Mayor de Blasio’s first executive budget is bringing into focus his commitment to Vision Zero, a plan that seeks to eliminate traffic deaths in New York City by 2024. The mayor is proposing to spend $42 million on safety initiatives and street engineering, and to put an extra $49 million toward filling potholes around the city.
The Department of Transportation would receive $28.8 million for more speed bumps, slow zones, speed cameras, and intersection redesigns. The NYPD would get $13 million for traffic enforcement, and $1.1 million would go to the Taxi and Limousine Commission for a safety-focused ad campaign.
The Department of Transportation's street resurfacing budget would see a boost of $49 million, for a total of $226 million. About 1,000 lane miles of streets would be repaved.
Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, said road resurfacing projects are a prime safety tool because once the paving is done, the DOT can change street markings to "give pedestrians more protected space, give bus riders a dedicated lane so that their bus isn’t stuck behind a double parker.” He added that, where it makes sense, the city could add protected bike lanes to accommodate "the explosion in bike ridership we’ve seen, especially with the advent of Citi Bike.”
Mayor de Blasio said the importance of traffic safety "hit home" for him when he realized that the city had 333 homicides and 286 traffic deaths in 2103. "And that really put a point on the fact that addressing these crashes is an incredibly fundamental part of keeping this city safe," he said.
De Blasio signaled his seriousness about the issue by rolling out his Vision Zero plan soon after taking office in January. "The Vision Zero plan is being implemented intensely as we speak," he said on Thursday with the release of the executive budget. "It is already having a very positive effect." But now Council members and transportation advocates have numbers with which to judge the scope of the plan.
The budget also allocates nearly $50 million for Select Bus Service. And de Blasio said the city would spend $346 million to refurbish bridges, "to make sure our bridges are safe for the future."
The mayor will now negotiate with the City Council to come up with a final budget, which is due by the end of June.