets were empty.

This year, 950 speed cameras installed in 750 school zones in the city have resulted in more than four million speeding tickets. That's about double the number in 2019, although the Department of Transportation has installed several hundred more cameras this year.

However, compared to 2019, the NYPD has reduced the number of speeding tickets issued: 116 such fines were issued until November, up from 649 last year.

“Unfortunately, the pandemic has exposed our worst sides in some cases,” said Brooklyn Councilor Brad Lander. - It would seem that a sense of solidarity among people in a pandemic will make them take more care of the lives of others. However, what is happening on our roads demonstrates the opposite. "

Street safety activists argue that the Bill de Blasio administration has failed to act quickly and decisively to adjust to the pandemic. The mayor also ignored the recommendations of the transit expert group, which he used to address the challenges posed by the pandemic.

The group recommended to the mayor: to expand the area of ​​pedestrian streets and increase the number of cycle paths in order to double the number of passengers; establish 64 km of bus lanes; develop a plan to restrict traffic in Manhattan, as the city did after 11/XNUMX; come up with a "reliable communications plan" to help New Yorkers get out of their cars and find other routes to get around. “We worked for months to find these solutions, and they ignored them,” said Danny Harris, chief executive officer of Transportation Alternatives. "What we see now on our streets could have been prevented, and the mayor had a plan, but he did not act on it."

The number of cyclists in New York City nearly doubled during the pandemic. Many, for fear of contracting COVID-19, switched to two-wheeled vehicles so as not to use public ones. This is part of the global cycling boom. In Paris, the mayor announced the creation of 650 km of new cycle paths to protect cyclists.

New York, meanwhile, aims to add 40 km of protected cyclist lanes by the end of the year. Before the outbreak of the pandemic, the city planned to open almost 50 km of bike paths annually. True, in 2020, almost 60 km of bike paths have already been opened in New York.

In terms of bus lanes, the city planned to open more than 30 km of new bus lanes before the pandemic. Only 1,2 km of new bus lanes were installed this year.

This pace is explained by the fact that in connection with the pandemic, the city has allocated streets for terraces for outdoor dining.

In Flushing, local businessmen filed a lawsuit to close a bus lane and ultimately received a restraining order. They argued that the bus lane would hurt businesses already battling the pandemic, despite evidence to the contrary. “It was a very ambitious goal,” explained Eric Beaton, Deputy Commissioner for Transportation Planning and Management for the Department of Transportation. “We will continue to work next year on what we did not manage to achieve in the outgoing one.”

New York City police did not provide data on how many fatal investigations were conducted or closed in 2020 or in past years.

A 2015 report commissioned by Transportation Alternatives found that less than 1% of drivers involved in 4000 fatal accidents that year were charged with a crime.

In the same year, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law The Right of Way Law, which gave police more discretion to prosecute road traffic accidents. To date, 2020 subpoenas and 1 misdemeanor arrests have been issued by law in 906, up from 17 low-level subpoenas and 3 arrests last year, according to the mayor's office.

In 2020, more than 40 thousand New Yorkers were injured in more than 100 thousand road accidents.

Street safety advocates argue that the Right to Road Act is often not enough to hold reckless drivers accountable, as NYPD often do not appear at hearings and many cases are dropped.

Dan Hanegby's story

In 2018, a charter bus driver was convicted of fatally hitting cyclist Dan Hanegby in Midtown in 2017. He was sentenced to 30 days in prison (the maximum sentence under the law) after he refused to plead guilty. If he recognized himself as such, it would be punishable by a fine of $ 1000 and a six-month suspension of his license.

However, City Hall continues to insist that they are moving in the right direction with the Vision Zero initiative. In particular, they recalled that on nine main transport corridors, the speed of movement was limited to 8 km / h.

Clara Kang's story

One street where speed was limited from 48 km / h to 40 km / h last year was Third Avenue in Sunset Park. At least five pedestrians and cyclists have died on the road since 2019, the most recent being Clara Kang, a 31-year-old nurse working at NYU-Langone. In October, she was hit by a motorcyclist while cycling home from a night shift.

Kang's teammate, Diaphel Thompson, said a NYPD detective told him that according to surveillance footage, the motorcyclist was traveling at about 128 km / h when he hit the girl. "I can't even imagine how to drive on this road at a speed of 80 km / h!" - he was indignant.

On the subject: New York City's road deaths skyrocket despite reduced traffic

NYPD did not release the name of the 29-year-old motorcyclist who was seriously injured in the accident. No charges have been brought against him, and law enforcement officials say the investigation is ongoing.

“She loved helping people, she was a big supporter of eliminating inequality,” Thompson said, and stressed that Kang spoke Korean, Spanish and English, and she often offered work assistance to colleagues when they had to deal with emergencies. situations. “Clara worked five shifts in a row to help one of her colleagues,” Thompson said. "She was always so empathetic and compliant."

The two loved to ride bikes on weekends, and Kang often got up before sunrise to ride 14 km before work. “I can't date someone who doesn't ride a bike,” Thompson recalls Clara Kang once said.

Thompson is now working with Families for Safe Streets to advocate for changes in street infrastructure on Third Avenue and throughout the city. “I can tell she was just trying to get to the Fourth Avenue bike path,” Thompson explained. Together with the organization, he wants to make traffic safer, create more bike paths connecting the entire Sunset Park.

"Clara's death could have been avoided," Thompson is sure. “You have running water, you have electricity, your streets must be safe. If the electricity goes out, we'll go and fix it right away. This should be something we have to go and fix right now. Not as usual: “Oh, someone died. We will get to the solution of this problem in a few years. "