Pedestrian Safety Initiatives for the Asian American Elderly

Cynthia Chen:

Hello and welcome to General Session 3, Pedestrian Safety Initiatives for the Asian American Elderly. I’m Cynthia Chen, Assistant Professor from The City College of CUNY. I like to welcome our first speaker, Paul White.

Paul White:

It’s a pleasure to be here today. I’m joined by two of my colleagues from Transportation Alternatives, Amy Pfeiffer and Carlo Terria. Please give them a round of applause, because they’re leading the fight in New York City to make our streets more safer, accessible, and conducive to the well-being of seniors. They head up our state group for seniors project which has been working on lower Manhattan for the past three years to redesign our streets and intersections, including ramps on crosswalks. I just want to say that I’m very proud to be on a panel with these panelists, particularly the New York City Department of Transportation. They have done a tremendous job in the past few years, as see a decrease in pedestrian fatalities and our streets more walkable.

How many physicians and health care practitioners do we have here today? A few. How many people in New York died of cholera last year? Zero. Hardly anyone dies of cholera in New York anymore, but it used to be a terrible epidemic. Slowly, the doctors began to realize that cholera was preventable. Cholera was one of the unfortunate facts of city life. Then doctors began to realize that there was a link between the way the streets were designed and cholera, particularly streets with no proper sewage systems. They began to see this link between the engineering of our city and public health, and prevent fatalities.

By the same token, the field of transportation, and public health for that matter, doesn’t realize that most pedestrian fatalities and injuries are in fact preventable. Certainly, human error often plays a role in crashes and injuries, but it’s possible to design our streets so that even when people make mistakes, when an elderly pedestrian doesn’t make it across the street in time, even when someone drives pass a red light, the consequence is not death. So really, what this is about and what we advocate for is making our streets more forgiving, so the penalty for mistakes that we all make is not death or injury.

This is a map that shows the density of senior citizens in Chinatown, specifically the ratio of seniors to the total population. You can see that we’re really talking about a senior rich area when we talk about Lower Manhattan’s Chinatown. Here now is a crash map. I talked about cholera a few minutes ago. Those doctors who advocated and ultimately did win safer streets, with better designed sewage systems, started out with cholera maps. They could see that there was a relationship between instances of cholera and street design.

Our crash shows pedestrian fatalities and injuries in Chinatown between the years of 1995 and 2001. Each of these little circles in red indicates injuries, and fatalities involving to senior citizens. Citywide, senior citizens are twice as likely to be injured or killed by a motor vehicle than the rest of the population. As you can see here, the danger spots are at Canal and Mott Streets, Bowery and Canal, and also Bowery and Grand. Ninety percent of these are preventable if we designed our streets for senior citizens and took care of their particular needs.

So what characterizes this section of New York? We know that these streets are very narrow with most of them designed in the 1700s. They weren’t designed to accommodate modern traffic because the automobile wasn’t invented yet. So is Chinatown unique? Its the high density of very active seniors compared to other cities in the US. Our seniors are out shopping and going to the park. They’re not staying at home as much as other seniors do. As I mentioned, the street network is, in many ways, pedestrian friendly because the streets were narrow and destinations were close together. Today, because of the high density and all the traffic, this creates problems. You have 18^th Century streets and 21^st Century traffic.

What are some of the pedestrian safety issues in Chinatown? We know that there is heavy truck traffic on Canal Street in particular. Vehicles blocking the crosswalks are a huge problem. Vehicles also often do not yield to pedestrians when they cross. So what can be done? A few weeks ago, we did a survey on the extent of illegal parking in Chinatown. How many vehicles were blocking crosswalks? How many vehicles were parked on the sidewalk? How many vehicles were parked in front of a fire hydrant? We found 115 vehicles parked on the sidewalk in Chinatown in only one hour. Most of these vehicles, of course, belonged to government employees. We stood in Chinatown with local shopkeepers and leaders and had a huge press conference that resulted in a large Daily News article. It actually has a picture of elderly pedestrians trying to cross the street, but can’t, because there’s a vehicle parked in the crosswalk.

Today’s Daily News has a story about how cars are getting towed. They’re beginning to tow the vehicles out of crosswalks, which is very important, because the more vehicles you have illegally parked, the more senior citizens are going to be struck, killed and injured by vehicles. Parked vehicles, particular near the corners, obstruct sightlines. Motorcyclists and pedestrians can’t see each other, and of course, vehicles parked on the sidewalks force pedestrians to walk into the street, which has obvious implications.

Today we have pre-stamped postcards for you all to sign. It is already stamped. It’s a thank you for Mayor Bloomberg for cracking down on illegal parking in Chinatown. It also includes an encouragement for him to go even further to make our streets safer for senior citizens.

So, what else can we do? More walk time at traffic lights. Actually, traffic lights in Chinatown are already pretty good in terms of giving people enough time to get across the street, much better than many areas of Queens. But the problem is with so much congestion and illegally parked cars, people actually need more time to cross the street. Senior citizens take more time to ascend and descend the curb, so they need more crossing time.

There is something called a Leading Pedestrian Interval that the Department of Transportation has been installing in more intersections throughout the city. What you do is that you read and time the traffic lights, so that the pedestrian gets the walk signal, and all the rest of traffic is stopped. This is only for 7 to 8 seconds, which gives pedestrians enough time to get out into the crosswalk, establish themselves, before cars start turning. We need more of these in Chinatown and other areas of the city. Also, making sure that the streets are clean, well marked with crosswalks, and making sure that every curb cut installed is within the dictates of the Americans with Disabilities Act. If you would like to find out more about this topic, I encourage you all to go to Karla Quintero’s afternoon session at 1:45. She is much more knowledgeable than I am about this. She is out on the streets doing the research with Amy. They count pedestrians, and time traffic lights. In fact, you may see them on a street near you this summer. Thank you all for your time.

Cynthia Chen:

Thank you, Paul White. And now, please give a warm welcome to our next speaker, Claire McKnight.

Claire McKnight:

Thank you very much. I just want to start out with looking at a little bit at why pedestrian safety might be a particular problem in Chinatown, and for Asian Americans. I see three factors contributing to this. One is the cultural life of Chinese Americans. Second is the age of senior citizens. And third, is location. Looking at the presentation that Paul White showed earlier, there is a great amount of accidents along Canal Street. From a cultural standpoint, I started as a tourist in South Asia, both in India and China. There, the attitudes about crossing the streets are extremely different from a Caucasian American who grew up in the suburbs. In China, the way pedestrians crossed the street was just to walk into traffic and cars avoided hitting them. It seemed to work fine for them, but it didn’t work for me because I didn’t have the nerves to do it. In the United States, the attitude is that pedestrians are supposed to stay out of the way of cars. So I think you can see, for people who come from a culture where cars avoid you, you’re going to have problems in a culture where people are supposed to stay out of a car’s way.

Here’s a quick list regarding some of the problems. Senior walkers tend to be much more careful and law abiding than young people. Some have physical and cognitive problems that make them more likely to be hit and seriously hurt or killed. They tend to walk slower and have a longer reaction time. They are less agile and balanced. They frequently have visual and cognitive problems which makes it difficult for them to judge the speed and distance of an approaching vehicle. They are more susceptible to confusion and distraction. This is true of me, that they’re less likely to realize that they’re slowing down. I don’t know about you, but I always think that I am 20 to 40 years younger than I actually am. I forget that I don’t move quite as well as I used to. Studies of older pedestrians have shown that two thirds of them did not see the vehicle approaching. Almost half of them misjudge what the car was doing and about to do. There are several people who thought the car was standing still, when in fact, it was actually moving. All of these issues make for much more of a severe problem for an older person.

On Canal Street, traffic is very heavy. Many of the streets in Chinatown are narrow, but Canal Street is relatively wide. It’s very congested, and the sidewalks are in extremely bad condition. There are an amazing number of obstacles as you walk up and down the street. Canal Street also connects the Holland Tunnel and Manhattan Bridge. We have a lot of thru- traffic that doesn’t think in terms of the environment. They’re thinking about getting from one end to another.

I did a couple of hours of unscientific observation on Canal Street by walking down the street from one end to the other. Many people crossed mid-block, weaving between cars. It was usually the young people who were doing that. There’s a tremendous amount of conflict between pedestrians in the crosswalks too, both those who were crossing legally with the walk light and those who kept crossing even when the flashing red walk light is supposed to tell them to not walk. It takes even longer to get across because there’s so many people crossing. You get in each other’s way. Also, cars frequently made illegal turns, and pedestrians crossed on red. Both pedestrians and cars were bending the rules.

In terms of initiatives, one of the things that we’ve discovered in crime and safety improvement was that you can’t improve it only through engineering. You need to have a coordinated approach, or what is called “the Three E Approach,” because it involves Engineering, Education and Enforcement. These are some of the things from my one day observation that I think need to be improved on. The sidewalks on Canal, at least on the north side, are just atrocious.

We also need to slow down the speed of traffic. A lot of traffic is going to and from the Manhattan Bridge and Holland Tunnel. We should really be discouraging people from driving through Manhattan, and go around it. In terms of how you would slow down the traffic, first, widen the sidewalks. Slowing down the traffic has a duel purpose. You may not recognize it right away, but people do tend to drive slower when they are on a narrower street. We should use bulb-outs at the intersection which brings sidewalks out at intersection a little bit, narrowing the crossing distance, and is extremely useful for an older pedestrian. Also, it means that seniors are more visible to cars, and seniors can see the cars better.

We need to provide a longer time for crossing, which is important to the older pedestrian. Perhaps we can use an actual “late button” that anyone could push to provide a couple of extra seconds for crossing. The problem, however, is that people don’t understand the use of the button, so you would only do this when actually going through an education campaign to make sure people understand what the button does and how it works.

We need to educate pedestrians. First, the cultural aspect. Make it clear to them that drivers in the United States have a different approach to driving than they do back in Asia. A very simple one, how to interpret the flashing don’t walk signal. Too many pedestrians have no idea what it means, but if we explain it to an older pedestrian that you should not start walking only if you are already on the street, you should continue across. On safe walking behavior, several organizations have developed tips for older pedestrians, similar to what AARP has done for older drivers. The behavioral change is necessary to make them recognize that as they get older, they really need o change too.

Educating drivers is a very difficult thing to do. If you walk from one end of Canal Street to the other, towards the Manhattan Bridge, you see this huge sign saying “Buckle up your seat belt.” I don’t know why you should be reminding people to do that. Why don’t we turn the sign around and have it say something to the effect of “Pedestrians ahead, slow down,” instead? Another possible solution is to educate merchants, and city employees that it’s important to keep the sidewalks clear of all objects.

Enforcement is important. We need to ticket drivers for pedestrians infractions. The problem is that we don’t take these things seriously. Similarly, the same thing for pedestrians, those who are breaking the law, crossing mid-block, and crossing on red signals. It’s not a trivial issue. People need to take these issues seriously.

Thank you.

Cynthia Chen:

Our next panelist is Jerry Cheng, a principal transportation planner with the New York State Planning. He has over 30 years of experience in transportation planning, and is going to talk about patient related accidents and pedestrian safety.

Jerry Cheng:

First, I want to introduce some numbers. In a federal highway administration report published last year, the national number for pedestrian-related deaths every year was almost 5,000, and 70,000 injuries. In New York State, it’s the total opposite. Everyday, around 340 pedestrians are killed, and 17,000 are injured. The number of pedestrians killed in New York doesn’t seem to be a high percentage. But if you compare with those injured, New York really has a very high number. We need to educate Asians, especially the new immigrants, because this is a serious problem. They come from a very different urban setting and cultural background, and we need to let them know that they’re in a different environment now.

Elderly pedestrians can benefit from education in two areas, same street crossing techniques, and the meeting of pedestrian crossing signals. One of the critical things a lot of people, especially the elderly, don’t quite comprehend is the size of a vehicle. On Canal Street, we have a lot of truck traffic, so all of those vehicles are huge. The driver, even if you’re crossing safely, can’t even see you. I remember a couple of years ago, there was a short old lady who was killed in the Chatham Square area. It turned out that the driver didn’t even know that they hit the lady, because she was short. She walked right in front of the car. Before you want to cross, you should make sure the driver can see you. You can’t assume that the driver will allow you to go.

Regarding crossing signals, I think Claire mentioned before, people should understand what the traffic signals mean. In Asia, there’s a digital signal that gives you the number of seconds you have to walk across the street. This is particularly helpful for the elderly, because as Claire mentioned, they don’t know how much time they have to cross. Recently, I saw on the news that Councilman John Liu wants a trial of this type of signal. Maybe Gerard Soffian, my old friend, can mention it later. I think it will be very convenient, especially for busy streets in Chinatown, like Canal Street, and even dangerous streets like Queens Blvd if they can implement those digital signals. We need an education system to reach out to senior citizens. Senior centers should prepare handouts whenever something new develops. Thank you very much.

Cynthia Chen:

I would like to welcome our last speaker, Gerard Soffian, an Assistant Commissioner for the Division of Signs for the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT).

 

Gerard Soffian:

It’s as a pleasure to be here today with such a distinguished panel. I want to say that we are improving the problem on Canal Street. The point about making the streets more forgiving is a fundamental concept, so that when pedestrians make an error, the penalty shouldn’t be dire. There was a point made by Jerry about trucks being not able to see pedestrians. Unfortunately, this is a very common occurrence. The city has been lobbying and proposing something called crossover mirrors, similar to what you might see in school buses. We are currently taking advantage of some programs to systematically look at our city streets to improve the safety, especially for pedestrians.

Let me start by reviewing some of the measures the DOT has done to improve the quality of life and safety for pedestrians. One thing is the Safe Route to School Program. We build these islands on wide streets to provide a place so pedestrians can wait until the next walk signal comes up. One is an example in Long Island City. When we can’t actually build an island, we do it very inexpensively with paint. On Garretson Avenue in Brooklyn, we’ve done a couple of things there like narrow the street by taking away one travel lane in each direction and putting a median on the street using just paint. Not only does this help pedestrians, but help motor vehicles by providing left turn lanes and slows down traffic by having one lane rather than two operating in each direction.

A more physical device is the speed bump. Motorists actually had to reduce their speed down to 15 to 20 miles per hour to accommodate the vertical deflection that existed on the roadways. An example is at a spot in Central Park, to make it more compatible between the motorist and the pedestrian. Something else we’ve been doing around the city is reducing the crossing distance between streets at locations on Brooklyn’s Fulton Street where there used to be a very wide crossing by using markings and flexible bollards. Fulton Street cuts through the grind at an abnormal angle creating these very abnormal intersections where we create these excessively long crossing distances.

Another problem is when a vehicle does have to make a right angle, but instead of making the turn at a more subtle angle, they make the turn faster than they otherwise would. By making a turn at more of a right angle turn, which forces the motorist to slow down to a more appropriate speed. Fulton Street, has what we call a free right turn. You might see this in Chinatown on Canal Street coming from the Manhattan Bridge where we have a free right turn onto north bound Bowery Street. That is something we are carefully looking at. In a stop control phase, motorists tend to go through without due caution and yielding to pedestrians who might be at a crosswalk on Bowery Street. In this case, we were actually able to close off the street and make all the vehicles come to the intersection, away from a traffic signal, and then proceed as if they were making a turn or going straight through.

Other locations with improved pedestrian safety are bus stops under Els. You can see this in Queens, on 31^st Street in Astoria, or Long Island City. On 86^th Street in Brooklyn where pedestrians normally have to wait in the street with only the protection of a column from the subway above. We build these out of concrete and use a creative concrete median which provides a safe place for pedestrians to wait to get on and off the bus.

As mentioned earlier, not everyone understands what that flashing “Don’t Walk” or flashing hand means. We have been increasing the number of signs telling pedestrians when they can cross, and telling them that when that red hand starts flashing, there is no time to start crossing. And when that solid red hand comes up, don’t cross. In areas where there is an elderly population, we need to provide additional crossing time. Typically, the average adult New Yorker walk about 4 feet per second, whereas seniors walk about 3 feet per second. We will be experimenting with count down signals in New York City. In addition to the flashing “Don’t Walk,” there is also a count down of seconds left before the signal turns solid red and the red hand appears.

We have some reservations about this. First, knowing you don’t have enough time left to cross while midway won’t help you at all, if you’re not a track star and make it across in time. For the elderly population, the likelihood of making it is very slim.

Second, a much larger concern is what the motorist will do when they start seeing the countdown. Some think that motorists will prepare to stop because the signal is going to change red. Others think that motorists will now know how much time they still have to get through an intersection real fast. So we don’t know how these things will do in New York City. Similarly, to avoid conflicts between motorists and pedestrians turning into a major crosswalk, we’ll have extensive use of signage to inform motorists very prominently that they should yield to pedestrians who have the right of way. We need signs out to reinforce that law.

Another issue is large vehicles, especially trucks making turns at intersections that sometimes are acute angles. The turning vehicle actually runs up on the curb where there are lots of pedestrians. We try to advise motorists as well as the truck drivers to be careful. An example is Queens Blvd, where we use signs to reinforce this. Queens Blvd is not a forgiving street. You make a mistake and you’re in serious trouble. Unfortunately, with signs, later become invisible after a couple of weeks, and we’re lucky is they do have an initial impact.

Paul mentioned pedestrian intervals, which allow for pedestrians to cross the street in advance of the vehicles getting the green signal. Even beyond that, there are split face signals which prevent turning vehicles from moving by holding them back with a red arrow saying that they can’t turn. They’re only permitted to turn when the red arrow goes green, which is when the pedestrians see the don’t walk signal. This separates all the movement. We have these split face signals in midtown Manhattan.

Now, as far as pedestrian space is concerned, a couple of years ago, we shut down Pearl Street in order to widen the sidewalks to provide a nice and safer environment for pedestrians. You might have seen this in Herald Square, where we have put markings and other low cost features to really expand that space. The area was taken away from motor vehicles and given to pedestrians. New bike routes were also part of the design, on Broadway and 6^th Avenue.

The new design of the Brooklyn Bridge provided pedestrians with more space. What used to be a highway ramp from Centre Street going on to the Brooklyn Bridge, we made it into a conventional street where cars have to make a 90-degree turn in order to get on and off the bridge. We’ve tamed the traffic with our designs and projects. We’re looking forward to the design in Astor Place. We plan to close off that street and add a pedestrian space as well as other features. 4^th Avenue will be narrowed, from 3 to 4 lanes wide, down to one lane, to accommodate buses that heavily use Astor Place.

Near the waterfront, what was a two way street, we narrowed it down to a one way operation, and added a considerable amount of pedestrian space there as well. This past weekend, we took away a street in downtown Brooklyn, and made it into a pedestrian plaza with plants and tables. We are still installing it as of Saturday, and people are already sitting down to enjoy a rest, read a newspaper and eating their lunch.

Back on Queens Blvd, there’s a subway station on 33^rd street. We used low cost materials and put up bollards and painted the streets. We came back and built up the sidewalk and the curb so people coming on and off the subway station didn’t have to compete with motor vehicles when going through that street. We actually closed off a section of Queens Blvd from motor traffic.

We still have lots of problems that need to be improved. As Claire mentioned, people coming from a place where they’re used to one environment, and come into a different environment, we need to do a lot better job of educating and informing them. That was an overview of the toolbox and measures that the DOT is working on here in the city. Thank you.

Cynthia Chen

Thank you, Gerard. We will now open up the floor to some questions. Please keep the questions brief.

Richard [Koo]:

Hello, my name is Richard Koo, and I’m the Director of Homecrest Community Service in Brooklyn. We’re a large senior center providing services to the Asian elderly. About two months ago, one of our seniors was hit by a car crossing the street and that prompted us to testify at John Liu’s transportation committee hearing where there was a proposal by Councilman [Nelson] and Councilman [Gentile] to provide signage at senior center crossings. There are a lot of senior centers in the city, over 300 of them. One of the more important things that we felt was that at senior centers, similar to schools, there should be signage for cars approaching senior centers, telling them to slow down, or at least to be aware that there was a senior center close by. I think it might be an important consideration particularly with so many senior centers serving the elderly in the city at this point.

Paul White:

There’s a lot going on visually on New York City streets. There are billboards, there are signs, there are people. There’s just a lot going on. Gerard mentioned that when they put up a new sign, people might notice it for a few days or a few weeks, but after that, its sort of fades into the background with all the visual clutter. At Transportation Alternatives, we are not a fan of signs. They’re just another cue that people ignore. We like self-enforcing measures. Many of the street changes that Gerard showed you are great things, so we rather focus our efforts in that direction.

One thing that we’re working on now, and you can hear more about it this afternoon during Karla Quintero’s presentation, is a project called Elder Districts, places where you have senior centers and a high concentration of senior citizens. Why not designate an area, maybe its 2 or 3 blocks, and make those streets maximally safe. Bring speeds down, have a higher standard for crossing times, have a higher standard for smooth sidewalks. That is a concept that I think Councilman [Garodnick] and some others are starting to take an interest in. If you guys think that’s a good idea, please contact your council member and say you want an Elder District legislation in New York City.

Claire McKnight:

I think Paul is correct in saying that signs quickly lose their impact, but on the other hand, they do have the virtue of reminding the driver that they aren’t the only people using the street. Pedestrians and bicycles also have the right to use the street too, and drivers need to understand that. Maybe the solution is to not have permanent signs but to have signs, even the electronic kind, which moves around the city.

Gerard Soffian:

I think a sign is an overly simplistic solution. There needs to be a traffic engineering examination of what the walking needs are of a population at the particular area. What streets do they cross? Where do they go for the bus? Where they live? How are they getting there? There needs to be precise information to address specific coditions.

Cynthia Chen:

Due to the time, we’ll take one more question.

Questioner 2:

The Assistant Commissioner showed us the different signage and street paintings, which are good improvements. But I was wondering, since we talked about outcome assessments and the evaluation, how do you evaluate what you do?

Gerard Soffian:

I think the bottom line is the number of fatalities. We are seeing dramatic progress, cutting down over half the fatalities on the streets of the city over the past decade. Locations such as Queens Blvd, where we have done a tremendous amount of work, has reduced the number of fatalities and serious crashes on that street.

Paul White:

I would like to add another performance measure that we use at Transportation Alternatives, and encourage the city to use, which is how frequently people are walking. We know that seniors need more physical activity. If your only measure is fatalities and injuries, why not put pedestrian fencing everywhere because that would reduce injuries and fatalities. You’re not doing things to encourage people to come out to enjoy the street, walk to the store or the park. We would like the city to measure more of that.

Cynthia Chen:

            Let’s thank all of our panelists on pedestrian safety, and break for lunch.