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A brand new billboard in East New York reveals a pedestrian thrown into the air after bouncing off the entrance of a automobile, as his espresso splashes in every single place. “Rushing ruins lives,” it says. “Decelerate.”
The aim of the marketing campaign is to scare rushing drivers on this Brooklyn neighborhood, the place 35 folks have been killed in visitors crashes since 2017.
It’s a part of New York Metropolis’s newest effort to battle rampant rushing, which has turned neighborhood streets into raceways and propelled visitors deaths to the best stage in eight years.
“It’s getting uncontrolled — daily automobiles are rushing,” stated William Candelario, 64, whose auto restore store within the neighborhood was slammed into by a van final yr.
On Monday, town’s transportation commissioner, Ydanis Rodríguez, will unveil a brand new security marketing campaign in three dozen neighborhoods like East New York, the place visitors fatalities and accidents are among the many highest within the metropolis.
Focused areas embrace Bushwick and Canarsie in Brooklyn, Jamaica in Queens, Harlem and Washington Heights in Manhattan and Hunts Level within the South Bronx. Metropolis officers stated these neighborhoods had been chosen based mostly on elevated crash information.
“We have now seen simply too many individuals dying on our streets, with crashes disproportionately concentrated in sure New York Metropolis communities,” Mr. Rodríguez stated.
The marketing campaign will characteristic 18 high-profile billboards alongside high-crash roads and highways, in addition to posters on the again finish of public buses and at gasoline station pumps. Metropolis staff might be dispatched handy out postcards, brochures and fliers.
In New York Metropolis, visitors deaths have risen to 64 this yr by April 26, from 61 for a similar interval final yr — largely due to a spike in deaths amongst drivers and passengers, which practically doubled to 23 this yr from 13 final yr.
Pedestrian deaths — although nonetheless the most important share of visitors deaths — fell to 30 this yr from 39 final yr.
Two cyclists had been additionally killed, the identical as final yr, in addition to 4 riders of motorized gadgets, which was two greater than the yr earlier than, amid a pandemic growth in biking and electrical bikes, scooters and skateboards.
Simply over one-quarter of the 64 deaths this yr had been on highways — together with three deaths every on Henry Hudson Parkway and Grand Central Parkway — whereas the remaining had been on native streets all through town.
The visitors deaths have reversed among the hard-won features of town’s eight-year-old transportation coverage, referred to as Imaginative and prescient Zero, which as soon as aimed to get rid of all visitors deaths and had grow to be a nationwide mannequin. Below the coverage, town received state approval to decrease the pace restrict to 25 m.p.h. from 30 m.p.h. on most streets, constructed a sprawling community of practically 2,000 automated pace cameras, and redesigned many streets to make them safer for pedestrians and cyclists.
Mayor Eric Adams, who took workplace in January, has promised to increase on Imaginative and prescient Zero efforts. He lately pledged $904 million to town’s streets plan over the following 5 years, which can embrace redesigning harmful intersections and including extra protected bike lanes and pedestrian areas. He has stated police officers can even improve enforcement of visitors legal guidelines.
As well as, metropolis officers are lobbying state lawmakers for native management of metropolis streets, which might give them authority to set pace limits, increase purple mild cameras, and lengthen hours for pace cameras in class zones to nights and weekends — when the cameras are off and rushing has soared. “The town wants to have the ability to management its personal future, in order that we will shortly make adjustments that meet the present disaster,” Mr. Rodríguez stated.
The brand new billboard and media marketing campaign, which can price $4 million, goals to strengthen these different visitors security efforts by attempting to alter driver habits.
“This can be a disaster and we have to use each software attainable to make our streets safer,” stated Danny Harris, the chief director of Transportation Alternate options, an advocacy group, which has pushed town to deal with the visitors violence.
There was an epidemic of rushing and reckless driving across the nation throughout the pandemic partly as some drivers have grow to be emboldened by emptier roads and lax police enforcement, in accordance with transportation consultants. New York Metropolis has additionally seen an increase in automobile possession as many individuals have prevented public transit.
Even earlier than the pandemic, a rising variety of cities sought to decrease pace limits and design safer roads over issues that increased speeds and bigger automobiles like S.U.V.s led to extra extreme accidents and fatalities.
“The danger of loss of life exponentially will increase as pace will increase,” stated Alex Engel, a spokesman for the Nationwide Affiliation of Metropolis Transportation Officers. “That is particularly essential because the automobiles on the streets have gotten bigger.”
The eight-week, citywide marketing campaign can even embrace tv advertisements exhibiting a pedestrian or bike owner being thrown backward in sluggish movement. And it’ll goal drivers on social media, based mostly on their on-line searches, and run in sure print publications.
Erick Guerra, an affiliate professor of metropolis and regional planning on the College of Pennsylvania, stated that whereas media campaigns are essential, they don’t have the identical quick impact on slowing down drivers as, say, increasing using automated pace cameras. “I believe it takes a very long time to alter a tradition of driving in the identical means it took an extended method to change a tradition of smoking,” he stated.
Some transportation advocates have referred to as on cities to focus extra on redesigning harmful streets, saying that it isn’t sufficient to return right into a neighborhood and inform drivers to not pace when its streets had been primarily constructed to maneuver visitors as quick as attainable.
“It’s a vicious cycle,” stated Leah Shahum, the chief director of the Imaginative and prescient Zero Community, a non-profit marketing campaign. “Why is there rushing right here? It’s due to the atmosphere we constructed.”
In East New York, the billboard there might be seen by drivers going by a very harmful intersection at Atlantic and Pennsylvania Avenues, the place 167 folks — together with 154 motorized vehicle occupants — had been injured in crashes from 2015 to 2019, in accordance with the newest information accessible.
Laura Remigio, 35, a make-up artist and stylist who stated she was nearly hit by a automobile whereas visiting a consumer in East New York, stated that drivers go too quick and have minimize her off within the crosswalk. “It’s purported to be folks first and the automobiles wait — they usually don’t wait,” she stated. “I’m operating as a result of the automobiles don’t cease.”
However Ian Johnson, 67, a driver from New Jersey, stated that some pedestrians additionally must pay extra consideration. He stated he typically has to honk at individuals who don’t look as they cross or are on their telephones “once they nearly stroll into my automobile.”
Mr. Candelario, whose auto restore store is steps away from the billboard, stated he hoped the billboard would lastly get the eye of drivers.
“It’s an eye fixed opener and it makes you suppose,” he stated. “You’ve obtained to be laborious. You’ve obtained to place just a little concern in it.”
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