"The city Department of Transportation may be underestimating the number of pedestrians on outer-borough streets, due to a Manhattan-first bias that may end up putting pedestrians at risk, a new study finds. An MIT research group created the first complete model of pedestrian activity in any U.S. city - and it revealed that intersections with the highest pedestrian injury risk are frequently outside Manhattan, despite that borough's higher raw number of pedestrians."
"Researchers also found that DOT's categorization of streets, from roads with low pedestrian volume to the city's busiest, doesn't reflect the model's estimated pedestrian volumes. Based on the MIT study's pedestrian activity, around 5,256 miles of streets are "undercategorized," meaning they're busier than what the DOT found."
"In this estimation, there is no specific indicator of like, 'OK, this is a low-income neighborhood, or this is a neighborhood that depends on walking or public transit,' [the finding] is suggestive that actually, on a per pedestrian basis, there are a bunch of relatively dangerous locations in these other boroughs outside of the highly foot-trafficked areas of Manhattan or Brooklyn,"
A complete citywide pedestrian activity model reveals that intersections with the highest pedestrian injury risk are often outside Manhattan, despite Manhattan's larger total pedestrian counts. Per-pedestrian injury risk is elevated in low-income neighborhoods of eastern Brooklyn and southeastern Queens, possibly because wide streets and industrial zoning favor car traffic. DOT street classifications do not align with the modeled pedestrian volumes, leaving roughly 5,256 miles of streets undercategorized and busier than DOT estimates. Most undercategorized segments are in Brooklyn and Queens, influencing infrastructure investments, layout regulation, and pedestrian policy priorities.
Read at Streetsblog
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