De Blasio Vowed to Make City Streets Safer. They’ve Turned More Deadly.
The New York Times
Traffic deaths have surged this year to their highest level in nearly a decade. Officials blame an excess of reckless driving, but critics say the city has failed to make streets safer.
Ghostly white strollers were parked outside City Hall in Lower Manhattan to mourn a 3-month-old girl killed in her stroller on a Brooklyn sidewalk in a crash that the authorities say was caused by a reckless driver.
The strollers — accompanied by bouquets of yellow flowers and lit candles — were a stark rebuke to Mayor Bill de Blasio.
When Mr. de Blasio took office nearly eight years ago, one of his most ambitious promises was to tame New York City’s deadly streets, where nearly 300 people had been killed in traffic deaths just the year before. “We refuse to accept the loss of children, parents and neighbors as inevitable,” the mayor declared in 2014. “We are focusing the full weight of city government to prevent fatalities on our streets.”