NYMTC Regional Pedestrian Safety Study - New York Metropolitan ...

Jurisdictional issues
Achieving substantial improvements to safety (pedestrian or other) is enhanced by the 3E
process, that is the integration of engineering, education, and enforcement. In New Jersey, they
found that many engineering improvements by themselves had insignificant impacts on reducing
pedestrian crashes; when the projects include all three of the Es, they saw reductions in the range
of 10 to 15 percent of crashes. However, the coordination of engineering, education, and
enforcement is hampered by the organizational split between agencies responsible for these three
activities at all levels of government, starting with the split of responsibilities between FHWA
and NHTSA.
A common problem faced by the outlying counties is a difference of interest between NYSDOT
or the counties on one hand and the municipalities on the other. For example, when a need for
sidewalks exists on the state highway system, the state builds them, but the municipalities are
required by law to maintain them. Some municipalities resist the sidewalks rather than take on
the cost of maintaining them. Similar problems exist for sidewalks at and leading to bus stops as
well as bus shelters and for establishing parking policies and speed limits along state or county
roads within municipalities.
In Nassau County there are several places where streets form the boundary between adjacent
municipalities; this creates a problem when the communities disagree on improvements to the
street. They also have situations where school districts have roads on their property that the
municipality maintains; again it can be difficult to get agreement on the design of improvements.
The data needed for identifying unsafe locations is initially in the hands of the police. Some
agencies have worked out arrangements which allow the to have the data immediately, but
several agencies had difficulty getting the data from the police and had to wait to obtain it from
NYSDOT, but by then it is out of date.
A particular problem exists in Putnam and Westchester Counties, where large parts of the
counties are within the New York City Watershed. Environmental regulations designed to
protect water quality require minimizing the addition of new impervious surfaces (paved
sidewalks and trailways, wider shoulders) and mitigating any added impervious surfaces. This
lengthens the environmental approval, permitting and design processes, often discouraging
communities from adding facilities.
Conflicts between modes can interfere with some countermeasures, for example, neckdowns
were proposed to shorten the crossing width of Queens Boulevard, but they would have
interfered with the turning radius required by buses operating in the area. In other cases, the
neckdowns conflicted with the turning radius needed for emergency vehicles.
Conflicts within agencies
Several people mentioned that the engineers within their own agency either were ignorant of the
need for designing for pedestrians or did not agree that it was needed. This is partly due to the
lag in the education system; the traffic engineering curriculum is just beginning to include
NYMTC Pedestrian Safety Study 50