Elizabeth Adams, Transportation Alternate options’ deputy director of public affairs, rallying for common daylighting invoice.
Photograph courtesy of Transportation Alternate options
Outgoing Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams won’t deliver a measure to implement common “daylighting,” which might eradicate parking close to intersections to make them safer, to a vote earlier than the tip of the physique’s present session.
Her choice drew a pointy rebuke from secure streets advocates on Thursday who say the invoice’s passage is important towards rising avenue security for pedestrians and drivers alike.
The coalition of advocates, together with the teams Transportation Alternate options and Households for Protected Streets, pointed the finger squarely at Speaker Adams for seemingly kicking the invoice to the curb in a Thursday assertion.
“[The] speaker of the City Council has decided to block the universal daylighting bill,” mentioned Ben Furnas, Transportation Alternate options’ government director.
Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.Photograph by Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit
Speaker Adams is term-limited on the finish of this yr and can probably get replaced by Council Member Julie Menin (D-Manhattan) come January.
The laws, Intro. 1138, is sponsored by Council Member Julie Received (D-Queens) and has 26 co-sponsors, together with Menin. It’ll must be reintroduced in the beginning of the subsequent council session in January.
The invoice would ban parking or idling inside 20 ft of any intersection. Presently, it’s authorized for drivers to park subsequent to crosswalks. Underneath the invoice, DOT would even be required to put in arduous boundaries at 1,000 intersections yearly.
Proponents of daylighting argue that the apply enhances security at crossings by clearing sightlines for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers.
In Furnas’ assertion, he invoked the deaths of Dolma Naadhun and Kamari Hughes, each kids who have been struck and killed by drivers whereas traversing obstructed intersections as examples of why common daylighting is required. Each visitors deaths sparked advocates’ push for the laws.
“This legislation could prevent crashes like the ones that killed Dolma and Kamari, but instead, the speaker is maintaining a status quo where every year, children die,” Furnas mentioned. “New Yorkers deserve better. On behalf of Dolma, Kamari, and every other child and fellow New Yorker who has been hit and killed in an obstructed intersection, the fight does not end today.”
Speaker’s spokesperson blames ‘stakeholders’
Nevertheless, council spokesperson Julia Agos, in an announcement, mentioned it was really “stakeholders of this bill” who stood in the way in which of it being dropped at a vote, somewhat than the speaker.
She argued that an inner council evaluation of DOT knowledge on common daylighting, which has not been publicly launched, discovered it supplied no “statistically significant” impact on pedestrian accidents.
“It requires negotiated compromise with all stakeholders to pass a bill that advances sound policy outcomes for the city, but stakeholders of this bill decided to reject that approach, despite data contradicting their claims,” Agos mentioned. “Making our streets safer for New Yorkers requires a nuanced, thoughtful approach to reach an effective solution. Unfortunately, that was missing from discussions on this bill.”
Beforehand, Streetsblog had reported on the identical council knowledge evaluate, a replica of which it had obtained.
However the outlet reported {that a} abstract of the council’s evaluate discovered “no statistically significant association” particularly between DOT’s knowledge and the company’s conclusion that daylighting may improve, somewhat than lower, crash accidents.
DOT has pointed to its research, which the council discovered errors with, in its insistence that common daylighting won’t lower crash accidents. As a substitute, the company argues that daylighting needs to be utilized in particular circumstances.
