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Q&A
DOT's daylighting study and its surprising conclusions
0:46:26
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98 sec
Council Member Brooks-Powers questions Deputy Commissioner Beaton about the DOT's recent study on daylighting, which concluded that universal daylighting might not be as effective as expected. Beaton defends the study's findings, explaining that sometimes accepted practices in transportation planning turn out to be less effective than initially thought.
- The DOT's report on daylighting was mandated by Local Law 66 of 2023
- The study's conclusions contradicted widely accepted practices
- Beaton emphasized the importance of being data-driven, even when results are unexpected
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
0:46:26
I'm gonna pivot now to daylighting.
0:46:28
Local law 66 of 2023 also mandated that DOT study the safety benefits of daylighting.
0:46:37
DOT released a report in January of this year titled daylighting and street safety and analysis which you referred to during your testimony.
0:46:46
To the surprise of many, the report concluded that while hardened daylighting can provide safety benefits, universal daylighting might not be as effective as expected.
0:46:57
Daylighting including universal daylighting is widely accepted as a best practice by numerous jurisdictions and organizations.
0:47:07
Are they all
Eric Beaton
0:47:07
wrong?
0:47:10
Well I can speak much more confidently about New York City because that's where we did our study and that's what the data speaks to.
0:47:16
But I will say that there's a long history in transportation planning of people thinking that things were safe that turned out not to be.
0:47:22
There was a period of time where everyone thought that wider, straighter roads and separating pedestrians out would make things safer.
0:47:30
And in reality, we found the opposite.
0:47:32
And we've now spent a lot of effort undoing some of those decisions that were made decades ago.
0:47:38
And so I can't speak to other places and how they've been thinking about it, But daylighting is an interesting place where people have, including us, have felt that it would be contributing to safety.
0:47:51
And we looked at a very robust set of data that was troubling to us.
0:47:56
And part of being data driven is taking things even when they're not what you expect and being able to work with them.