Traffic Enforcement

At a press conference this morning unveiling a street safety redesign at 96th Street and Broadway on the Upper West Side, the first three questions from reporters were all about what the police are doing to deter jaywalking. So it was no surprise when, after a discussion of NYPD's crackdown this week on drivers who text and fail to yield to pedestrians, Juliet Papa of 1010 WINS cut right to the chase for her drive-time audience.

Well that was fast. About an hour after Alec Baldwin was arrested after reportedly biking in the wrong direction on Fifth Avenue this morning, the story was all over the place.

The speed limit will be lowered to 25 miles per hour on eight miles of upper Broadway this summer, DOT announced today.

Update: WNYC reports that the pedestrian killed at Atlantic Avenue and 85th Street has been identified as William Guevara-Delgado, 26, of Woodhaven.

Ask a Greenpoint resident to name the neighborhood's most dangerous street, and they'll likely point to McGuinness Boulevard, an infamous speedway that splits the neighborhood in half. Today, it became the city's third "arterial slow zone" to receive a 25 mph speed limit, retimed traffic signals to discourage speeding, and focused enforcement.

Local elected officials and advocates joined NYC DOT and NYPD this morning to unveil the city's second "arterial slow zone" on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, where speed limits will be dropped to 25 mph and traffic signals will be retimed to discourage speeding.

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton's memo ordering precincts to focus on dangerous jaywalking offenses looks like a positive sign, but it still directs officers to write out citations in a way that ensures many won't be heard in court.

Since being turned on in mid-January, New York City's limited speed camera program -- five cameras near schools, turned on only during weekday school hours -- have caught 14,500 drivers hitting at least 40 mph as of Tuesday, according to DOT. After 15 more cameras come online later this spring, the city will have reached its state-imposed cap on cameras. To bring speeding under control on most of the city's 6,000 miles of streets, though, it's up to Albany to let NYC run a much more substantial automated enforcement program.

As drivers zoomed by on Atlantic Avenue this morning, local elected officials and advocates joined NYC DOT and NYPD to unveil the first of the city's "arterial slow zones," major streets where the speed limit will be dropped to 25 mph from the current citywide limit of 30 mph. Traffic signals will also be retimed to a 25 mph progression, to help keep motorists' speeds in check.