How to get Vision Zero on schedule

When New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio first rolled out his Vision Zero initiative at the very beginning of his first year, I acknowledge I was skeptical. My quick-take reaction was that the goal of reducing pedestrian traffic deaths to zero was a nice PR spin for an obvious revenue grab for the city.

But then the city started getting results, and my cynicism turned out to be for naught. Reducing the speed limit from 30 miles per hour to 25 and more stringent police enforcement evidently had an effect on driver behavior, and last year was the safest on city streets since 1910, with 231 traffic deaths, a 10 percent drop from a year earlier.

While that’s significant progress, it falls short of the mayor’s self-imposed deadline of zero pedestrian deaths by 2024 – by about 31 years, according to a report released on Wednesday by Transportation Alternatives. The report calls for an annual 45 percent reduction on pedestrian traffic deaths. So what exactly would the city have to do from a policy standpoint to get back on track?

Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, has a few ideas, many of which come down to basic investment of political will.

“The most important thing is acknowledging that there is a deadline,” White said. “There’s still a clear sense from City Hall that as long as the number is going down, they’re happy.”

One of White’s proposals is to widely implement the street planning practice of “daylighting.” It’s customary for the city Department of Transportation to include parking spaces right up against the crosswalks at intersections, which can obstruct a driver’s sight lines when making a turn. Right now, it’s the exception, not the rule, that city intersections are daylighted, perhaps owing to the motorist-centric desire for more parking spaces.

Unfortunately, one of the primary impediments to street redesigns like daylighting is the communities that would benefit from the planning tweak. There have been countless incidents of community boards standing in the way of commonsense pedestrian safety measures.

To de Blasio’s credit, he spoke forcefully about wanting to remove the veto power of these community boards on projects like these. City Councilmember Ritchie Torres has introduced a bill that would require much greater transparency from community boards, including getting a clear sense of car ownership among board members. This is a great accountability measure, but one that should be supplemented by legislation stripping community boards of their veto power over DOT public safety projects.

The true telltale sign of de Blasio’s Vision Zero commitment will be revealed when he releases his preliminary budget on Thursday. The city failed to include enough money in the Department of Transportation’s operating budget to account for street designs that would expedite his Vision Zero goal. Putting extra money in the pot will go a long way toward meeting his 2024 deadline.