Today, New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander released a statement criticizing Mayor Eric Adams for what he calls “the abandonment of Vision Zero policies,” an initiative launched by the De Blasio administration in 2014 that set the ambitious goal of eliminating traffic deaths in the city by 2024. Lander’s communiqué calls out the mayor on two fronts, highlighting what he views as Adams’ failure to update the city’s traffic infrastructure in ways that could reduce accidents and deaths, and also pointing to this year’s spike in crashes related to police pursuits, which was first reported by THE CITY earlier this week.
“Traffic crashes killed 193 people and seriously injured another 2,338 more during the first nine months of 2024,” Lander says in today’s statement. “Higher than eight of the past ten years.” In the Bronx and Queens, according to the city’s comptroller, injuries are up more than 20% compared to 2022.
While Adams launched a public awareness campaign in 2022 called “Speeding Ruins Lives, Slow Down,” to contribute to this effort, many more substantive changes promised by the mayor have not materialized. A redesign of the notoriously dangerous McGuinness Boulevard in Brooklyn has been the source of significant back-and-forth between the mayor’s office and constituents for almost two years, with sources telling outlets like Hell Gate and Streetsblog that Adams is caving to local business interests, as well as pressure from his former Chief Advisor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin. Lewis-Martin and the mayor have also been linked to the stalling or rejection of other projects to protect bike lanes elsewhere in the city. (There is no evidence yet to indicate that this is another instance of the “quid pro quo” that D.A. Bragg accused her of in his indictment this week.) A DOT study found that these projects have a proven track record of reducing serious injuries and deaths.
Lander also takes the mayor to task for accidents related to police pursuits. “This week, we learned that under Mayor Adams, the NYPD is engaging in dangerous, TV-style car chases with shocking frequency — and seven people have died and 315 more have been injured as a result.” He is referencing a report published this week from THE CITY, which found that, according to NYPD data, nearly 400 crashes occurred preceded by police pursuits. THE CITY reporters Haidee Chu and Yoav Gonen state that this is “an increase of 47% from the then-record 270 crashes over the same period last year and vastly up from an average of just 84 such crashes a year under the previous mayoral administration.”
In his weekly press conference on Monday, Mayor Adams did not appear concerned by the situation when questioned by THE CITY’s Katie Honan. “For me to stay here in the sterilized environment of City Hall and say you should never do a pursuit or you should never pursue someone, that is not good public safety,” said Adams, a former police officer. “That supervisor that’s on the ground, he’s doing an assessment. What are the weather conditions? What is the density? What is the person wanted for? They can make that call. And I trust my supervisors that are on the ground.”
Lander also chides the mayor for allowing legislation that Lander passed during his stint in the City Council – the Reckless Driver Accountability Act – to expire, citing research indicating that “holding reckless drivers accountable works.”
City Comptroller Brad Lander is currently running for mayor in next year’s election. His campaign recently suffered a setback, as it was not eligible to qualify for the city’s matching public funds program due to a clerical oversight.
