Pitch-Cris-Julia-Queens-Kids.md

##Students at risk of death or injury in traffic violence Authors: Cristina Furlong and Julia Haslanger #####Our community in a sentence: Children at risk of being involved in (specifically the victim of) a motor vehicle accident in Queens. ##Pitch: ####Who cares:

• Parents and caregivers of schoolchildren
• City government, particularly agencies involved in Vision Zero, including NYPD, DOT, Department of Health, Department of Ed
• Advocacy groups, including Make Queens Safer, Transportation Alternatives, Families for Safe Streets

####Why we care now:

• The city just announced it's installing truck guards to protect pedestrians, but no specific focus on protecting schoolchildren

• The mortality rate — the leading cause of death for NYC schoolkids is motor vehicle accidents

  • Source: NYC Child Fatality Report 2013

• MS51 has had three children killed by cars in the past 16 months.

• City efforts have been increasing and seeing results in some areas.

Our pre-reporting:

We will make connections between existing data on High Priority Safe Routes to Schools Programs, NYPD Collision Data and Safety Education Data to determine best practices for reducing the risks of children being injured or killed on their commutes to and from school.

####How we will identify this group as a community:
This community would reflect those who are immediately affected by traffic violence in close proximity to a neighborhood school. The refined community are those beyond the children who can work to affect change to the policies and risks that cause children to be inured or killed in traffic violence.

• Age: 3 to 14 years old as the main at-risk group

• Children attending Pre-K through 8th grade or afterschool or summer programs in Queens.

• Location: Queens, but also looking at New York and Manhattan. (Note: Considering doing a comparison of three schools on the DOT High Priority List in Manhattan with three schools in Queens. For a cluster of Manhattan schools: Calhoun, Emily Dickenson, Holy Name of Jesus (in the 20th and 24th precincts). For a cluster of Queens: IS 230, PS 69, 92, 148 (choosing 3 of those 4, in the 115th precinct). Doing this geographical comparison can give us insights into whether class, community action and language play a role in which groups see faster action from city agencies.

• Language of kids. This may be referenced if we go on to look at whether and how often criminal and/or civil charges are filed

• Access to safety training. We hope to see a correlation between incidents of traffic violence at a school, and a response from the DOT

• Experience with traffic violence. Looking at news reports, collision data, and conversations with community members.

• Transportation methods of kids, and of commuters nearby

• The Transportation methods may be useful to use as factors that play in to the dangers kids face. Pick-up and drop-off is unregulated and dangerous when parents and caregivers are driving to a school. MTA bus stops can be overcrowded and placed before traffic lights, blocking the view for children trying to cross a street.

• Further members of this community would include the parents, caregivers, teachers and school administrators, cops and first responders whom are all profoundly affected by incidents of traffic violence with children.

####Datasets we are interested in working with

• 1: DOT Vision Zero Data Various information on all aspects of Vision Zero restructuring at the DOT.

• 2: Number of pre-K-12 children in Queens We will find this data, and consider these kids as a part of our community.

• Possible sources:

• Early Childhood Data (An early look at this DOE dataset of University Pre-K locations suggests there's about 25,000 seats in the Pre-K locations listed as in Queens.

• The Census can give us a picture of how many people aged 5 to 14 there are in Queens: Census Data (this estimates around 248,000)

• 3: Collision data for Queens We will compare the collision rate at our 6 schools and see what measures have been taken to prevent further...speed camera's, increased enforcement, street redesign, or other methods. For other boroughs, more datasets are available from NYPD.

• 4: Schools that are at risk This list of High Priority Schools will serve as a key part of our project. It would be helpful to map the locations. We will look at the proposals for the schools as well as the timeline. Often studies take years to become projects and in the meanwhile children must be protected.

• 5: Schools that have safety training

• 6: Map of NYC with different data points, such as precinct, Community Board, Council District. We will use this map to draw up quick resource guides for the affected communities to seek out additional resources or channels of assistance.

• 7: Census FactFinder for Queens

• 8: Resources (budgets) of the school (or districts) - Galaxy Budgets We will look into accessing the School Budgets of our targeted schools and chart how much available funds there are for additional safety programs, or advocacy. These funds could come from Title 1 Allocation, Parent Involvement funds or other budget lines.

• 9: [Department of Health] (http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/ip/ip-nyc-inj-child-fatality-report13.pdf) As an official Vision Zero partner, DOH has complied many reports and data that will show the severity of this issue. Motor vehicle collision is the number one cause of death for a certain age group among kids in NYC.

• 10: Our own data. After narrowing down our three schools in Manhattan and our three schools in Queens, we propose creating and administering our own survey to parents and caregivers of school kids to see if what they relate as problems are being addressed, and also if those are the same problems identified through our DOT Safety, DOT Routes, and NYPD data.

• 11: NYPD data may be used to see whether enforcement has increased at the selected schools over a time frame TBD.

• 12: Transportation method research by schools, DOT or bus companies.

####Other considerations-

• Road design
• Distribution of crossing guards
• Lawsuits? Civil cases vs charges filed
• Community Board meeting minutes for relevant neighborhoods

####Persons of Interest to this research

• Department of Transportation- Marjorie Marciano, Director of Vision Zero Education
• Mary Beth Kelly of Familes for Safe Streets
• Street users
• Pedestrian users
• Parents of target children

storyboard.md

photo courtesy of Helen Ho

On January 15th, 2014, Mayor DiBlasio travelled to PS. 152 in Queens take the steps that some people elected him to do- announce a Vision Zero Plan for NYC, which would utilize 4 agencies to reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by traffic violence. He chose 152, as it was at that site that 8 year old Noshat Nahian was killed crossing an arterial roadway, Northern Blvd on his way to school. Though the ambitious program has created results, mainly with NYPD enforcement, school children are still at a very high risk of being injured or killed in a motor vehicle collision. In fact, collisions are the number one killer of children in NYC. ##A Very Short History Last year (2014) marked the lowest number of pedestrian fatalities since the city began keeping records over a hundred years ago. Source: NY Times

Yet, more than 132 pedestrians were still killed in traffic. Some of the roughest years for street advocates came in the 1990s when many were being killed yet there hadn't been a response from city agencies and street redesign had yet to take prominance. In 1993, for example, 17 pedestrians were killed on Queens Boulevard alone and it became known nationally as the Boulevard of Death. In 2006, a film titled "Contested Streets" documented the history of the livable streets movement from the 1920s when children and horses ruled our streets to the early part of this century, when traffic, congestion, pollution and a car culture created dangerous conditions for pedestrians.

Under the Bloomberg Administration in 2007, Janette Sadik-Kahn was appointed DOT commissioner and began implementing bike safety plans, street diets and redesigns, pedestrian plazas and bus rapid transit. Leaning on the models of other major cities, Sadik-Kahn's improvements aided a better flow of traffic and increased the level of safety of most street users.

TED Talk by Janette Sadik-Kahn

History of the auto and streets renaissance in NYC

(More news articles and context TK)

##Government action As it stands the Department of Transportation, The Taxi and Limousine Commission, the NYPD and the Department of Health were the main acting partners of the Mayor's plan. The first three have made significant changes and improvements to how they handle reckless driving. The role of the Department of Health is a bit harder to define. They publish the child fatality report and it is our hope that they will work with the wellness department of the Department of Education to formulate a plan for safe walking for children and their caregivers. ####Street redesign projects

##Role of Outreach and Advocacy Advocacy groups have been essential in making the push to keep school children safe. This happens at individual schools as well as through concerted efforts of pedestrian safety advocates and NYPD Community Affairs. (possible NYPD map of enforcement)

####Active Advocacy Groups

• Transportation Alternatives
• Families for Safe Streets
• Make Queens Safer
• Community Board 7
• Make Brooklyn Safer

####Notable Advocates

• Amy Cohen
• Hsi Pei and Amy Liao
• Dana Lerner

##What's ahead In June, 2014, Mayor DiBlasio again travelled to PS 152 in pursuit of Vision Zero. It was there that he announced the introduction of 9 new traffic laws and acknowledged the State Senates passing of a lower speed limit for NYC. This time, invited guests included those whose voices could not be denied. Family members and loved ones who had lost their own children to traffic violence, and used their pain to be the city's most powerful lobby. Clearly as the plan unfolds, the city agencies are seeing that some shortcomings and modifications need to be acknowledged.There needs to be leadership from the Department of Education including school safety plans for each school.

Partnerships between not only city agencies but national and governmental agencies whose missions are to protect children could and should be formed to increase the accessibility to programs and trainings that could help protect children as we wait for Safe Routes to be established.