Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We'll close the show today by inviting you to call in and help us report the story of the 10th anniversary of the New York City Street Safety Plan called Vision Zero, rolled out by the de Blasio administration. The program has now been implemented for a full decade since 2014, but the number of pedestrian fatalities remains high, far from zero. All this week, the WNYC Newsroom will be looking at the legacy of the program, where it has succeeded in making street safer, which it has in a bunch of cases, and where it has failed. Listeners, here's where you come in for today's end of show call-in.

Since implementing Vision Zero is literally a block by block pursuit, help us report this story. What intersections or stretches of road near you do you find concerning? Put it on our reporter's map, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Beyond that, give us a Vision Zero success story, if you have one from your neighborhood to model it for others. 212-433-9692. For example, Queens Boulevard, as many of you know, used to be called the Boulevard of Death. Then they put in a bike lane, which improved safety significantly. That's one example. Where else would you like to see a bike lane? Is there a two-lane road that could be made into a one-way street?

Is there an intersection you think needs a red light camera or a speed trap? Which intersection would you want to see redesigned and how? 212-433-WNYC. Help contribute to the public conversation about Vision Zero Decade Two. 212-433-9692. Joining me now as your calls are coming in and to preview the week of reporting from the WNYC and Gothamist News team is WNYC's Morning Edition senior producer and former Brian Lehrer Show producer, Alec Hamilton. Hey, Alec.

Alec Hamilton: Hey, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Vision Zero has implemented a lot of changes in how we drive in New York City. Can you name a few of the program's top initiatives?

Alec Hamilton: A big thing is it dropped the default speed limit on most New York City streets from 30 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour. The City says, and data show that a pedestrian who's hit by a vehicle that's going 30 miles an hour is twice as likely to die from that crash as somebody who's hit by a vehicle going 25 miles an hour. It's a big thing. The City also increased in enforcement and penalties for unsafe driving. Then there's a lot of improvements you can see if you just go walk around anywhere in the City. There's pedestrian plazas, there's protected bike lanes, and raised crosswalks, and speed bumps. Then--

Brian Lehrer: I'm just-- Go ahead. I'm sorry, go ahead.

Alec Hamilton: The City also changed the timing on a lot of traffic lights to give pedestrians a little more time to make it safely across the street. The pedestrians get a few seconds head start because you're way easier to be seen by cars if you're in the middle of the street than if you're just stepping off a curb.

Brian Lehrer: I used to see those countdown clocks for the walk signs at some intersections, and it would only start around 10 seconds and count you down from there. Now, some of them that I've come across count down from 30 seconds. Just give us the top-line level of success, which is to say when Vision Zero began 10 years ago, 299 people were killed in traffic in the prior year. What's the number for 2023 if they have released that?

Alec Hamilton: As of, I think it was October 31st, the number for people killed in traffic in New York City in 2023 was 212, with another 42,900 who were injured. The top-line is that the goal is to eliminate deaths and serious injuries from traffic, and that has obviously not happened. From that 299 deaths in 2013, the number started decreasing. January 2014, when the City rolled out the initiative, and then again in February, they added to it, and the numbers started going down. They went down pretty steadily until about 2018, we got to 206 deaths. That was the record low for this last decade. Since then, they've gone back up, and we've never managed to get below 200 deaths in a year.

Brian Lehrer: Even at its height, Vision Zero is really vision reduce it by about a third.

Alec Hamilton: I've seen where those interventions were applied, it has made a real difference. It's just they haven't been applied everywhere, and so some streets continue to be really deadly.

Brian Lehrer: Jerry in Brooklyn might have a place where he'd like to see it applied. Jerry, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Jerry: Hi, there. The intersection I'm calling about is actually McDonald Avenue in Fort Hamilton Parkway. From that intersection, the next light down on Fort Hamilton Parkway is so far away way that cars tend to just speed from McDonald Avenue down Fort Hamilton Parkway. For those people who want to cross the street into Green-Wood Cemetery, it's really treacherous. Also, it's just an opportunity for speeding because of the distance to the next traffic light.

Brian Lehrer: Jerry, thanks for putting that intersection and that stretch on Alec Hamilton's radar. Eli in Williamsburg, you're WNYC. Hi, Eli.

Eli: Hi, there. I live near Grand Avenue, which is a major commercial street in Southeast Williamsburg. It's where I do a lot of my shopping. It's also the street that I walk down when I come from the subway at the Montrose L station. There are two intersections in particular, one at Brown Street in Grand Avenue and the other at McKibbin Street in Grand Avenue on this busy commercial street, where there's not so much as even a crosswalk to cross busy Grand Avenue. I, on a daily basis, find myself having to cross this street with no traffic regulation whatsoever.

Brian Lehrer: Eli, thank you very much. Another one that's come in, in a text message says, "Columbia Street in Brooklyn, when the City removed the lane from the BQE near Brooklyn Heights, Google directions now sends thousands of cars on a neighborhood local street, where people drive like maniacs, running red lights, speeding, driving the wrong direction, and high rates of speeding, ignoring pedestrians. This area also has high foot traffic due to Brooklyn Bridge Park." So many calls from Brooklyn coming in, Alec. There's three examples. I think you were trying to say something about the first one.

Alec Hamilton: I was just going to say, I don't live that far from there. I know just where he's talking about, and it is scary. It's a really good example of an area where street redesign could make a big difference because cars are able to speed down that street because it's wide, and it's straight, and there are no lights, and there are no speed bumps. Without going after individual drivers for obeying or not obeying the speed limit, the City could pretty easily make it impossible to speed or very difficult to speed down that stretch at the same velocity.

Brian Lehrer: Taking these examples as a little sample and based on what you said before, is it that the City has put attention and made changes to a number of intersections over the past decade that have made those intersections safer, but it just takes time, and they haven't gotten to all these other intersections where maybe people are getting hurt and killed, that also could use some infrastructure changes?

Alec Hamilton: That's one of the things we're actually going to be doing this week is our transportation reporter, Stephen Nessen is going to be going to Queens Boulevard, which you mentioned, formerly known as the Boulevard of Death. 18 pedestrians were killed there in a single year in 1997. Since then, there's been a lot of changes. Now, it's much safer. Then there's [unintelligible 00:08:47] Avenue in Brooklyn, which has not seen a lot of changes, and it's still really scary to try to cross the street there. I think in 2021, 10 pedestrians were killed there in traffic. We'll be looking at both of those and the political will it took to get those changes made and why they haven't been applied quite as evenly.

Brian Lehrer: I also see the Newsroom is looking to interview someone who has actually hit a pedestrian. You want to shout out what you're looking for and how people can get in touch if they're willing to be interviewed?

Alec Hamilton: Yes, thank you. We are really hoping to include that perspective this coming week. I don't know if we are going to be able to find someone, but we're trying. We really want to talk with somebody who is behind the wheel during a crash where somebody else got hurt or even killed. Not so much even about the crash itself, but about what life has been like after that because one of the big ideas behind Vision Zero is this idea that humans are imperfect.

That we make mistakes, and we make bad decisions sometimes, but that systems, the infrastructure, and the design could make the consequences of those decisions less deadly. If you think about it from that perspective, drivers are also victims of these systems that are just not designed right to prevent harm. We'd love to hear about the way a crash has impacted somebody who is behind the wheel as well.

Brian Lehrer: Is what you imagine that you might get somebody who actually while driving a car hit a pedestrian and eventually came to the opinion that if only that intersection had had a different kind of crosswalk, or different kind of light cycle, or something like that, that accident might not have happened?

Alec Hamilton: I don't think they need to have performed that level of analysis on it. Really what we just want to hear from them is the ways it's impacted them. The ways it's changed their life since it happened, how they feel, and how they think about things moving forward in the wake of something terrible like that.

Brian Lehrer: Another one coming in from Brooklyn. Listener says, "Corner of Bedford and Dekalb, Spencer and Dekalb, people running stop signs all day and cars hitting each other all the time." One more before we run out of time, Bernard in Brooklyn Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi, Bernard.

Bernard: Thanks very much. Now that we have to go cocktails, I think that's approved now in perpetuity if I'm not-- DWI arrests, there's a document called the Mayor's Management Report, which all citizens can access. I'm seeing quite a drop in DWI arrests from over 10,000, 10 years ago in 2014 to fewer than 4,000 last year. I would hope that's because there's a lot more drunk driving, but I wonder about that.

Also, there's no reporting on whether the arrests are proactive versus reactive after the damage is done. Lastly, I wonder if police officers are more reluctant. Now, things can go awry when you pull over somebody who's perhaps had been drinking. Are police officers less reluctant to get entangled in those situations? Do they feel they're not going to be given the benefit of the doubt?

Brian Lehrer: Bernard, I have to leave it there because we're going to run out of time in a minute. I want to give Alec a chance just to say one more time what they are inviting listeners to do. Alec, in 15 seconds, is a change in enforcement something that you're looking at as a contributor to the persistence of traffic accidents?

Alec Hamilton: I'll say a change in enforcement came as a result of Vision Zero, but I think that some of the people we'll be speaking to would argue that enforcement is maybe not the right proactive approach. I do think, to the caller's point, that the pandemic brought a lot of changes that have created conditions that today contribute to the high number of deaths. We get a lot more deliveries, there's a lot more trucks, there's a lot more e-bikes.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Listeners, heads up, here's a big way you can participate if you want. As our Newsroom is asking listeners to answer the question, what's the one change you'd like to see to make streets safer? We heard some on the phones here. People can send a voice memo. Alec, just tell people in our last 15 seconds how they can record themselves.

Alec Hamilton: You can send us a voice memo at yourvoice@wnyc.org or share it right on our website at wnyc.org/share. Include your name and where you live.

Brian Lehrer: wnyc.org/share or send a voice memo to that inbox. Alec Hamilton, senior producer of WNYC's Morning Edition, will be listening to the series. Thanks so much for coming on.

Alec Hamilton: Thank you, Brian.