Activists frustrated with the city’s methods to reduce pedestrian injuries are making their views known on local street corners.
Signs like the one above were placed below police posters in the 20th precinct. The NYPD posters were reminding people to look before they cross the street and pay attention to traffic. Street safety activists have been frustrated by NYPD policies that have sometimes spent more time focusing on pedestrian attentiveness than on cracking down on bad drivers. The posters don’t appear to be affiliated with a pedestrian safety group, but groups like Transportation Alternatives have been critical of the recent spike in jaywalking arrests on the Upper West Side.
In addition, an activist group called Right of Way is planning to display signs in neighborhoods where the Department of Transportation decided against creating neighborhood slow zones that would have reduced the speed limit to 20 mph. The signs, donated by roadtrafficsigns.com, will say “20 is Plenty.” Some of the signs will be going up on the Upper West Side, where three “slow zones” have been denied or delayed, Liz Patek tells us. The group will put up the signs this weekend, although they won’t tell the media where in advance (so the signs don’t get taken down before people have seen them). If you want to get involved, email RightOfWayNYC@gmail.com. More on Facebook here.
Ten minutes observing the 96th St. / Broadway crosswalks is to witness the folly of mankind and no it’s not the cars. They are entirely predictable entities. They are in lanes, a single row of them per lane, moving completely controlled by stop lights. The pedestrians however, younger ones glued to smart phones as they cross (!), egg each other on in defiance of Don’t Walk signals, twenty of them at a time, like they resent the very idea of a don’t cross light when traffic in the moment isn’t busy. They thus even block traffic when it does randomly arrive, trapping vehicles in inevitable cross traffic, causing driver panic when the pedestrian signal does finally say to cross. You don’t see cars driving crazy, especially since so many of them are professional cab drivers who are only too aware that their livelihood is at stake.
A ridiculously slow speed limit will cause congestion and waste countless economic man hours a year. These self-righteous “activists” need therapy and shaming for helping make the UWS the laughing stock of Manhattan. Fighting over simple everyday traffic hazards will itself statistically kill more people from stress than a few idiots walking into traffic ever will.
Well put, Nik. And it’s not like this is Times Square where nobody knows any better. It’s all people who live and work in the neighborhood, and just don’t care.
It’s interesting that this problem doesn’t really exist at 86th or 79th. That subway station building really screwed us up.
Jeremy–
You’re absolutely right about. Unfortunately, the 96th Street subway entrance was very poorly planned. People walk east directly through the left turn lane, and the sheer wall with no visibility down Broadway for pedestrians means that they don’t see the traffic coming. There is no analogue at 72d St. The DOT should install large signs that say “DON’T WALK; Cars Turning” and should consider other measures.
A 30 mph speed limit is too fast for a densely-populated area such as the UWS. The speed limit should be reduced to 20 mph. The question is whether it would be enforced. I have never seen a reckless driver pulled over in NYC. Speed bumps might be a better approach.
But Nik, the horror! You CAN’T make people responsible for their own actions!!! What are you thinking! It’s everyone ELSE’s fault. It’s especially egregious at 96 and Broadway crossing on the corner from the Citibank to the Time Warner store – there’s a delayed ‘walk’ sign (to let turning cars from Broadway get through the intersection) but absolutely no one waits for the walk sign and then cars come barreling through or get stuck in the intersection. It’s especially hilarious to watch parents with kids in strollers walk/stroll against the light and give on coming cars that “how DARE YOU?” look that UWS parents are so famous for.
Just pave the whole damn length of Broadway and make it a pedestrian mall until UWSers can grow up and learn that the entire world does NOT revolve around you, your iphone and your baby carriage.
Nik and (mostly) Andrew – agree with you. Particularly during rush hour, those corners overflow with pedestrians. One solution that could help would be BIG SIGNS that say “DELAYED GREEN/CARS TURNING”. Too many people don;t know (or care) that cars are given a green arrow to turn East or West onto 96th Street after the light on Broadway turns red. A Delayed Green sign could help.
Last weekend, I “spoke up” to a few people as we were crossing that corner. A number of people looked at me and responded: “You’re right, we shouldn’t be walking now.” Then they walked the walk of shame and kept on going…
YAY-Y-Y-Y NIK !!
YAY-Y-Y-Y ANDREW !!
THANK YOU for having the courage to speak the “unspeakable” and the unpopular !!!
Nik, this isn’t about generational warfare. Seniors are the demographic most impacted by unsafe streets, followed by children.
As for lamenting the “folly of mankind”, I’ll leave that to the poets, thank you…I expect community leaders to find evidence based solutions that are statistically shown to save lives.
Tell me what is wrong with DOT’s proposals to improve that intersection. Unless you think the current arrangement is ideal, you are undermining your own fatalism. Things can get better, and we should always be working to see that they do. https://gothamist.com/2014/02/01/dot_proposes_changes_including_limi.php
Its just as bad at 70th street and Bway/Amsterdam near the 1,2,3 train entrance. I understand jaywalking if no cars are coming, but more often than not, people just cross without regard to the fact that the cars have the light. Not only could this lead to injury, it inhibits cars from making the left turn onto 71st street and causing serious back-up/traffic. Its especially bad when the schools get out in the afternoon.
Besides speeding, I often see motorists running red lights and failing to yield to pedestrians when turning. Traffic-calming measures and street redesign are needed to save lives.
Good article on this topic in the NYT recently: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=10072#.UyCL9NtY6ak
A few points from the article:
– dangerous driver choices are the primary or contributing factor in 70% of pedestrian fatalities percent of pedestrian fatalities
– And in 53 percent of pedestrian deaths, the pedestrians were following all the rules – crossing in a crosswalk with the light, for example, or sometimes just standing on the sidewalk. But a driver who was inattentive or speeding or who failed to yield hit and killed them anyway.
Add me to the list of Yays! for the comments made — particularly about the idiots who walk the sidewalks, and cross the streets, with their ears plugged up and their attention riveted to their Devices.
Now if only we could suspend WiFi (and 4G and all of those) on the Upper West Side, we’d probably make traffic flow more sanely. Certainly that’s not nearly the *only* answer, but at least that way we’d also be able to get a seat in Starbucks, too.
What is wrong with walking on the sidewalk with earphones in?
As I mentioned previously, iPhones/iPods/technology are, demonstrably, *not* the problem. Seniors and children, neither of which are the demographic most likely to indulge in these devices, are the ones being killed and maimed in the highest numbers.
Please, let’s not turn street safety issues into yet another vehicle (no pun intended) to attack people/generations whose preferences and attitudes are not exactly like your own.
thank you, Steve.
as if Bruce’s thank you gives it seal of approval.
NOT.
Pedestrians abso-freaking-lutely need a smack! I admit that I jaywalk on occasion, and I admit that it’s stupid and dangerous. Yes, there are some bad drivers, but in general, pedestrians in NYC are far more reckless than drivers.
OK, now tell me: when was the last time a pedestrian knocked somebody over and killed them. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Ugh. That’s always the ineffective point that the anti-car advocates try and argue. I guess the first answer to that question is that pedestrians kill people all the time. Most murders are by people who are walking.
That being said, the thing that you’re ignoring is that “killing people” is not the only measure of negative impact, and keeping people from dying is not the only meaningful human endeavor. New Yorkers have higher standards for their daily life than “not dying.” Eliminating nuisances, stressors, minor dangers, pollutants and generally ugly stuff is a perfectly reasonable exercise for the city government. To the extent that lawbreaking pedestrians (or drivers or cyclists) exacerbate these issues, enforcement is perfectly sensible.
I’ll tell you when EXACTLY. A year ago, when a stupid kid–in a scooter–careening down 70th Street hit an elderly woman to the ground. Her complications have been terrible to the point where she’s now near death.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s the biggest “traffic” concern in the neighborhood–helicopter parents on cell phones, yapping away while kids carelessly scoot down the block with no regard for others.
Even though people are trying to twist the argument to suit their own agenda, Duck managed an intelligent and informed response. Nicely done, though an unfortunate story.
I don’t see anyone here “blaming the victim.” I do see lots of people trying to justify self-involved behavior and rid themselves of personal responsibility. Maybe lowering the speed limit will work; I hope so. But I’m pretty sure that if no one crossed against the light, pedestrians accidents would be reduced. I didn’t say eliminated; there is a difference. Check the dictionary.
Some drivers are dangerous jerks, and so are some pedestrians.
Again, most pedestrians who hit WHEN they have the light (or when on the sidewalk). The lions share of responsibility lies with the person piloting a 2000 pound machine.
Pedestrians who are in violation of sensible jaywalking laws ought to be ticketed as much, if not more, than drivers who for the most part drive responsibly. Whether someone drives 20mph, 25mph, or 30 mph is nitpicking. Speed doesn’t matter when pedestrians ignore proper safety laws and elevate their need to cross the street whenever they want over the right of vehicles to navigate the streets safely. Pedestrians need to learn that what they’re doing is harmful to everyone sharing the streets safely.
As someone who lives in this area, I find the “walk” sign at 96th and Broadway too short for me (a healthy adult) to make it across the street without running. I dread using that intersection!
Who are the streets for? The concept of “jaywalking” was created a century ago by the nascent motoring industry to blame pedestrians for the growing carnage that was taking place on city streets. Citizens, who as pedestrians believed they had an equal right to the street, were up in arms about the deaths. But by the 1930s, the motoring industry had won and traffic fatalities were “accidents” that were just a part of urban life, and “jaywalking” was enshrined into law. We can see by many of the comments here how the capitulation to the automotive interests continues to this day, even though only a quarter of Upper West Siders even own cars, much less regularly use them. Sadly, a version of the “Stockholm syndrome” seems to have set in, where the victims have sympathy for their captors.
Ken – you should try some of these horseless taxis and buses they’ve got now. I think a some of the “hostages” on the Upper West Side might use them from time to time. I truly do feel like a fancypants riding in a motorized vehicle.
I do have to admit that it would be nice to see the Bartlett Dairy guys have to deliver thousands of gallons of milk by hand, but probably impractical.
I think it’s important that we not let the known advantages of motor vehicles make us deaf to the their drawbacks—specifically their misuse.
Even if you wanted to make the case that it’s OK to sacrifice a few thousand lives every year for the greater good of moving people & goods around, the point here is simply that such deaths do not have to happen.
But they won’t be prevented by wasting resources “cracking down” on the victims. However they can be prevented by reducing the speed limit and by re-engineering the streets to make dangerous driving difficult or impossible.
There’s no need to go back to horsedrawn anything.
Albert, it’s also important that we not be absurdly hyperbolic and suggest that people who see value in motorized transport are too stupid to realize that they’re “captives” of “automotive interests.”
Ken was not saying that we should reduce fatality and injury – it was something else entirely.
With respect to the point that you made, and he should have made, I’d argue that we do already put extraordinary efforts into making streets safe. We’re only disagreeing about the tactics, and the degree.
The fact is that people will always die on the streets as long as humans are capable of making mistakes. Suggesting otherwise ignores reality.
What Ken said.
Pedestrians are primarily at fault here. I cross here at minimum twice a day and I continue to be stunned at how people are not waiting for the light to change, daring the oncoming traffic, walking around the barricades. Come on folks EVERYONE has responsibility with this . . . slow the cars down, put up better signage and people on foot stop jaywalking or suffer the consequences.
Statistics that back up your claim that “pedestrians are most at fault” do not exist.
And in any case, it seems an unusually cruel judgment that the *fair* price of carelessness on civilized streets is death. Vision Zero isn’t about willing zero traffic incidents, it’s about making them non-fatal, and less injurious.
And we know how to do that, or at the very least, we know the way in that direction. People need to help get us there though. I wish some of my neighbors would recognize the opportunity we have here!
Well said, Steve!
Actually, for the amateur sociologists in the crowd, the UWS is a relatively safe place to be a pedestrian, iPod stereotypes aside (https://www.streetsblog.org/2014/02/27/heat-maps-show-nycs-deadliest-neighborhoods-for-traffic-fatalities/). The most dangerous neighborhoods are those where traffic enforcement is lightest, like Williamsburg, where one speeding ticket was written in all of 2013. But no matter where you are, whether in the city or out, there are a baseline number of pedestrian accidents, and kids and the elderly are the most vulnerable. Should (or can) we tell these people to stay home? Of course not. Speed limit is the big variable that’s under municipal control, and lowering the speed limit from 30 to 20 makes accidents more survivable (and can actually *reduce* traffic jams, but that’s another story…).
It’s really appalling to see some of the comments above blaming pedestrians for the deaths and injuries caused by cars while it’s been well-documented how wide spread the violations of traffic laws are. The majority of motorists (not all – don’t start with the defenses – but the overwhelming majority) are guilty of various violations that include speeding, use of mobile devices, illegal u-turns, failure to yield, et al. All this with the tacit encouragement by police who fail to enforce.
Even if it was the pedestrian’s fault, do they deserve to be killed or have limbs amputated by a vehicle? We don’t punish child rapists that way, why would we do that to our children?
There is no divine intelligence or fairness behind the laws that force pedestrians to walk a distance (sometimes long) and wait and wait to allow seemingly more important car occupants more freedom, space, and time. Was it God who said “cross at the green not in between?” Was it God who said that if you don’t follow those paternalistic and unfair rules, you DESERVE to die? That’s the attitude taken by NYers who blame pedestrians.
Also, the observation (was it “Nik?” “Andrew?”) that drivers are predictable and well-behaved is so ridiculously anecdotal and narrow in perspective that it doesn’t deserve to be addressed. Yeah, right. That’s why over a dozen cars smash into buildings in NYC every month.
Personally I’d like to see the cops crack down at 96th and Broadway… Write hundreds of tickets a day for pedestrians crossing illegally. Write tickets to cars violating the laws… A few cops stationed there 12 hours a day would more than pay for themselves until both drivers and pedestrians learn to follow the rules.
Almost every “close call” i see when I’m walking around the west side is due to a pedestrian not looking and walking out in to traffic. People do NOT look before crossing the street in this city.
“Pedestrian attentiveness” is a really big part of the problem in this city. I understand people have gotten hit crossing with the light in the crosswalk. But you guys don’t like to use crosswalks. You guys are hypocrites that don’t want to follow any rules and want drivers 100% liable. You want the government to tell you nothing. While you people want to criminalize all drivers, many situations surrounding accidents are unclear. You only want driver attentiveness. Having biked, driven, and ridden in this city, I can say firsthand many pedestrians get hit by their own fault for the stupid things they do. Eventually you may not like what the city does. It will be control for all.