A group of Bronx teenagers campaigned for pedestrian safety and won! They got their neighborhood’s speed limit reduced and labeled as a “slow zone”. The Bronx helpers are “happy and proud” to have made such a positive and safe difference. Click below for the full story.
These teenagers took on City Hall in a street fight and won.
The Bronx Helpers, a group of youngsters from an after-school program run by New Settlement Apartments, have successfully petitioned the Bloomberg administration to curb speeding in their Mount Eden neighborhood.
Thanks to a pedestrian safety campaign the group launched in 2009, the city Department of Transportation will establish a “slow zone” in Mount Eden, reducing the speed limit for vehicles there from 30 mph to 20 mph.
“I feel happy and proud,” said Deomar Suarez, 12. “We worked really hard. We just kept trying and trying. We sent letters and made calls. We didn’t give up.”
Mount Eden and 12 other neighborhoods across the city, including three additional Bronx neighborhoods, will receive slow zones over the next few years, Mayor Bloomberg and DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan announced Tuesday.
Slow zones are marked by blue gateways at all border streets and signs noting the 20 mph speed limit. They also feature speed bumps and 20 mph street stenciling.
The slow zone program began in 2011 with a zone in Claremont after a DOT study found that pedestrians accounted for 52% of traffic deaths from 2005 to 2009. It also showed that pedestrian-vehicle crashes were twice as deadly when speeding was involved.
The Claremont slow zone has reduced vehicle speeds at six out of seven speed bump locations and slashed top speeds throughout the neighborhood by roughly 10%, according to the DOT.
To expand the program, the DOT accepted applications from local groups. It looked at crash history, community support and proximity to schools, senior centers and subway stations. The other new Bronx zones are Eastchester, Baychester and Riverdale.
The Mount Eden zone, located between Jerome Ave., E. 170th St. the Grand Concourse and E. 174th St., includes two schools and several subway stops. The neighborhood averages 12 vehicle-related injuries each year.
The Bronx Helpers made pedestrian safety their cause several years ago following a handful of accidents on E. 172nd St., a steep local route between the Grand Concourse and busy Jerome Ave.
Livery cabs and vans shoot down E. 172nd St. day and night, whizzing past schoolchildren and seniors at up to 50 mph.
The teenagers wrote a petition for a four-way stop in 2010, collected more than 1,000 signatures, won support from Community Board 4 and persuaded the DOT to conduct a traffic study.
The agency rejected the stop sign request. But continued pressure from the Bronx Helpers has now persuaded DOT officials to grant Mount Eden a slow zone.
“I’m really surprised,” said Rafael Gonzalez, 12. “I never know I could do something so big. I feel great about it.”
