State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez wants Manhattan to be safer. To get there, the city and state governments must understand traffic violence as a fundamental threat to public safety, she argues in a 14-page plan published today.
The document, called the "Manhattan Community Safety Plan," focuses on the overall safety of the borough, with sections devoted to behavioral health, housing access, and firearm policy. The first section zeroes in on street safety, and calls for the passage of several relevant bills pending in Albany and City Hall:
- S4045A, also known as the "Stop Super Speeder" bill, would require the installation of speed-limiting devices in the cars of drivers who receive 16 or more speed camera tickets in a 12-month period.
- S5008A would create a bicycle lane safety program that uses cameras to ticket car drivers who park in bike lanes.
- S445 would eliminate New York City's exemption from the state law mandating daylighting at intersections. The city version of this law, Intro 1138, will not pass this year, thanks to opposition from Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.
- Intro 1431, a City Council bill, would limit high-speed chases by police officers pursuing someone suspected of a non-violent offense.
“Our constituents [should] have a feeling of safety that is fostered by a positive experience walking down the street," Gonzales told Streetsblog. "That certainly extends to both what we think of when we think of criminal justice, but also what we think of when we think of traffic violence.”
Manhattan Community Board 6, which covers most of the territory Gonzalez represents in the borough, has experienced 614 reported crashes since January, injuring 144 cyclists and 159 pedestrians, according to city data. Car drivers killed at least four people in the same district — including an actress from the popular TV show "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," who had been walking in a crosswalk on West 53rd Street.
Rather than confront car drivers who endanger New Yorkers, the Adams administration recently adopted a punitive anti-bike approach to street safety, beginning with Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch deciding in April to issue criminal summonses to cyclists who break minor traffic rules instead of the typical traffic ticket.
Gonzalez acknowledged that she hears similar complaints about e-bikes at community board meetings — the very same set of grievances that inspired Tisch to begin the city’s crackdown. The state senator said, however, that the city needs to focus its energy on holistic measures like daylighting.
“Common-sense street safety measures like universal daylighting result in a decrease of traffic violence and a decrease of pedestrian deaths — it’s proven by research,” she said. “What these bills represent is a multi-pronged approach to addressing the real life consequences of not doing more in our city to build out real street safety measures."
