City traffic deaths driven way down
Daily News
By Pete Donohue

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Traffic deaths are at the lowest level in nearly a century, with 344 people killed last year in a city of 8 million. You have to go back to 1912, when pedestrians and cars were competing with horse-drawn carriages and trollies, to find a tally that low, according to city statistics.

"It's absolutely amazing," said traffic consultant Sam Schwartz, a former deputy commissioner of the city Transportation Department and author of the Daily News' Gridlock Sam column.

There were 165 pedestrians killed last year, which could be an all-time low, said John Kaehny, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a traffic safety group.

"These numbers are encouraging and impressive," said Kaehny, a sometimes vocal critic of city traffic policy. "New York City is doing something right when it comes to pedestrian safety and overall traffic safety."

The death toll by automobile was highest in the 1920s and 1930s. In those decades, the number of road deaths went over the 1,000 mark a dozen times, according to statistics covering much of the 20th century compiled by Schwartz during his city tenure.

"The automobile was relatively new, there were almost no controls at intersections and people were just getting hit left and right," he said.

Over the decades, many improvements were effected, including better roadway designs and traffic signals, the advent of the air bag, quicker emergency response times and more advanced trauma care at hospitals, experts said.

Safer cars mean that fewer drivers and passengers get killed in low-speed accidents. With just about everyone carrying a wireless telephone, police and ambulances often are alerted seconds after an accident.

Kaehny noted that city streets, once playgrounds for kids playing games like stickball, have been largely abandoned as places of recreation.

In recent years, the Police and Transportation departments have worked closely to identify dangerous streets and make enforcement and engineering changes, DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall said.

The DOT has increased the number of intersections where pedestrians have the exclusive right of way and need not compete with turning cars and trucks, Weinshall said.

In Times Square, for example, DOT has extended walking areas with the use of bollards that extend into the streets, protecting pedestrians.

On Queens Blvd., the "Boulevard of Death," changes have included boosting the time given pedestrians to cross.

"The Bloomberg approach is superior to the Giuliani approach, which was to cattle-chute pedestrians out of the way of turning vehicles by erecting pedestrian barricades in midtown," Schwartz said. "The Bloomberg approach recognizes the pedestrian is king and should be taking the most direct path and given more protection."

Schwartz and Kaehny said the city can still do more, including increased use of "neckdowns," where sidewalks are extended deeper into streets, giving pedestrians a shorter distance to cross.

Schwartz also said he would push for legislation in which truck tires are partially covered by panels, as they are in England. That could help prevent deaths caused by turning trucks, such as the recent tragedy involving a truck and two boys killed in Brooklyn, he said.

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