The 14th Street Busway Saves Lives

Gersh Kuntzman writes: "The car-free 14th Street Busway is a real lifesaver. No, literally."

The benefits of the city’s transit-priority pilot program between Third and Ninth avenues in Manhattan are well documented: buses are moving much faster and ridership is up as a result of the improved service.

But the project is having a much greater, and much-less-heralded, safety impact.

The article includes data comparing the period from the busway's opening in October 2019 to January 2020 with the same period from the previous year. The difference is drastic.

"In the four months since the busway began in October, total crashes are down 53 percent and injuries are down 63 percent compared to the same four-month period a year earlier," according to Kuntzman. The article concludes with an appeal to deliver the same kind of safety benefits to additional congested, dangerous corridors around the city.