Is It Safe To Walk The Streets of New York?

Posted on | August 18, 2010 | Comments Off on Is It Safe To Walk The Streets of New York?

Mike Magee

A decade ago, I spent an interesting year with 15 young New York executives as part of the David Rockefeller Fellowship. (1) One of the fellows that year was Janette Sadik-Khan, who at the time was managing US transit market customers for the renowned international engineering firm, Parsons Brinckerhoff. She now serves as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation under Mayor Bloomberg. She was in the news this week with the release of a comprehensive study of pedestrian injuries in New York City which she termed “the Rosetta Stone for safety on the streets of New York”. (2) The good news – pedestrian fatalities in New York City were 3 per 100,000 (about the rate of Portland, Amsterdam and Paris) – and much less then in places like Atlanta (11/100,000) or Detroit (10,100,000). The bad news, as Janette said, “One crash is one crash too many.” (3)

The point of the study was not to make news, or prove that visiting New York streets is relatively safe for pedestrians. It was to discover where the vulnerabilities were and re-engineer and redesign the pathways shared by vehicles and pedestrians to improve safety for all. Of the many things I gained from my year in that fellowship was an interest in learning more about the intersect of transportation, safety and health – thanks to Janette. In that pursuit, I came in contact with an international medical organization dedicated to global road safety called The Bone and Joint Decade (4). Here’s what I learned. (CONTINUE….)