The Suffolk County Legislature voted today to establish a Complete Streets Implementation Fund behind the leadership of Legislator Rob Calarco and Presiding Officer DuWayne Gregory. The 17-1 vote creates an amendment to the County’s 2015-2017 Capital Program, which will provide a yearly allotment of $250,000 to redesign the County’s roadways to more safely accommodate pedestrians, cyclists, transit users and motorists, beginning in 2016 and continuing each subsequent year.
Tri-State, along with the AARP and Vision Long Island and other safe streets advocates have been calling for the creation of such a fund since the County’s Complete Streets policy was adopted a year and a half ago.
Roads in Suffolk County are some of the most dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists in the region. 122 pedestrians were killed on roads in Suffolk County between 2010 and 2012, and according to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Traffic Safety Committee, 22 cyclists and 278 motorists and passengers were killed in Suffolk County during the same time period. There were also 90,000 crashes in Suffolk County, which resulted in 52,000 non-fatal injuries.
This new County funding for walking and cycling infrastructure comes at a time when the New York State Department of Transportation and the federal government have cut funding. The current federal transportation bill, MAP-21, cut dedicated walking and biking infrastructure investment by 30 percent and according to Tri-State’s analysis of the New York State Department of Transportation’s 2014-2017 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP), New York plans to spend only 0.98 percent of its transportation dollars, representing a reduction of more than $100 million—or a 40 percent cut from 2011-2014 levels—on pedestrian and bicycling only safety projects. In Region 10 on Long Island, planned spending on walking and biking projects will be cut by 24 percent over the next four years. The result is only 0.57 percent of the regional allocation of transportation dollars being spent on bicycle and pedestrian only projects.
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