NYC NOW - January 19, 2024 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

Mayor Eric Adams is setting up another standoff with the City Council by vetoing a bill known as the "How Many Stops" Act. Plus, WNYC’s Michael Hill and producer Amanda Rozon head to ResilienCy Park in Hoboken, to talk with Mayor Ravi Bhalla and Transportation Planner Greg Francese about how they were able to become the first American city to fully achieve the Vision Zero street safety initiative.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jared Marcel. Mayor Eric Adams is setting up another standoff with City Council by vetoing a bill known as How Many Stops. It would require police to track and disclose even low-level encounters and interactions that don't involve suspicion of criminal activity. Council Speaker Adrian Adams and Councilmember Yusuf Salam, who is the new public safety chair, say the mayor is creating a false narrative and misleading the public. The mayor argues the bill would create an undue burden on the cops that would prevent them from doing more important police work.

The council overruled the mayor's vetoed last year on a series of housing bills. It's expected to hold another override vote in the coming weeks. Next, we head to an affluent city in New Jersey that is the first city in the country to achieve safe streets through the Vision Zero policy. That's after the break. All this week on NYC Now, we've been looking back at the past 10 years of Vision Zero, the Street Safety Initiative introduced by former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. The initiative had some success.

Queens Boulevard, once notorious as the Boulevard of Death, has transformed into one of the city's safer streets. On the other hand, Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, is still a dangerous path for pedestrians. Philip Mietkowski, Senior Director of Research and Policy at the Advocacy and Research organization transportation initiatives, says data suggests these outcomes in New York City appear to be determined by race and class. We use the city's own data to find that crashes with severe injuries and fatalities do disproportionately occur in neighborhoods that have higher poverty levels and higher percentages of black,

Latino, and Bipoc residents. In a stark contrast, across the river in Hoboken, New Jersey, were about 70 percent of the population is white and the medium income stands at $168,137. Vision Zero has seen remarkable success. Between 2018 and 2022, this city of 60,000 residents not only achieved it, but also sustained Vision Zero Goals. The result? A remarkable record of zero traffic-related deaths in 2018. WNYC's own Michael Hill and Amanda Rousone visited Resilient City Park in Hoboken to talk with Mayor Ravi Bala and Transportation Planner Greg Francis about how it all works. Mr. Mayor, let me start with you. What was Hoboken like before Vision Zero?

You know, Hoboken was a town where, you know, I came to Hoboken well before Vision Zero. I had a one and a half year old daughter on the May drag in Washington Street. You tried across the street and it was an occupational hazard. It was difficult because you're, you're walking your stroller into the street, there's no signalization for crosswalking. There's no way to know when the lights turning red or green. And when you're doing that, you're really creating a risk for yourself, and in this case, for young children. So I always saw it as a problem when I was just a resident, not an elected official, the challenges with simply walking across different parts of the city. So, you know, we set out on a pretty ambitious plan. 2019 is when we adopted

the Vision Zero Plan in Hoboken, unlike other plans, it aims to zero out to reach zero traffic-related deaths or injuries by 2030. We haven't reached that yet, but we've had zero deaths in almost seven years now. Wow, well, Mr. Francis, let me ask you. I'm curious, how did you decide and how do you still decide which streets get the attention, get the priority? Do you look at statistics or do you look at what people are called? calling in to say something about, or how do you make that decision?

It's everything. It's statistics. We look at crash data. So we looked at the citywide crash data for a five-year period to identify which streets were part of our high crash network. So we plan to prioritize significant investments on those streets because those streets need it more, but then also making sure that when we do receive calls from constituents that have issues just crossing the street that we're paying attention to those intersections as well, whether it's making sure that cars aren't parking on the crosswalk, making sure that there's curb extensions that reduce the crossing distance for them, and also just making sure basic things like the crosswalk itself is painted and very visible

and that there's curb ramps for people. What are we going to see down here, Mr. Mayor? You can see a good example of multiple forms of daylighting and how we've integrated pedestrian safety into the park in a way that also serves other purposes such as green infrastructure. I believe we have a bike rack for micromobility. Just something like behind you that rain garden serves a dual purpose of green infrastructure to reduce flooding, but it also serves as a form of daylighting so that a car cannot park

there and somebody can cross the street without their sight lines being obstructed. And we just had a campaign to inform the public that the new speed limit citywide, no matter where you are in Hoboken, is 20 miles an hour. But 15 in school zones. 15 in school zones. So a big component of our Vision Zero initiative is protecting what we call vulnerable users. So pedestrians, bicyclists, children, elderly.

And a lot, you know, parks and schools are big generators of those types of users. So around parks, when we do projects, we make sure that the intersections around parks are upgraded to improve safety. And this is a good example of that. We have curb extension right here with green infrastructure. So, you know, no one can park there

and also so that pedestrians can be more visible and have a shorter crossing distance. We've painted the intersection, this red brick color, and that just brings awareness to the fact that you're approaching an area where there might be higher pedestrian activity. We have another intersection that has a raised intersection, so the intersections at the curb level,

so everyone's at the same level when they cross the street, and it also has a design in the middle, and part of it is placemaking, making sure that this dual purpose that we've been talking about, where you have something that looks nice, but also provides an important function, and this is improving safety.

When you see and when you hear from other cities who are trying to achieve what's been achieved here in Hoboken, and they come to visit, what do you want them to take away, to leave with? I think people should experience just how calm it is. I think that really helps people feel safe. A lot of times the data we're looking at is where a crash has happened.

We don't really get the perception of how people feel. I think what we've achieved in Hoboken at our intersections is a good example of how the calmness. I think it makes a big difference. It's definitely something that people come and look at. Those are my colleagues Michael Hill and Amanda Rousone in conversation with Hoboken Mayor, Ravi Bala, and Transportation Planner Greg Franciez. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC.

Shout out to our production team. It includes Sean Boutage, Amber Bruce, Ave Carrillo, Audrey Cooper, Leora Noam Kravitz, Jenaet Pierre, Wayne Schoemeister, and Gina Vosti, with help from the entire WNYC Newsroom. Our show art was designed by the folks at Buck, and our music was composed by Alexis Quadrado. I'm Jared Marcel. We'll be back next week.