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Q&A
Daylighting initiatives: funding, implementation, and types
2:35:30
ยท
6 min
Council Member Brooks-Powers inquires about various aspects of DOT's daylighting initiatives, including funding, implementation plans, types of hardened daylighting, and staffing allocation.
- DOT plans to implement 300 hardened daylighting intersections this year, increasing to 400 and then 500 in future years
- Average cost per daylighting location is about $10,000, including personnel and material costs
- Types of hardened daylighting include concrete blocks, bike racks, and concrete neck-downs
- DOT's transportation planning and management division, which coordinates daylighting efforts, has about 525 people
- Discussion of potential collaboration with DEP on hardening daylight rain gardens
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
2:35:30
Thank you, I would like to get a copy of that breakdown.
2:35:35
Next I'm gonna just pivot to daylighting and then I'm gonna yield to my colleagues for their questions.
2:35:40
The preliminary plan includes city funds of $1,380,000 in fiscal twenty twenty five and $3,850,000 baseline starting in fiscal twenty twenty six for daylighting.
2:35:53
How many intersections does DOT anticipate would be addressed with this funding and how many intersections in each borough?
Ydanis Rodriguez
2:36:05
Let let me share that with the daylighting and then Eric will get a compliment with the detail for this year.
2:36:12
Daylighting is an important tool that we have in our box.
2:36:16
And before we, the council, and the administration worked together or we've announcement to make a thousand daylighting intersections last year, DOT already were doing hundreds of daylighting every year.
2:36:32
But daylighting has been as been said before, been proven that only when they're hardening and they are added to all the measure that we take, it benefit, you know, our goal to improve safety.
2:36:46
So last year with the 1,000, hundreds of them they were hardening.
2:36:51
And we have plan for this year.
Eric Beaton
2:36:55
Sure.
2:36:55
And and as the commissioner said, what we're really focused on here is the hardened daylighting because that's where we really see the the safety benefit.
2:37:02
And our baseline for hardened daylighting was about 200 intersections a year.
2:37:07
With this increased investment by the administration, we think we'll do 300 this year and then 400 in future years and growing to 500 as the money grows over time.
2:37:18
So we think that this is a very substantial increase in our ability to do this and it's something that we want to make sure that we're doing alongside all of our other safety treatments which also have benefits.
2:37:27
You know, not substituting daylighting for other work but trying to make sure that it's additive.
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
2:37:54
I'm sorry if I missed this but how many intersections in each borough?
Eric Beaton
2:38:00
So for last year, so we did 1,200 total daylighting, again a little around 300 of them were hardened.
2:38:12
In The Bronx we did 191, in Brooklyn Two Ninety Seven, Manhattan One Hundred And Twenty Five, Queens Four Eleven, Staten Island One Hundred And Seventy Three, and then two were right on the Brooklyn Queens border.
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
2:38:32
Can you provide the committee with the list of the intersections impacted?
Eric Beaton
2:38:36
Yes.
2:38:37
What
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
2:38:39
type of hardened daylighting will DOT be implementing?
Eric Beaton
2:38:46
So it will be a mix of different treatments depending on the location.
2:38:50
Something that we used to good success this year was the square concrete blocks which both provide hardening but also you know someone can lean against them.
2:39:01
They provided a very nice opportunity for us to do some community artwork in places.
2:39:05
So that's a new treatment that we used this year that we expect to continue.
2:39:09
In other locations it might be a bike rack.
2:39:11
In other locations it might be a concrete neck down.
2:39:15
We do try to match the right treatment to the right location so that it fits in with the community.
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
2:39:21
Thank you for that.
2:39:23
What is the average cost associated with hardened daylighting implementation for an intersection and how much would it cost DOT to daylight a thousand intersections?
Paul Ochoa
2:39:40
There's two types of costs to daylighting.
2:39:43
There is the personnel cost and then the other than personnel cost.
2:39:48
It is One thing is purchasing the actual physical barriers that we're gonna be using for daylighting.
2:39:54
As Eric was mentioning, it could be a bike rack or it could be a concrete block or a granite block.
2:40:00
And then there's the personnel costs.
2:40:02
I should also mention that as part of the new need that we received in this plan, it included a new crew for our roadways roadway division to actually move the blocks as needed.
2:40:16
Move the blocks for resurfacing purposes and drop off blocks.
2:40:21
It is a critical component of our roadway operation to be able to of move these blocks as we do them more and more and more.
2:40:29
So I would say about $10,000 per location, but I want to be mindful that there's two types of costs associated to this.
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
2:40:46
Thank you.
2:40:47
Does DOT have any plans to harden daylight rain gardens and are they working with any other agencies such as DEP to do so?
Paul Ochoa
2:41:00
My under oh, you want me
Eric McClure
2:41:01
to take it Margaret?
Rachel Laiserin
2:41:03
Go ahead.
Paul Ochoa
2:41:05
My understanding is most of the rain gardens are mid block.
2:41:09
I haven't seen rain gardens in the intersections, but we're happy to coordinate with DEP.
2:41:15
We we talk to DEP on daily basis on a various on various projects that we do.
2:41:20
So if that is an issue, haven't heard that as an issue, but if that is an issue we're happy to talk to our sister agencies.
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
2:41:30
Thank you.
2:41:31
And how many agency staff are allocated to work on street redesign projects that would include daylighting?
Eric Beaton
2:41:42
So as Paul said, there's very large parts of our entire agency that work on these.
2:41:48
There's not just planners and then but there's the people who put down the markings.
2:41:51
There's the roadways crews that need to move the blocks.
2:41:54
There's our art team that worked on on making them look good for the community.
2:41:59
So we it's hard to give a a super exact number.
2:42:04
I will say that the transportation planning and management division, which is the division that sort of coordinates all of it and does large amounts of the work, is about five twenty five people.
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
2:42:17
Thank you.
2:42:17
I'm gonna yield now to my colleagues.
2:42:19
First, we'll have council member Warren.