Transportation Alternatives, New York City’s advocates for street safety, today released a study and map of the borough of Staten Island showing where and how often Staten Island pedestrians are killed or injured by motorists.

The maps can be accessed at www.crashstat.org. With a few simple clicks, residents can see the number of historical injuries and deaths at each intersection in their neighborhood, and the crash frequency trend at particular locations. The map is based on data from 1995 through 2001, the last year for which accurate data is available.

For the borough as a whole, there were 1,299 locations with reported crashes resulting in 44 pedestrians killed and 2,088 pedestrians injured between 1995 and 2001. Staten Island boasts the fewest pedestrian crashes among all five boroughs.

However, Staten Island streets can still be much safer. To its credit, the DOT has made pedestrian oriented safety improvements at the intersection of Forest Avenue, Morningstar Road and Richmond Avenue as well as very modest improvements to locations on Hyland Boulevard. And, since 1998, the NYPD has significantly increased the number of summonses it issues for dangerous and illegal driving in Staten Island.

But even with vigorous police enforcement, studies have shown that the only way to create truly safe streets is for the City DOT to redesign them using modern traffic calming devices. Traffic calming, which encompasses a wide variety of inexpensive engineering measures like speed tables and pedestrian refuge islands, has successfully created safer streets around New York City, the United States and the world. Says Kit Hodge, Transportation Alternatives’ Campaign Coordinator,

“People choose to live in Staten Island because of the quiet, tree-lined streets and close communities. But dangerous and loud motorized traffic turns neighborhood streets into NASCAR. www.crashstat.org is a powerful new tool that concerned residents can use to fight for comprehensive traffic calming, which will create safer walking conditions around schools, senior centers and parks."

Local community groups can contact Transportation Alternatives at 212-629-8080 or info@transalt.org to request free copies of the study and a booklet on how to create safer streets using traffic calming in your neighborhood.