Last week, YWN reported that NYC Councilmembers David G. Greenfield and Mark Treyger urged Mayor de Blasio to reconsider changing the speed limit on Ocean Parkway from 30 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour.
In November, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation that lowered the default speed limit citywide from 30 mph to 25 mph. However, the expectation was that major through-routes like Ocean Parkway and the Gowanus Expressway would remain at their previous speed limits since a higher speed is necessary to carry traffic smoothly. The lowering of the default speed limit is a part of Vision Zero – an initiative aimed to reduce traffic fatalities citywide.
On Thursday afternoon, a DOT Spokesperson responded, and gave YWN the following statement:
“Ocean Parkway is the fourth most dangerous roadway for pedestrians in Brooklyn and its history of serious crashes informed DOT’s decision to reduce the speed limit by 5 mph.
Ocean Parkway saw 64 pedestrians killed or severely injured (KSI) between 2009-2013, including eight pedestrian fatalities. The pedestrian KSI rate for Ocean Parkway was 13.2 per mile over that five-year period. By comparison, the more notorious Queens Boulevard, where DOT recently lowered the speed limit to 25 mph, had a pedestrian KSI per mile of 7.3 over the same five-year period.
Ocean Parkway is a challenging roadway. It serves as a major automobile route through Brooklyn but also as a linear park, bike and pedestrian path, used by many local residents, including children and seniors. A pedestrian struck at 25mph is twice as likely as likely to survive a crash as one struck at 30mph. NYCDOT believes that the lower speed limit, paired with consistent enforcement and community engagement, will be an effective approach to ensuring both safety and mobility on this important roadway.”
(Fred Silverstein – YWN)
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8 Responses
Saving lives is most important. Thank you DOT.
They may be right about there being more ksi on ocean pkwy than other streets, but it’s not caused by drivers. Stand by any corner on ocean pkwy and you’ll see many pedestrians walking dangerously close to the roadway or crossing illegally. Even if the dot is right about the general idea that most casualties are caused by the drivers (which is what the whole vision zero campaign is about), in this case it’s all the pedestrians fault.
The time has come to build some pedestrian overpasses for crossing Ocean parkway as they have over the North Circular Road in London after some fatal accidents.
If bill could lower it to 5 mph on ocean parkway he would. Just so he could give out more tickets. Everyone, I heard there’s a new speed camera on ave r and ocean parkway. Be careful!
why stop at 25? i am sure that even less people get seriously hurt if the speed limit is 5 miles per hour. after that we can make it illegal to cross a street, think how many lives will be saved.etc…
Its very easy to give numbers which are really meaningless and are only used to serve the DOT purpose to raise revenue by lowering speed limits. If they were honest they would say how many people were crossing against the light. How many people were hit while jay walking. How many were hit while walking and being distracted by their smartphone. Of course if they were really interested in pedestrian safety they would encourage the use of reflective belts. Ticket pedestrians who play Russian roulette with cars who have a green light. Urge pedestrians to put away smartphones when crossing a street especially when you have your 4-5 kids behind you. But of course who cares as long as you can make big bucks off the motorists.
make the speed limit ZERO and no one will get hit by cars.
Unless they install speed bumps on the service roads, lowering the speed limit will not have a full effect of protecting people.
Cars zoom down the service roads on a regular basis as pedestrians cross mid block popping out between the cars.