Health Department Study Reveals that 64% of Drivers Admit to Speeding on City Streets

In a study released last week by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), 64% of city drivers admitted to speeding while behind the wheel, while nearly one in five also copped to driving while distracted.

As Gothamist's David Colon reports, what makes the results of the study even more disturbing is that:

Despite the fact that all of the data was self-reported and offered ample opportunity to lie, 60 percent of drivers admitted that they sped, which was defined for the purposes of the survey as driving at least 10 miles above the speed limit. 13 percent of drivers said that they sped "often." 19 percent of drivers around the city said that they engage in distracted driving, which the survey defined as texting or emailing while driving.

Points for honesty, we guess.

DOHMH collected the data in 2015. As they point out in the prelude to the report, traffic crashes are a leading cause of preventable death in New York City, killing some 300 people a year, and speed and distraction are among the greatest contributing factors to crashes.

The report is a grim reminder of the need to re-engineer streets to protect vulnerable users, and the importance of automated speed enforcement. As Gothamist's Colon notes, "the speeding data comes at the same time as a debate is taking place around the speed limit on Ocean Parkway." State Senator Simcha Felder and Assembly Member Steven Cybrowitz have introduced legislation in Albany seeking to increase the speed limit on Ocean Parkway from 25 to 30 mph. You can sign a petition opposing that dangerously misguided effort here.

Save the Date! StreetsPAC Fundraiser for City Council Member Ritchie Torres on May 17th

Please circle May 17 on your calendars and plan to join us from 6 to 8 p.m. for a fundraiser we're hosting for Ritchie Torres, one of the bright young stars of the New York City Council.

Torres, who was profiled in The New Yorker in December, is the youngest member of the City Council, elected to his position in 2013 at just 25 years of age. He's been a champion for safer streets, both in his Central Bronx district and around the city.

Stay tuned for details about the venue, coming soon, and do please plan to join us to support the re-election effort of this rising star in New York City politics.

NYCDOT Releases Draft Plans for 2017 Citi Bike Expansion in Queens and Brooklyn

The New York City Department of Transportation has released draft station-siting plans for expansion of Citi Bike into Astoria, Crown Heights and Prospect Lefferts Gardens.

As Streetsblog's David Meyer reports, southern Crown Heights and Prospect Lefferts Gardens are slated for nine stations between Eastern Parkway and Lefferts Avenue, from Prospect Park to Rogers Avenue, with an additional station in front of the Brooklyn Museum. Astoria will get 59 stations over a much larger footprint. As Meyer notes, the bike-share system will also be expanding northward in Harlem, for which a draft plan was released last year.

NYCDOT and Citi Bike expect to finalize the station locations in June, with installation taking place before the end of summer. Here's a peak at the proposed locations for Crown Heights/PLG.

StreetsPoll Results: All's Fair in Transit Fares

An even half of you who responded to last week's StreetsPoll about which of funding priorities outlined by the City Council in its response to the Mayor's Fiscal 2018 Preliminary Budget was most important chose Fair Fares, the initiative being led by Riders Alliance and the Community Service Society to provide half-priced MetroCards to New Yorkers living below the poverty level. The Council's other two priorities, public funding to expand Citi Bike and expansion of Select Bus Service routes in New York City, tied for second place in the poll.

Congratulations to John Carver of Brooklyn, the randomly selected winner of a StreetsPAC t-shirt from among respondents to the StreetsPoll who signed up for our email updates. 

Image Credits: Ritchie Torres – Kristina Skorbach/Epoch Times; Citi Bike – NYCDOT