The death of Giulia Lewis on 80th Avenue in Queens last week has refocused attention on the problem of pedestrian safety, and a city transportation and legal system that doesn’t take the issue seriously enough.

Overall pedestrian fatalities are down in the city. But injuries and crashes involving pedestrians are not, and few would argue that the general mayhem and motorist culture of lawbreaking on city streets has improved at all in recent memory.

Giulia Lewis was killed by a driver who crossed a double yellow line, clearly acting recklessly. Nonetheless, the driver was not charged.

The incident has led the Daily News to launch a campaign for tighter traffic enforcement and stronger sanctions against dangerous drivers. This weekend, the News reviewed the "rule of two," an informal standard by which prosecutors only press criminal charges against deadly drivers if it is clear the motorist broke at least two laws. According to the report, 580 pedestrians were killed from 2000 to 2002, but only 80 of the drivers were charged with serious crimes. Prosecutors are now calling on the NY legislature to strengthen dangerous driving laws. Lawmakers should also get busy increasing NYC’s allowable number of red light cameras.

But other actors have big roles to play as well. It’s hard to understand why the NYPD and NYC DOT do not take pedestrian safety more to heart. DOT has developed a number of traffic calming approaches to slowing cars and making life easier for walkers. But these still encounter resistance from DOT traffic engineers, and the overall program accounts for only a small share of the agency’s activity — unacceptable in the nation’s pre-eminent pedestrian city. The NYPD has boosted enforcement in some hot spots, but drivers still feel able to speed down crowded streets, run thousands of red lights each day and generally behave badly with little risk of sanction. This despite campaign pledges by Mayor Bloomberg to undertake significant reform of policies affecting pedestrian safety (MTR #325).

Transportation Alternatives’ John Kaehny suggested in a recent op-ed that the city "aggressively promote the idea that pedestrians always come first and speeding is anti-social and irresponsible."  This cannot happen soon enough.

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