NYC Council Approves Traffic Safety Data Reporting Package

The NYC Council unanimously passed three new traffic safety data reporting bills this afternoon.

Sponsored by councilwoman Jessica Lappin, Intro 370,  the “Saving Lives Through Better Information,” bill “will require the NYPD to post information on car accidents, fatal accidents and crashes between a vehicle and a pedestrian or a bicyclist. There will also be data on summonses handed out for moving violations. The information will be updated monthly.” (Daily News) The NYPD will start posting this traffic data on its web site 120 days  after bill is signed into law. The data will be available by borough and by precinct.

The bicycle crash data reporting bill, Intro 374, will start compiling data on October 1, 2011 and “include crashes between bicycles, between bicycles and motorized vehicles and between bicycles and pedestrians. ” (City Council info) Currently this data is not available in any one place. The first public report to the City Council is due June 1, 2012.

The third bill in this package, Intro 377 "requires DOT to explain why it rejected certain requests for traffic control devices. If a community board or Council member requests, say, a stop sign and DOT rejects that request, DOT must send a summary of the federal warrants it used to guide its decision, along with the date and time it collected the traffic data. The community board or Council member may then request that DOT send them a summary of any traffic study it conducted. Full Streetsblog article here.