And not just because of the low crime numbers.
From 1995 to 2009, there were 8,604 motor-vehicle crashes involving pedestrians in the 42 blocks that make up Manhattan Community District 5. In Bronx District 8 (Riverdale, Fieldston, Marble Hill, Van Cortlandt Village, Kingsbridge) during the same period, only 788 crashes occurred; less than 10 percent of Manhattan's District 5, which is Midtown.
The data comes from Transportation Alternatives new interactive map, CrashStat.
The only area that is considered safer than Riverdale is the South Shore of Staten Island (Community District 3) with 653 crashes.
The city's Department of Transportation disputes these findings, however (even the good ones). A spokesman points out to Crains New York that reporting the 15-year neighborhood-by-neighborhood totals misses an important point—the decline in injuries and fatalities over the period: "Safety has actually increased and nowhere is this more evident than in places like Manhattan Community District 5, where fatalities and serious injuries were down 54% from 1995 to 2009; and in Brooklyn Community District 14, where fatalities and injuries down 65% from 1995 to 2009."
Citywide, pedestrian traffic fatalities have dropped 37% from 1995 to 2009.
Transportation Alternatives has called for stricter enforcement of traffic laws by the New York City Police Department, saying that the department should pursue harsher punishments, deploy more traffic cops and more rigorously enforce the 30 mph speed limit.
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