Bicyclist advocates reacted with incredulity and outrage to this week's news that 35 cyclists were killed in New York City traffic in 1999. This was double the death rate in previous years and apparently an all-time record. Yet city officials appear completely unconcerned and have no plans to analyze the crashes.

Officials routinely blame bicycle crashes on the cyclist, citing youthful "daredevil" couriers operating in traffic-clogged Manhattan. But leaked NYPD data indicate that the typical cyclist killed in the city last year was a mature adult cycling in an "outer borough," where little messenger riding takes place:

• Sixteen cyclists were killed in Brooklyn, 7 in Queens and 6 in the Bronx; only 6 fatalities were in Manhattan.
• Nearly two-thirds of victims were age 30 or over, including 7 each in their 40s and 50s. Another was a senior, 5 were children, and 5 were older teens. Just 3 victims were in their 20s, the age group most associated with reckless behavior.

From 1987 to 1998, annual NYC cyclist deaths stayed in the 15-22 range, averaging 18. The cyclist and pedestrian rights group, Right Of Way's 1999 report Killed by Automobile found that male drivers killed cyclists 10 times as often as female drivers, per mile driven. The group concluded that "driver aggression plays a significant role in killing bicycle-riders in New York City."

"The police should crack down on dangerous drivers and stop blaming the victims. Thirty-five bicyclists did not kill themselves," said Transportation Alternatives' John Kaehny. A Right Of Way spokesman accused the Giuliani administration of "unconscionable irresponsibility for failing to notify cycling groups as the body count mounted."

Both groups are demanding that the city release the numbers and details of pedestrian and bicyclist injuries and fatalities to the public in a more timely fashion. Under the Dinkins and Koch administrations, police reported incidents each month. Under Giuliani, to pry the information out of City Hall, groups must invoke the Freedom of Information Act and wait sometimes more than a year for a response.

A Long Island Voice article published last month ties highway expansions to deadly walking environments in Suffolk County. Specifically, the feature pointed to recently widened segments of NY 25 in Brookhaven and the Sunrise Highway in Bay Shore that have been the sites of a number of recent pedestrian fatalities.

Connie Keppert of the Middle Island Civic Association, a group fighting for traffic calming along NY 25, blames road design. "We're sacrificing (children and grandparents) to make the traffic go faster," she said, "Nobody wants to hear that, but that's what we're doing."
 
 

But for people without a capsule of metal and glass around them, New Jersey remains a dangerous place. Bicycle and pedestrian deaths dropped by two last year, to 172 ? a statistically insignificant decrease of 1% ? that followed an increase of 4% in 1998. The bike/pedestrian share of total New Jersey traffic deaths grew to 24%.

The news will be unwelcome to Governor Whitman, who has placed road safety on the front burner of her transportation agenda. In 1998, she pledged to cut pedestrian deaths in half by 2010, but the state still has yet to start toward that goal.

Hopefully, the steady pedestrian/bike toll will spur NJDOT to scale up its popular funding programs for local pedestrian and bicycle projects. Last year towns overwhelmed the agency by asking for over $30 million in applications for local pedestrian projects; only $4.7 million was available. Similarly, applications for bicycle projects totaled 18$ million to be met by a $6.7 million pot. As the legislature starts debating ways to fund and spend a new Transportation Trust Fund this spring, it should pay attention to this clamor for funds.