Vision Zero

State Senator Tony Avella is opposed to legislation that would lower the default speed limit in NYC to 20 miles per hour.

Wednesday night, Manhattan Community Board 10 in Harlem continued to obstruct a street redesign that could save lives. A safety overhaul for speeding-plagued Morningside Avenue, requested by local residents and developed by DOT, has been stalled as the board refuses to back any plan that includes a reduction in the number of car lanes. In a near-repeat of a board meeting in February, CB 10 sent the issue back to committee, where it has languished since last September. Meanwhile, the board has established a Vision Zero task force, even as it opposes street safety measures.

Mayor de Blasio attached some numbers to his Vision Zero Action Plan in today's executive budget announcement.

The city went live with a major upgrade to NYPD's crash data today. Information about traffic crashes was previously released via difficult-to-use monthly updates posted on the police department's website. Now it's available through a standardized feed updated daily on the city's open data portal, allowing the public to sort crashes by time of day, street, zip code, and borough, as well as by the number of injuries and fatalities.

BigApps NYC, EDC's four-month competition to develop mobile and web applications using city data, is set to launch tomorrow with a mission from Mayor Bill de Blasio to build tools for Vision Zero. The more data the city opens up to developers, the better these apps will be, so the question now is how far City Hall will go to make crash and enforcement information transparent and accessible.

Over the weekend, the New York Times ran a powerful piece by executive editor Jill Abramson about recovering from injuries sustained on city streets, based on her own experience and those of three other Times employees. Their stories, along with accompanying maps of New York City's most dangerous intersections, conveyed the widespread and profound impact of traffic violence more effectively than anything the Times has published before. Now the question is: Will the Times continue to beat the drum for safe streets?

The office of Ydanis Rodriguez says he is aiming to get several traffic safety bills passed in the near future, while others that were taken up by his transportation committee at a Wednesday Vision Zero hearing may be held up.

Over the past three weeks, DOT has been rolling out its 25 mph arterial slow zone program to high-crash streets one by one: Atlantic Avenue, the Grand Concourse, McGuinness Boulevard, and this morning, Broadway in Manhattan. Now, the initiative will expand to nine more streets across the city by the end of August, with 12 more streets to be announced later this year.

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