Can NY Mayor De Blasio reduce traffic fatalities with Vision Zero?

Has – what a joke! Smoke and mirrors. Silly populist drabble. New Yorkers are the second worst drivers in the country – Boston being the absolute worst.

Having said that, I recommend this book . Besides being fascinating, it reports on some traffic calming techniques that are working in Europe. So there are certainly some things that can be done.

But in NYC? I’m not sure that a victim clock is going to make a difference. It might have the perverse effect of backfiring (“Hey, I want to be #100!!!)

Sure. Give em’ something else to take their eyes off the road. I say put the sign right next to the Hooters billboard (one which resides in St. Louis with the slogan “Made you look”).

Victims clocks probably don’t do jack. The incredibly obvious way to reduce traffic violence is to separate people from traffic. The more you reduce surface automobile traffic, the more you reduce risk.

De Blasio probably won’t do much about that though. He is milquetoast at best about improving public transit, and he won’t take even modest measures to reduce car usage like congestion pricing. Like virtually all Democrats, de Blasio thinks the way to improve people’s lives is to make them more like suburban middle class types, and cars are sacrosanct, if not to him, to the City Council he has to pander to.

Ha! Testing to see who reads links in the details. The Massive Clock is on a website and a Twitter account. Most of the initiative is about better laws, better civil engineering, and public awareness. It has actually worked VERY WELL in Sweden and elsewhere.

@bolwerk Sounds like you’re not very familiar with New York City. A great many of its residents don’t even own a car, because the cost of parking space for it is so high, the traffic between you and any destination is so daunting, and when you finally get there, there’s no place to park, so you end up walking 20 blocks anyway.

@ETpro: um, I live in New York City. The majority of citizens don’t drive, but the political and union classes have a car bias that would make LA blush, while transit fares are some of the highest in the country. And whether we drive or not, we are put in danger by the many utter sociopaths who do.

@bolwerk So rather than decrying the new mayor’s initiative untried, perhaps it would serve your own interests to say, “Let’s see if it works.”

@ETpro: we know re-engineering can work. What we can expect is he won’t bother because all his donors and fellow politicians feel entitled to a car and a parking placard.

@bolwerk We shall see. I keep waiting for a politician to surprise me. Every now and then, one comes along who actually does.

@ETpro: de Blasio is probably good news on policing and civil liberties. On transportation and land use, not so much.

@bolwerk Time will tell what works, and what doesn’t.