Janette Sadik-Khan and Seth Solomonow146 «¬® ̄°±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 roadwayTransportation o§cials
can’t wait for driverless
cars to make streets safe.