There has also been a reversal in the spike in reckless driving that skyrocketed during COVID and in the years that followed. Cracking down on ghost cars is likely part of the reason

You've been doing this long enough to know that it's never one thing in isolation and varies by mode

The release spells out a few factors: cumulative impact of street redesigns, record bike/ped space, ghost car crackdown, aggressive NYPD enforcement in high-crash corridors, 24/7 speed cams

Truly wonderful. There’s such a huge demand for open streets in New York!

I appreciate you saying this. I know there are people who don't want to hear it because it challenges some assumptions. But there has to be a data-driven approach, even when the results are unexpected.

I know some don’t like hearing it and the results of the study were surprising. (It surprised DOT too!) But, we shouldn’t design streets based on gut instincts instead of hard data.

Because there are 40,000 intersections and roughly 160,000 intersection corners, universal hardened daylight is infeasible. It would cost $3 billion and drain critical resources from other mandates and goals that are proven to have even greater safety benefits.

Now, there were some benefits to hardened daylighting, and @nyc-dot.bsky.social has been doing thoughtful, data-driven hardened daylighting at hundreds of locations each year. But, it’s a situational tool and in some cases other safety treatments have greater safety benefits.

And, there is no reason to believe that people wouldn’t illegally park in simple ‘no parking’ areas less often than at a fire hydrant. If anything, you would think a fire hydrant would be a greater deterrent to illegal parking than simple No Parking.

Some have criticized using hydrant zones as a proxy for daylighting because there may have been a car parked there when a crash occurred. But, here’s the rub: when DOT compared daylit to nearby non-daylit locations, the non-daylit (where a car is likely ALWAYS parked) were safer.

The study did similar analysis at 7,000 areas with fire hydrants/bus stops at intersections and the results were similarly negative. These areas are a reasonable proxy for universal daylighting because they are no parking zones at intersections that were indiscriminately placed.

The hypothesis is that the wider turn radius and drivers’ belief that they had a fuller range of sight caused them to take turns faster and more carelessly. The report also looked at similar nearby intersections without daylighting and found they were actually safer.

Before/after analysis at daylit locations in the city found that those without ‘hardened’ daylighting - which is what universal daylighting would be - made intersections less safe, on average.

The universal daylighting bill will not yield notable safety benefits and could make many intersections MORE dangerous.

@nyc-dot.bsky.social studied it and the results even surprised us. Here are the facts:

Don’t disagree that on-site charging offers promise, but it is costly - like everything DOT does - and requires underground utility work

And as a kid from Appalachia, this includes engaging rural America.

As funny as he is, we need to stop Jordan Klepper-ing. Don’t mock small town America, don’t belittle people and treat them like they’re dumb. It makes us come off as elitists.

Hear people, understand them, welcome them in.