city targets Dangerous intersections news

City officials plans to target dozens of the most dangerous intersections citywide for traffic safety improvements.

Specific objectives are detailed in the DOT’s pedestrian safety action plans for each borough, an initiative tied to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s broader Vision Zero effort to reduce pedestrian fatalities across the city.

In Manhattan, the department found that from 2011 to 2013, both drivers and pedestrians were found to each be at fault in 43 percent of collisions. In the remaining 13 percent it was a mixture of fault between drivers and pedestrians.

Of Manhattan’s over 3,700 intersections, the Department of Transportation selected 66 with the highest number of pedestrians killed or seriously injured as ones to focus on for safety improvements.

The department is looking to lengthen the crossing time for pedestrians at each of these intersections by the end of 2017. Other improvements include modifying signal timing to reduce off-peak speeding and significantly expanding pedestrian crossing times along priority corridors. The plan also includes bike lane implementation and street safety education components.

Broadway on the Upper West Side is included as a priority corridor, and the intersections of Broadway and 72nd Street, 86th Street and 106th Street are regarded as priority intersections. West 71st Street at Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue is also a priority intersection.

On the Upper East Side, the DOT identified 1st Avenue, 2nd Avenue and 3rd Avenue as priority corridors as well as four priority intersections.

Councilmember Ben Kallos said many of the planned improvements on the Upper East Side were actually part of his Safe Streets initiative last year, a report that gathered crowd-sourced suggestions from constituents on intersections in the district that are in dire need of safety improvements.

“Several of the intersections that were in the Dept. of Transportation’s Pedestrian Safety Action Plan for Manhattan were actually in our report,” said Kallos.

Those intersections include 79th Street and 2nd Avenue and 62nd Street and 1st Avenue, as well as some sections of the priority corridors. In addition, the DOT identified 86th Street and Lexington Avenue and 75th Street and 1st Avenue as priority intersections.

“The Safe Streets report paid off with the Dept. of Transportation in a way that it has not with any other neighborhood,” said Kallos.