Today, Transportation Alternatives released "Child Crashes: An Unequal Burden," the second in a series of "crash map" reports derived from CrashStat.org, an interactive online map of motorist crashes with pedestrians and bicyclists. The report draws attention to alarming disparities in safety found in Manhattan's East Side.

"I am very concerned about the findings illustrated by this map," said City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito. "My district contains the greatest concentration of public housing in the city and is located in an area of Manhattan where traffic can be quite heavy. That means the children of my district are at risk. We need immediate action to address dangerous driving habits and must improve traffic patterns in high risk areas. Bike lanes in East Harlem are certainly one part of the solution, but more can be done. I thank Transportation Alternatives for leading the fight."

The report found that intersections where children are most often struck by drivers cluster near public housing more so than in other parts of the east side of Manhattan. A pedestrian or bicycle crash victim in East Harlem (Community District 11) is over three times more likely to be a child than in the neighboring Upper East Side (Community District 8). The deadliest intersection for child crashes in all of Manhattan is in East Harlem, at East 125th Street and Lexington Avenue.

In Community District 3 (Lower East Side/Chinatown), a person struck by a car is nearly two times more likely to be a child than a crash victim on the Upper East Side.

"This map shows us an injustice, pure and simple. Our kids living in public housing on the Lower East Side, including my own children, deserve safe streets just as much as any other child in the city. The NYPD needs to get its priorities straight and crack down on dangerous driving," said Damaris Reyes, Executive Director, Good Old Lower East Side and resident of Baruch Houses, which are a NYCHA development on the Lower East Side.

"Streets are public spaces that belong to everyone and should be safe for everyone," said Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives. "Yet, these maps show that dangerous driving has a startlingly disproportionate impact on children in Manhattan's low-income communities. The NYPD must protect these children and hold dangerous drivers accountable."

Traffic is a leading cause of death for New York City children, and the NYPD needs to step-up and take a leadership role in saving lives. It starts with Commissioner Ray Kelly directing the police department to enforce the law against the most dangerous on our roads. That's followed by more targeted enforcement of motorists' failure to yield, speeding and failure to exercise due care -- the violations that most often injure and kill pedestrians and bicyclists. And it's complimented by adding more resources to the police department's Accident Investigation Squad and conducting more thorough investigations of serious and fatal traffic crashes.

The report includes a map of the top ten intersections for crashes involving child pedestrians and bicyclists, nine of which are located either in East Harlem (Community District 11) or the Lower East Side (Community District 3) in close proximity to public housing developments.

The report is located online:
http://transalt.org/files/newsroom/reports/2012/Child_Crashes_An_Unequal...

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