Foreign Affairs - 03.2020 - 04.2020

(Frankie) #1
Janette Sadik-Khan and Seth Solomonow

146 «¬® ̄°±² ³««³°® ́


through the iconic destination at their leisure. We also introduced the
¥rst parking-protected bike lanes in the United States. In many cities,
i’ a bike lane even exists, it is sandwiched between a lane o’ parked
cars and a lane o’ moving tra¾c. Parking-protected bike lanes, by
contrast, run alongside the curb and push the parking zone for cars a
full lane into the street. This means cy-
clists don’t have to ride within arm’s
reach o’ passing cars.
The results were visible in every bor-
ough—in the crowded avenues o¤ Man-
hattan, the residential side streets o’
Brooklyn, the commercial centers o’ Queens, and the busy boulevards
o’ the Bronx and Staten Island, many o’ which hadn’t changed in gen-
erations. From 2001 to 2019, tra¾c deaths along all o¤ New York City’s
6,000 miles o’ roadway dropped by over 44 percent—from 394 to just
219—even as the number o’ pedestrians on the city’s streets increased
and bike ridership tripled. The city saw a 37 percent drop in pedestrian
deaths and similar reductions for those injured in a car.
This people-focused strategy has worked for some o’ the world’s
most unforgiving streets, including in several cities where we worked
with Bloomberg Associates and the Global Designing Cities Initia-
tive to apply many o’ the designs pioneered in New York City. Mex-
ico City was once one o’ the world’s most dangerous cities, with some
1,000 tra¾c deaths a year. But between 2015 and 2017, Mayor Miguel
Ángel Mancera had 171 intersections redesigned so that there were
clearly de¥ned lanes, pedestrian medians, and crosswalks. He also
reduced the citywide speed limit and ramped up tra¾c enforcement
by using speed cameras. The redesigns helped lead to an 18 percent
reduction in tra¾c deaths, including a 24 percent drop in pedestrian
deaths. The number o‘ bike riders killed fell by 78 percent.
Halfway around the world, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, o¾cials
introduced shortened crosswalks for pedestrians at a busy intersec-
tion in the city center, modi¥cations that made it easier to cross the
street while also forcing vehicles to slow down signi¥cantly in order
to turn. The number o’ serious injuries fell by hal’ in the six months
after the project, and the number o’ deaths went down from one
before the change to zero after.
In Mumbai in 2017, a tra¾c-safety project at the menacing
Mithchowki intersection reclaimed 17,760 square feet o’ roadway

Transportation o§cials


can’t wait for driverless
cars to make streets safe.
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