Q&A
Street safety measures for micromobility users
0:48:19
ยท
3 min
Council Member Brooks-Powers inquires about steps taken by DOT to ensure safety measures for micromobility users and pedestrians. Deputy Commissioner Beaton outlines DOT's approach to micromobility safety.
- DOT works with NYPD to identify and focus enforcement on high-crash corridors
- Education campaigns target both the general community and delivery workers
- Street design changes, such as wider bike lanes and pedestrian refuge islands, are being implemented to improve safety
Selvena Brooks-Powers
0:48:19
Going into street safety and street's plan, DOT has implemented a number of tools to address vehicular safety, such as speed cameras, speed humps, all red light cameras, all the things.
0:48:37
But what steps has the agency taken to ensure measures to protect pedestrians and motorists from micromobility users, recognizing while that it may not be at the same frequency as a car, that there are still, instant incidents of, crashes as it pertains to micromobility as we saw in the last hearing we had 9 hours 40 minutes.
0:49:03
There was a lot of passion and concern from the public in terms of safety as it relates to e scooters, e bikes, and so I like to understand what steps DOT has taken, to address the the safety as it pertains to micromobility.
Margaret Forgione
0:49:23
Thank you, chair.
0:49:24
So I I'll have Eric Beaton, deputy commissioner, jump in on this as he's been, championing a lot of that work.
Eric Beaton
0:49:31
Sure.
0:49:31
And this is something we do take very seriously.
0:49:34
You know, pedestrian safety is important whether they're getting struck by cars or by micromobility.
0:49:40
And we've had a real focus on micromobility over the past couple years for, you know, as you say, it's getting a lot of attention, and deservedly so as micromobility and biking has been on a rise in the city.
0:49:50
We think that broadly that's a good thing.
0:49:52
We like seeing people getting around outside of cars, but we do need to make sure the street is safe for everyone.
0:49:57
So I'll mention a few of the things that we do.
0:49:59
You know, 1st on the enforcement side, we work very closely with NYPD where we use data to identify the corridors where the most crashes are happening, and then NYPD does a real focused effort on those corridors.
0:50:12
And and we should see that, you know, if you go out once, you catch someone, you know, maybe they learn, maybe they don't.
0:50:18
But if you do a a lengthy focused area in a corridor, people really start to learn and change behavior.
0:50:23
So we've we've been seeing that being effective.
0:50:25
We've done a very strong education campaign where we've worked with the community at large, but also very specifically with the delivery worker community, to try and make sure both that they're operating safe equipment, but also that they know the rules of the road.
0:50:38
And, you know, there's people who come in, and they they start working without necessarily knowing everything about how the city functions.
Selvena Brooks-Powers
0:50:44
But do you focus on group, like, riders outside of the delivery system?
0:50:50
Because not everyone riding
Eric Beaton
0:50:51
a scooter or
Selvena Brooks-Powers
0:50:52
a bike are necessarily using it for work.
Eric Beaton
0:50:54
That's right.
0:50:55
We do we do do both.
0:50:56
The the the delivery worker community, you know, is has a very focused particular set, but we do work with the larger you know, we do advertising and other ways to get at the larger community.
0:51:07
And then we're working on the design side as well because ultimately, the you know, enforcement cannot be everywhere at all times.
0:51:14
We wanna make sure that the streets are designed to be safe, and that's why we've looked to change the design of our bike lanes, in some cases making them wider so that the the passing is safer, installing things like pedestrian refuge islands so that it's clear where pedestrians need to wait or not.
0:51:31
As we've been installing our new sets of bike lanes, we've been incorporating more and more of these elements to to reflect the changing nature nature of in the city.
Selvena Brooks-Powers
0:51:39
Now you raise a good point in terms of how the roads are designed, and this is something I've said in the past before as well, in terms of when you talk about motor vehicles.