Letitia James

A bill from Public Advocate Tish James would clean up outdated city traffic rules that NYPD and district attorneys say are an obstacle to applying the Right of Way Law.

Have you noticed that DOT street safety projects are leaving out bike lanes even when there's plenty of room for them? So has Public Advocate Tish James.

Before the big City Council hearing on street safety legislation this afternoon, elected officials joined families of traffic violence victims outside City Hall to push for speed camera and speed limit bills in Albany, along with more traffic enforcement and better street designs from the de Blasio administration.

In 2008, a coalition led by the Pratt Center for Community Development laid out a vision for 12 Bus Rapid Transit lines across the city. Nearly six years later, NYC DOT and the MTA have installed six Select Bus Service routes in four boroughs, with plans for more. At a panel discussion this morning, the Pratt Center unveiled a new report [PDF] showing eight routes that are ripe for Bus Rapid Transit, featuring upgrades like separated busways and stations with fare gates and platform-level boarding.

Last September, local elected officials joined the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership and students from Benjamin Banneker Academy on Brooklyn's Park Avenue to clock speeding drivers. The Partnership released a report offering suggestions to city agencies about how to improve pedestrian safety on the dangerous avenue, which has a crash rate higher than three-quarters of Brooklyn streets. More than a year later, the city has yet to advance any significant changes.

After street safety demonstrators packed last night's 88th Precinct community council meeting to demand action after the death of 9-year-old Lucian Merryweather on a Fort Greene sidewalk, elected officials spoke to the audience of well over 100 people. Brooklyn District Attorney-elect Ken Thompson, sitting quietly near the back, only spoke after an audience member asked him if he would combat traffic violence more aggressively than his predecessor, Charles Hynes. Although he didn't reveal many details, Thompson offered a small glimpse into how he views the DA's role in combatting dangerous driving.

In the past two weeks, four New Yorkers have been killed by reckless drivers while walking on the sidewalk. At least one senior has been killed in the crosswalk. The victims came from every walk of life, from many different corners of the city, and ranged in age from 9 to 79. Last night in Jackson Heights, family, friends, and neighbors of people killed by drivers joined elected officials and advocates to march for justice and demand action from the city.

About 150 people gathered at a vigil last night for Lucian Merryweather, the nine year-old killed on the sidewalk by a reckless driver who jumped the curb at the intersection of Clermont and DeKalb Avenues in Brooklyn.