Pre-Pitch Cris and Julia.md

##Queens students at risk of injury or death 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.

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.

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

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

• 3: Location: Queens, but also looking at New York and Manhattan. (Note: Early research is pointing towards doing a comparison of three schools on the DOT High Priority List in Manhattan with three schools in Queens. Schools TBD. 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.

• 4: 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

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

• 6: Transportation methods of kids

• 7: Transportation methods of commuters

• Points 6 and 7 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.

• 8: 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- http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/about/vz_datafeeds.shtml Various information on all aspects of Vision Zero restructuring at the DOT.

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

• https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Education/Universal-Pre-K-UPK-School-Locations/kiyv-ks3f (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: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=CF (this estimates around 248,000)

• 3: Collision data (We have - http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/excel/traffic_data/qnacc.xls ) 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.

• 4: Schools that are at risk https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Transportation/Safe-Route-to-Schools-Priority-Schools/pc34-d3sx This list of High Priority Schools will serve as the basis of our Data. 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 (We have - http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/misc/outreach_schools.json )

• 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: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=CF

• 8: Resources (budgets) of the school (or districts) - galaxy budgets http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/funding/schoolbudgets/FY15FairStudentFundingBudget.htm?schoolcode=Q089 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: Additional NYPD data may be used to see whether enforcement has increased at the selected schools over a time frame TBD.

####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