Christopher Le Gras- Emergency vehicle response time inflates All Aspect Rpt 9/20/19

Christopher LeGras-Attorney-muckraker-truth teller has punctured the Vision Zero bubble yet again.
Now that NYC Mayor de Blasio has reckoned with the reality of a Zero confidence in his quixotic
presidential bid-perhaps he can come back to earth on Vision Zero. The highs the lows the political hypocrisy. Hey Charles Komanoff it looks like you and that "very stable genius" in the White House
have a lot in common. Robert Moses must be rolling in his grave with mirth. Here's hoping you don't
have a bike accident and need an EMS to come a whisk you to the hospital-or maybe you don't ride a bike anymore.Don't hold your breath waiting for the responsible bike culture some wing nuts got to
Billionaire stable genius Bloomberg and current flyboy de Blasio and got them to with hold enforcement by the NYPD. Maybe you can rent a drone eh Charlie?

                                SUICIDE MODE?

New York City firefighters union calls out Vision Zero, bike lanes, and road diets: “You’re basically eliminating the ability for emergency service vehicles to get around”

September 20, 2019 ~ Christopher LeGras

Will firefighters unions in other cities follow suit?

(QUEENS, NYC) An FDNY truck trapped on the Skillman Avenue road diet in Queens. Photograph courtesy of Dorothy Morehead.

After four years of lane reductions, arterial bike lanes, road diets, and other so-called “traffic calming” measures on the streets of New York, the country’s largest firefighters union is saying enough. The New York Post reported yesterday that the Fire Department of New York’s response times have risen dramatically over the last year, and that the city’s firefighters union – the largest in the country – says that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Vision Zero initiative is a major cause.
Bobby Eustace, the United Firefighters Association’s recording secretary, told The Post, “Vision Zero is fully intended to save lives from traffic accidents, but by [the city] adding in concrete barriers and flower pots and everything else like that, you’re basically eliminating the ability for emergency service vehicles to get around. Intersections are now gridlocked, and our guys just can’t get around.”
The union’s public statement is a significant development in the national discussion over the future of urban planning and transportation. There are Vision Zero programs in scores of U.S. cities, and virtually everywhere they are having severe impacts on emergency response times. Firefighters, paramedics, and police officers in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Seattle, Oakland, New York, Boston, and elsewhere have confirmed to The All Aspect Report that lane reductions, particularly so-called “road diets,” have increased their response times dramatically. In L.A., for example, operational response times at Fire Station 62, located on the infamous Venice Boulevard road diet, increased by 26 seconds between 2016 (the last full year before the diet) and 2019. In 2016 the station’s average response time was 6 minutes 38 seconds. So far in 2019 it is 7 minutes 4 seconds. As any first responder will attest, those 26 seconds cost lives. And Station 62’s experience is far from unique in the city.
The UFA’s statement comes in response to the release of the annual Mayor’s Management Report, a sort of longform state of the city document. The administration boasted, “The City’s investment in Vision Zero, now funded with over $1.6 billion through Fiscal 2022, has ensured resources will be available to continue an accelerated pace of redesign and reconstruction of New York City streets as well as for enforcement and education initiatives to deter unsafe driving and promote safe walking and biking.”
This “accelerated pace” of change is having devastating impacts on emergency response times. According to the report:

• Combined average response time to life-threatening medical emergencies increased 15 seconds compared to 2018.
• Average response time to life-threatening medical emergencies by ambulances increased 24 seconds compared to 2018.
• Dispatch and travel time only to life-threatening medical emergencies for ambulances and fire companies combined increased 19 seconds compared to 2018.
• Dispatch and travel time by ambulances to life-threatening medical emergencies increased 28 seconds compared to 2018.

“We had a company in the Bronx [traveling at night last month] hit one of these barriers going 30 miles an hour, and it almost flipped the rig because they had no idea it was there,” Eustace said. “That was the first they saw it. They were simply trying to go around a person [while] responding to a structural fire, and they smashed into one of these [concrete barriers].-

New York’s experience is typical of Vision Zero cities

The FDNY union is the first to go on the record, but fire departments around the country have been experiencing identical problems for several years. As we reported in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year, Oakland, California Fire Captain Henry Holt reported that he learned of a road diet half a block from his station one morning when he arrived for a shift. “I wasn’t even sure if I was allowed to drive in those new green lanes,” he said. The city never consulted the Oakland Fire Department, much less his station, before installing a project that dramatically impacts his crews’ dispatch procedures. The road diet has been so bad that at times he’s instructed his drivers to go into what first responders call “suicide mode,” driving down oncoming lanes to get around gridlock. Departments in other cities have reported the same experiences.