The Neighborhood Streets Network's Four Goals

The Neighborhood Streets Network is a new coalition of community groups arid advocates working to reduce the impact of traffic on New York City communities.

1. Lower the speed limit on non-arterial neighborhood streets from its current 30 mph to 15 mph. Arterials will remain at 30 mph, a speed limit much too high for all but the largest of New York City's streets.

2. Convince the City to use traffic calming tools to make streets more pedestrian and neighborhood friendly. Traffic calming tools include neckdowns and speed humps, and are used across the country and the world to slow traffic.

3. Create Safe Routes to School. Getting hit by a car is the number one cause of death and injury for children ages 5-9. A traffic calming program in Denmark resulted in a 90% decrease in pedestrian deaths to schoolchildren. Children choose which routes they prefer to use to go to school and play. Traffic calming devices are then put in to make those routes safer.

4. Balance Federal transportation safety spending in NYC so that pedestrians and neighborhoods get their fair share. A recent study by Transportation Alternatives and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign shows that current spending is way out of line. Over the next five years, the City and State will spend 22 times more money on highway safety than pedestrian safety, even though more pedestrians than motorists are killed every year in New York City. Quadrupling the money spent on pedestrian safety would mean dramatically safer streets for pedestrians, yet keep the vast majority of spending focused on motorist safety.

To join the Neighborhood Streets Network, or for more information, call Transportation Alternatives at 212-629-8080 or visit http://www.neighborhoodstreets.org.

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