DOT: Safety Improvements Added to 36 Manhattan Intersections This Yr.

NYC’s Department of Transportation is mounting a massive bid to reduce pedestrian fatalities on the city’s roads, by seeking to provide “daylighting” improvements to 1,000 intersections by the end of 2024. In the first six months of 2024, deaths from car accidents exceeded gun deaths in the city by 55 percent, for a total of 127 vs. 82 incidents.

Daylighting, which refers to the added visibility that the improvements provide, can include measures such as raising crosswalks and strategically timing traffic lights. A total of 314 intersections have already seen improvements, 36 of which are located in Manhattan.

The remaining 700 intersections are in the daylighting development stages of “near completion to site finalization,” the DOT said, meaning that the year-end goal appears achievable. The agency is seeking to “daylight” another 1,000 city corners in 2025.

In a September 3 press conference on the matter, which took place next to recently added improvements between W. 168th St. and W. 170th St., DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez explained why intersections are being targeted by his agency; sixty percent of pedestrian traffic deaths and 77 percent of all pedestrian traffic injuries occur at them, according to city data.

”We know intersections pose unique risks, and as I have said before, intersections must be declared sacred spaces—to protect pedestrians, especially senior citizens and our student population,” Rodriguez said. He added that nearly half of the intersections that the DOT has “daylighted” so far this year, or 127 of them, are located near schools.

Specific intersections are selected for improvements based on criteria such as “crash data, cycling and micro-mobility demand, equity, and studying & testing conditions.” Outside of traffic control measures such as the aforementioned raised crosswalks and timed traffic lights, a common daylighting tool is the creation of sidewalk extensions.

“Sidewalk extensions...shorten the crossing distance for pedestrians, while also encouraging safer and slower [vehicle] turns,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez was joined at the presser by Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi, who hailed the daylighting push: “We’re now in the heart of construction season, and as kids head back to school in a few days, we’re recommitting publicly to reaching our goal of 1,000 daylight corners across our city–in addition to the many that already exist.”

Joshi went on to give the DOT’s Open Streets program a shout-out, which she believes complements the daylighting campaign nicely. She said that by maintaining 71 “open streets” near city schools, including those in Manhattan, the transit agency will make this year’s back-to-school season more secure for everybody.

NYC’s Department of Education Commissioner, David Banks, gave his stamp of approval to the daylighting campaign in a public statement. “Safety is not only critical inside the classroom, but also as students move about their communities and travel to and from school,” he said.

Both Rodriguez and Joshi honed in on the shared notion that “one traffic death is too many.” In what may have been a reference to this year’s elevated traffic death rate, Joshi elaborated that “it is a privilege to drive, but when we abuse that privilege, we hurt everyone. In the post-COVID era, we’re still seeing rampant driving abuse.”