 Reclaiming the Streets:
The Bronx Five
Fixing Five of the Most Dangerous Intersections for Children in the Bronx
Executive
Summary
The Bronx 5
project builds on the momentum and success of The Bronx Safe Routes to
School program, a comprehensive school-based traffic calming program.
Transportation Alternatives and The Bronx Borough President's office
adapted the site selection, consensus building and design techniques
developed by The Bronx Safe Routes to School program to tackle some of the
Bronx's most dangerous intersections. Because The Bronx Safe Routes to
School program's goal was to make the walking routes to neighborhood
schools safer through traffic calming, it focused mainly on neighborhood
streets. Early on in the course of original Safe Routes to School program,
it became clear that there were several very dangerous intersections that
sat right outside the scope of any one school. This project is intended to
address those issues, focusing on pedestrian safety at arterial streets,
where many children are killed and injured each year.
The project
addresses each intersection in a separate PowerPoint presentation. The
entire project is available online at www.saferoutestoschool.org.
Each presentation documents current conditions and propose short, medium
and long-term interventions for a particular location. In addition, each
presentation provides examples of proposed measures. Some presentations
include short video clips to highlight a particular existing traffic
pattern. However, they may not play on all computers. If the clips do not
run, it will not affect the presentation as a whole.
Tasks
1. Select
five worst intersections for child pedestrians in The Bronx using SDOT
crash data, GIS analysis and interview data collected from Safe Routes to
School project participants and The Bronx Traffic Safety Coalition.
2. Develop menu of short, medium and long-term solutions.
3. Solicit input from Bronx Traffic Safety Coalition on proposals. Submit
to Department of Transportation, elected officials.
Site
Selection.
Selection Criteria:
1. Crash history, community concern. Using New York State
Department of Transportation (SDOT) crash data, which had been assigned
mapping coordinates, we mapped crashes involving pedestrians age 14 and
under in The Bronx. This produced a list of the top 20 worst intersections
for pedestrians. We compared this list to the dangerous intersections list
Safe Routes to School program compiled from letters, mapping surveys and
interview data during the course of that project. We did this because some
dangerous intersections do not register with crash data because people
avoid these routes, though they may be a key link in a more desirable
walking route. However, intersections in that were registered consistently
throughout the Safe Routes to School Program also appeared on the list
produced with State Crash data.
2.
Prevent duplication: We did not want to duplicate the efforts of
ongoing safety projects on several Bronx arterials, so some of the most
dangerous intersections included in other projects were not part of this
study.
-
Grand
Concourse - subject of current DOT study
-
Bruckner
Blvd. - NYS/NYC DOT study a few years ago, project pending.
-
149
Street -scheduled for reconstruction. With so many dangers for
pedestrians along the length of the street, 149th should be treated
with a corridor redesign
3. Ensure
county-wide representation: This is a county-wide project, so the
projects must reflect the needs of a variety of areas, not just those in
the populous South Bronx.
Final
selection:
1. Pelham
Parkway South & Neill (Wilson) Ave: 2 children killed by vehicles in
five years tied for most dangerous.
2. West 181st St. (Hall of Fame Terrace) & University Ave. (MLK
Boulevard) - 2 children killed in 2 years, tied for most dangerous, most
dangerous in West Bronx.
3. E. Fordham Ave. and Webster Ave. has most injuries. 26 children hit by
vehicles in five years- 3rd most dangerous.
4. E 169th St. and Third Ave.: 24 children hit by vehicles in five years
-tied for 4th most dangerous.
5. Westchester Ave. and Castle Hill Ave. (under 6 train):
20 children hit by vehicles in five years. Most injuries in the Southeast
Bronx - need to be geographically dispersed. Under elevated train- common
problem in Bronx, opportunity for replication at similar locations.
Traffic
Calming Principals:
Speed. Speed
is the single most determinate factor of traffic safety and by reducing
speed the street will be safer, especially for young children. At lower
speeds, drivers have more time to react to unexpected incidents - a ball
running into a street, and those injuries that do occur are less severe.
According to the British Ministry for Transport, a driver at 35 miles per
hour is twice as likely to kill a pedestrian as they are at 30. Speed
reduction also opens a range of design options, for the street can begin
to look less like an expressway and more like a neighborhood street.
Pedestrian
crossing distance. By making the distance that a person has to cross
the street shorter, thereby reducing the time spent crossing the street,
one reduces the pedestrians exposure risk. The less time that a person is
in the street, the less likely it is that he or she will be hit by a car.
24/7
Enforcement. Traffic calming is defined as self-enforcing, and so it
must operate around the clock to get reliable results. Think of speed
humps around schools: they not only slow vehicles when school is in
session, but also on Saturdays when children are using the playground.
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