Make roads safer for all
Scene where a woman was struck and killed while riding her bicycle on Route 25A in Miller Place (May 2, 2010) Credit: Newsday/James Carbone
Cars rule the road -- and pedestrians and bicyclists alike need to keep that ever in mind. But it wouldn't hurt if the people who design the roads made an effort to even the odds.
A recent Newsday story quantified the peril to cyclists: On Long Island, at least 64 have been killed on the road since 2005. The death rate per million here is higher than the rate in New Jersey, Connecticut, New York City and the state at large. Suffolk's rate of 4.6 biker deaths per million is more than twice the state's rate of 2.2.
Earlier this year, a study of pedestrian deaths by the advocacy group Transportation for America ranked Nassau and Suffolk third and fourth in the state in pedestrian fatalities per 100,000 persons.
So collisions between high-speed, heavy vehicles and cyclists or walkers don't go well for the softer targets. Those who suffer this weight and speed disadvantage must help themselves with greater vigilance. But government, which builds, polices and maintains the roads, has to help too.
That was the aim of the State Legislature in passing a bill that would require designers of state and federally funded roads at least to consider the need for sidewalks, crosswalks and bike lanes.
That bill, sponsored by Sen. Charles Fuschillo Jr. (R-Merrick), is in the spirit of a national Complete Streets movement. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo should sign it to help make New York's compete streets into complete streets, safer for everyone who uses them.
