Is Lowering the Speed Limit the Best Way to Improve Street Safety?
In the aftermath of recent pedestrian fatalities, a lot of attention has been placed on lowering speed limits across New York City to improve safety. But the city's former traffic commissioner argues that other approaches would be more effective.
"Today, there’s an outcry to lower speed limits to combat pedestrian fatalities," writes Sam Schwartz in an op-ed for the New York Daily News. "Wouldn’t it be great if just putting up signs worked? But it probably won’t."
Schwartz casts doubt on the effectiveness of reducing speeds across the city, and suggests seven tactics to improve street safety (including targeted 20-mph speed limits):
- Targeted [speed] reductions
- Speed cameras
- Crunching the numbers
- Analyze every crash
- Step up DUI enforcement
- Focus on the true culprits
- Design, design, design
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Published on Wednesday, January 29, 2014 in
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