Councilman Mark Levine honored Officer Lisa Rodriguez, who was on the scene at a stabbing on West End Avenue and 94th street last month.
By Krista Carter
The NYPD’s 24th precinct, covering the UWS above 86th street, held its last community council meeting of the year last week, explaining its attempts to increase enforcement of traffic violations, and addressing community concerns. Check out some notes from the meeting below.
Community questions:
• Resident concerned about speeding cabs at 108th and 109th Streets and Amsterdam Avenue.
o Speed limit signs and speed bumps in place, but resident suggested installing cameras, as well; NYPD deferred to city
• 108th Street and Amsterdam – Kids from outside the neighborhood are bothering kids here at 8AM and 3PM in the park behind Booker T. Washington.
o NYPD will address the issue.
Crime and Traffic Statistics:
• Speeding summons issued (year to date):
o 359 in 2014
o 58 in 2013
o Increase of 301 or 519%
• Speeding summons issued (28 day period):
o 24 in 2014
o 1 in 2013
• Over 300 enforcement violations issued against cabbies, including running a red light, incorrectly using a phone, etc.
• 7 total fatalities this year (pedestrians, bicycles and motor vehicles).
• Increase of 20 total crimes so far this year (mostly attributed to burglaries and grand larcenies).
Captain Larin discussed recent news:
• West End Nightclub at 107th and West End Avenue- Residents have been lodging noise complaints.
o Residents are encouraged to continue calling 311.
o NYPD will commence an enforcement plan which will involve an officer taking a decibel rating at the next Wednesday karaoke night.
o Believed that the nightclub is hiring former employees of the Ding Dong Lounge (now closed).
Special presentation:
• Council Member Marc Levine honored Officer Lisa Rodriquez, the officer who was at the scene where a stabbing occurred at 94th Street and West End Avenue last month.
Thank you to NYPD for the speeding enforcement. I see dangerous driving here all the time – cabs run reds, the good humor ice cream truck screams around a turn while pedestrians are in the crosswalk, and so on. 24 tickets in a 28-day period makes me relieved. No doubt there’s more than one car speeding per day but it makes me thankful the guys are out there.
Lol yes. There’s only one speeding each day. These violations are done out in public, out in the open, right in middle of the street, and Pct 24 could not stop more than one a day?
Is it possible you mean “… involve an officer taking a decibel rating…”?
The problem is that to write a speeding ticket the officer has to actually “see it happen”, and that usually means while using a radar gun that will allow there to be evidence that can be presented in court if need be. Judges have many times thrown out tickets without that hard factual evidence. Also it is just not possible to have the police speed all day on this. They have many other duties that come before this type of enforcement.
Wonderful! If we can increase the coffers of the city on the backs of people who utterly disregard the law, that’s great! I observe cars speeding through lights, going about 40-50 mph! The streets on West End have been re-designed so that the lives of people can be saved from speeders. I think the traffic rules should be improved to charge speeders appropriately! More Traffice police!!!
This is good news — but speed cameras would catch this many speeders in a 1 or 2 week time frame if there were enough of them.
Still, good on the precinct for stepping up their game! Hopefully the trend continues. The tragedies in the area are horrible and have to stop!
Not 1-2 weeks. In a single day. Let’s get these cameras up, school zone or no school zone, and keep the speeds down for all our safety. The problem is, Albany has to approve it, and it is dominated by suburban drivers who are worried about getting tickets rather than those of us who spend most of our time as pedestrians and whose lives might be saved by their use. Their wallets are more important than our lives. After all, it is not fair to give an unsuspecting motorist a fine for only going 11 miles per hour over the speed limit.
The tragedies usually involve failure to yield, not speeding. Cooper Stock was killed by a driver who didn’t yield. I support catching speeders but the real challenge is getting aggressive drivers to respect pedestrians in crosswalks, and to stiffen penalties for drivers who kill and injure. Getting a summons for killing a kid is nuts.
Wait. So they wrote 359 in 2014 and just 58 in 2013 and we’re supposed to be impressed with a 519% jump? That’s still less than one speeding ticket per day. Any police precinct in this city could write 359 speeding tickets in an hour.
This is why we need more speed cameras. The cops clearly can’t do it all, nor should they. We need to devote the proper resources to stopping speeding, and that includes cameras.
Stopping speeders is still necessary because there’s an alarming number of drivers who are unlicensed/suspended, and cameras won’t be able to stop them.
This is ridiculous the 25 mph speed limit is insane and should be changed.Officers enforcing this crazy limit are salesman forthe city generating money.Speed Cameras are a scam municipalities across the U.S. are terminating their contracts.
And why is this speed limit so insane? Because YOU want to drive faster. Well, we should do whatever YOU want, shouldn’t we. Never mind the safety of the majority. It is more important that YOU get where YOU want to go faster, so that YOU will be happy.
Most scientific studies have shown that survival rates of those involved in accidents greatly improve when vehicles are going less than 30 mph.
If people drove more carefully maybe we wouldn’t need a lower speed limit but until that happens this will save lives, and yes increase revenue for NYC.
This is good news. It is about time that the speed limits be enforced.
In addition to addressing the speeding and non-yielding cars, pedestrians crossing on don’t walk signs should be addressed as well. I am willing to bet that many of the people that run the “Don’t Walk red light” have never driven the same NYC streets. There are a lot of things that require your attention as a driver and pedestrians J walking and running reds don’t help keep anyone safe! You can’t lambaste the aggressive drivers and leave the aggressive pedestrians out of the equation.
I do drive through the Upper West Side sometimes. When I’m driving, I feel at much greater personal risk from dangerous speeding drivers, and drivers running red lights or zipping through turns, than from my neighbors on foot.
Now if only the NYPD would crack down on the cycling packs on Riverside Drive blowing through the downhill red lights at 101st, 99th, and 97th streets. Often mobs of up to 30 crash through the lights with impunity, and get violent if you are in the way. What was once in Central Park has moved to Riverside drive.
Can you tell me more info on this?
Time of day, day of the week, is it organized? I.E. are the events posted on social media, email lists etc.
I have good contacts with NYPD that can get this looked into ASAP, so pls provide me what ever info you have. Pls post a response
I wish NYPD was this gung ho and responsive to the many neighborhood pleas for better, consistent enforcement against dangerous driving. Breaks my heart that we’ve seen the deaths of several Upper West Siders last year, including kids ages 9 and 13, and your comment above on protecting the neighborhood from dangerous drivers was “The police have many other duties that come before this type of enforcement,” vs “I have good contacts with NYPD that can get this looked into ASAP.” Can you share the NYPD data on cyclist-caused pedestrian injuries in 2014? I see for motorists, the city tracked close to two thousand car and truck collisions in zip codes 10024 and 10025 in 2014, in which at least 6 people were killed, and 147 motorists, 122 pedestrians, and 58 cyclists were injured. (I googled “nyc crash opendata” for the dataset). I’m concerned whenever anyone gets hurt, but I also wonder how NYPD approaches the vision zero priorities. How do members of the 24th precinct have time to look into bicyclists’ ride schedules, but not to get all officers trained on the radar gun?
Why do they keep citing ridiculous % increases like “519%” when it’s obvious that there was practically nothing last year.
Really? Could you find only 359 speeders all this year??