The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) has been following a data-driven approach to project evaluation in recent projects. Regarding pedestrian mobility and safety, a number of datasets are collected and used to evaluate project success. A central goal of many of NYCDOT’s pedestrian projects has been to increase road safety through speed reduction measures including traffic calming. In order to assess the extent to which this goal has been reached, several metrics were applied, including crashes and injuries of pedestrians and traffic speeds. On this basis, NYCDOT has been able to judge the success of different types of traffic calming interventions.
According to the data collected by the city, key treatments have been successful at encouraging safe user behaviour: simplified intersections; dedicated left, right, and through lanes; pedestrian safety islands; protected bike lanes; leading pedestrian intervals; and split phasing. In addition to data on road safety impacts, NYCDOT collects data on economic impacts, such as business turnover. The data collected by NYCDOT have proven crucial in making the case for pedestrian improvements in the context of court battles over controversial interventions.
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