A new report released today by Transportation Alternatives reveals cracks in the City's efforts to safeguard elderly pedestrians from being struck by cars. Mayor Bloomberg announced the Safe Streets for Seniors program in January 2008, and the Department of Transportation has been charged with implementing safety improvements targeted at protecting seniors who walk. But by targeting only areas where seniors have been injured or killed by motor vehicles, huge areas where seniors actually live and walk have been omitted from the program.

Using the Lower East Side as a model, the report, Walk the Walk (PDF), compares Safe Streets for Seniors pilot areas against nearby census block groups with high senior populations. The study finds:

• The fatality rate of senior pedestrians is 40 times greater than that of child pedestrians in Manhattan.
• Of 10 high-density senior census block groups in the LES, only one was included in a Safe Streets district.
• Safe Streets for Seniors pedestrian improvement areas do not clearly provide safe connections from high senior density housing to the destinations seniors like to visit the most, such as stores with fresh produce.

People aged 65 years and older make up 12% of the population, yet they comprised 39% of New York City's pedestrian fatalities between 2002 and 2006. T.A. is recommending a new method for selecting Safe Streets for Seniors districts based on where seniors actually live and walk. Measures like longer crossing times, narrower crossing distances and "leading pedestrian intervals" will help reduce senior traffic injuries and fatalities.

"The City's efforts are a promising start, but we can't wait around for crashes to mount in order to justify improving the streets where seniors actually live and walk in large numbers," says Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives.

"The DOT's Safe Streets for Seniors program is excellent, but we need to be more proactive to protect the elderly," says Council Member Rosie Mendez, who represents the Lower East Side. "I support T.A.'s calls for the DOT to expand the program to all areas with a high concentration of seniors, not just those areas where accidents have already occurred."

"The greatest contribution the DOT can make in the lives of seniors is to implement these critical safety measures where they're needed most--the communities where large numbers of seniors live, and the hospitals that serve them," says Council Member Dan Garodnick, who represents Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. "The DOT has correctly identified specific locations dangerous to seniors in the past, but now it is time to broaden the approach."

Since 2003, T.A.'s Safe Routes for Seniors campaign has worked to provide the elderly with more time to cross the street and stronger measures to slow cars down.

The full report is available for download at transalt.org/files/newsroom/reports/2009/walk_the_walk.pdf (PDF).

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