We are now finally past the election, so...hurray! or boo! depending on who won and whom you wanted to win. It’s time now to go back to our regularly scheduled lives. Today, I have the unfortunate duty to inform you of the death of one of New York’s most beloved fixtures: Vision Zero. Let me clarify that. Vision Zero, the program, is not dead. However, the façade that New York City is interested in reducing preventable fatal car crashes in the guise of Vision Zero is dead.
For those unfamiliar, Vision Zero is a program started by our previous beloved mayor, the “Honorable” Bill de Blasio, in what was touted as an effort to reduce high speed car crashes that result in death and/or serious injury. Changes include increasing bike lanes, adding speed cameras and enabling them to work 24 hours a day, redesigning streets, adding crosswalks, increasing education and awareness, cracking down on speeding, lowering the speed limit, and literally dozens more initiatives.
And with all the changes we have seen over the last ten years, one would think that there has been a drastic decline in motor vehicle deaths. One would be somewhat correct. Luckily for us, New York City provides us a graph with data through 2022. And it looks like there was a brief point after 2014’s launch where the changes may have had an impact on motor vehicle-related deaths. However, that has not been the case since 2020, and we are back to where we were before the implementation of Vision Zero in terms of total deaths.
However, there is one area where we have dramatically improved: automated ticket summonses. That’s right. Since the implementation of Vision Zero, New York has racked up over 23 million summonses via speeding cameras. Police officers average between 100,000 and 150,000 annually. And no, there has been no noticeable decrease in officer’s ticket issuance since 2014.
So, let’s call Vision Zero what it really is: a revenue-increasing scheme for New York City with the added benefit of making it increasingly difficult for drivers in the city. And this is not the only way New York City has tried to make driving more difficult in the city: It’s added bus lanes, increased parking costs, and decreased parking areas with the addition of Citi Bike stands and No Parking sections. The list goes on and on.
However, last month, New York City decided to just drop all pretenses for Vision Zero altogether, when they decided to decriminalize jaywalking. If you look back at the first chart above, you’ll see that the one area that has actually improved since Vision Zero was enacted is pedestrian deaths. It seems like New York is now actively trying to increase those by inviting pedestrians to try to weave through traffic without a care of being ticketed.
And if you were wondering why New York decided to legalize jaywalking, it was due to the old reliable fallback for politicians: racism. You see, they saw that minorities were disproportionally receiving jaywalking tickets. And because of that racist outcome, their solution was to just legalize the dangerous activity. This decision comes in a long line of laws created due to their disparate impact on minority communities. Who can forget when New York allowed BLM protests to gather en masse during COVID lockdowns when no other group was permitted to do so, because obviously, perceived racism was more dangerous than a global pandemic. Mass gatherings would never become super-spreaders as long as they were against racism.
Now it should be clarified that the legalization of jaywalking does not mean that cars are now civilly liable if a pedestrian jaywalks into oncoming traffic. If a pedestrian crosses unsafely and is hit by a car, the pedestrian can easily be found to be at fault. But that is not necessarily what people may think when they hear that jaywalking is now legal. People will hear that jaywalking is now legal and be more likely to cross dangerously because they won’t have the fear of being ticketed. And since this law had originally been disproportionally affecting minorities, guess who has the potential to be disproportionately hit by traffic due to the abolition of jaywalking?
So now all pretext for saving lives with Vision Zero is out the door. It was never about saving lives; it was always about making life more difficult for drivers and to raise money for the city, neither of which will be affected by this change in the law.
Izzo Zwiren works in healthcare administration, constantly concerning himself with the state of healthcare politics. The topic of healthcare has led Izzo to become passionate about a variety of political issues affecting our country today. Aside from politics, Izzo is a fan of trivia, stand-up comedy, and the New York Giants. Izzo lives on Long Island with his wife and two adorable, hilarious daughters.
