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Giving City Streets Built-In Safety Features -- The New York Times

Jane E. Brody reports on the efforts in New City to make city streets safer for pedestrians, bicyclists, and even drivers. "When it comes to moving people around in healthy ways, New York City already has a leg up on most cities and towns around the country. The city has sidewalks in all five boroughs; food stores and other shops are within walking distance of where most people live…City children have long been able to walk, skate or scoot to school…Because so many New Yorkers use their feet to get them from place to place, they weigh on average six or seven pounds less than those who live in suburban America, said Dr. Richard J. Jackson, professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles…Despite a rising tide of pedestrians and cyclists, the number of traffic-related deaths on city streets fell last year to the lowest level in a century, declining 40 percent since 2001…Janette Sadik-Khan, the city’s transportation commissioner, attributes these improvements to an ambitious plan-in-progress to re-engineer city streets. Recent years have seen a plethora of projects to improve pedestrian and cycling safety…The city is also enhancing enforcement of traffic laws…But as Ms. Sadik-Khan acknowledges, this is only the beginning; a lot more must be done to make the city streets safer for people who wish to navigate them under their own steam."...

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Source: Harvard World Health News - Friday, 10 February


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