De Blasio Says 'Vision Zero' Is Keeping Pedestrians and Cyclists Safe. It's Not.

NEW YORK CITY, NY — At a cheery morning press conference, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio applauded what he called a "radical change" in the number of NYC traffic fatalities over the past month. "Particularly fatalities among pedestrians started to shoot downward, because we did things that needed to be done," the mayor said at the Tuesday event. (Video below.)

His speech was misleading, at best.

Real life: City data through Nov. 27, 2016, shows pedestrians and cyclists are being killed by drivers in the city at around the same rate under de Blasio's two-year-old "Vision Zero" traffic safety initiative as they were in years prior.

The mayor introduced Vision Zero in winter 2014 as a pledge to entirely eliminate car-as-weapon killings in NYC. He said this could be accomplished in 20 years. Two years in, though, no progress has been made.

One-hundred-forty-three pedestrians and cyclists have been killed on NYC streets so far this year, according to city statistics through the end of November — eight more than by the end of November last year, when 135 had been killed.

And certainly nowhere close to zero.

Meanwhile, nearly 500 more pedestrians and cyclists were injured through October of this year than in the same time period last year — up from 12,054 to 12,550. We don't have November data on injuries yet. But we can point to the city's latest victim: An elderly woman in critical condition Tuesday after being hit by an SUV the night before, as she crossed 1st Avenue on the Upper East Side.

(A note: The overall traffic fatality rate in NYC is a little lower so far this year than last year. But that's because of a decrease in driver deaths; pedestrian and cyclist deaths, on the other hand, have gone up.)

(Another note: City records show pedestrian and cyclist deaths did drop significantly in 2015, the first year of Vision Zero, after a spike in 2013 and 2014. But this year's numbers, through the end of November, put us right back at a similar rate as 2014 — before de Blasio had dropped hundreds of millions of dollars on Vision Zero construction and awareness projects. For what it's worth, the death tolls through November in both 2011 and 2012, too, were around the same as this year's.)

Still, on Tuesday, de Blasio, grasping at the first stat showing any kind of improvement in NYC traffic safety this year — and perhaps a little hyped on his recent bout of viral stardom — hailed the recent successes of Vision Zero. In particular, he credited the new, $1.5 million "Dusk and Darkness" public awareness campaign with a 54 percent decline in all traffic-related deaths over the past four weeks (through Nov. 27).

"Vision Zero has made a noticeable impact on our traffic safety this year,” City Council Member Costa Constantinides chimed in.

All this, based on one good month.

And by the mayor's own admission, even incorporating November's lower numbers, more pedestrian and cyclists have died this year than last.

As part of the Dusk and Darkness campaign, thousands of pamphlets were handed out to New Yorkers, warning them that traffic deaths always spike during long, dark winter nights. NYPD officials also promised to crack down on reckless drivers during the campaign — and said Tuesday that they ended up issuing 50,000 "summonses for hazardous moving violations" in the course of a month. (Although they didn't say how many summonses they normally issue in a month.)

Paul Steely White, executive director of TransAlt, the city's leading traffic-safety watchdog org, said Tuesday:

"While the November drop in traffic deaths cited in today’s press conference is encouraging, the overall trend this year has anything but, with increases in hit-and-runs and pedestrian and cyclist fatalities. These fatalities, we hasten to add, are not on the rise because people are texting while walking and biking," White said. "In fact, most pedestrian and bike deaths are caused by reckless driving, on streets that are dangerously designed to encourage speeding."

Going forward, TransAlt's director said in a statement, "Instead of brief enforcement blitzes followed by a return to business as usual... we need a sustained effort that focuses on these deadly driver behaviors all year long, across the precincts, to save lives in every community."

The good news: The public can now keep closer track of the city's (somewhat embarrassing) traffic safety stats via Trafficstat.nypdonline.org, a handy site upgraded Tuesday by the NYPD to include crash-specific details such as "collision type" and "contributing factor." The site still doesn't separate pedestrian and cyclist deaths from driver deaths, though. For those numbers, visit VZV.nyc.

This post has been updated to include additional city traffic data from the month of November, as provided by the NYC Mayor's Office.

Lead photo by Keegan Stephan