Midtown traffic and traffic below 60th Street is the slowest it’s been since the city started keeping records.
The most recent Mayor’s Management Report showed speeds in the Central Business District at 6.9 miles an hour.
What You Need To Know
- The report from state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal and former New York City Traffic Commissioner Sam Schwartz shows that since 2011, vehicular speeds both in the area below 60th Street, the Central Business District, and Midtown have steadily fallen except for the pandemic years
- In the last decade, there have been double digit percentage slowdowns in EMS and NYPD response times most likely due to traffic
- Hoylman-Sigal said a way to start immediately reducing congestion is to cap for-hire vehicles and implement congestion pricing
State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal said he has seen the effects first-hand, witnessing someone needing medical attention on the street.
“I, along with other good Samaritans, tried to get an ambulance as soon as possible because we thought this individual might expire on the spot,” Hoylman-Sigal said. “That ambulance didn’t show up for 37 minutes.”
That episode this past June was the impetus behind the report he and former city Traffic Commissioner Sam Schwartz released Friday, "Congestion Kills." It shows that, except for the pandemic years, a steady slowdown in the Central Business District based on taxi and for-hire vehicle GPS data.
The speeds were even worse in Midtown, between 34th and 60th streets from Ninth Avenue to the East River. From 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays speeds averaged 4.8 miles an hour.
“Definitely the increase in Uber and Lyfts have something to do with,” Hoylman-Signal said. “And just generally more private vehicles.”
The effects are slower emergency response times.
According to the report, over the past decade, EMS life-threatening response times increased from 9.6 minutes to 12.4 minutes, an increase of 29%. Non-life-threatening response times more than doubled from 8.3 minutes to 23.3 minutes.
For the FDNY, the times jumped 70% from 8.3 minutes to 14.3 minutes, according to the report.
Also, NYPD response times to serious events like shootings rose nearly 2 minutes.
“When cardiac arrest patients face delays in treatment, the odds of survival drop 10% for each minute of delay,” Hoylman-Sigal said.
And with a key hospital closing on the east side, Mount Sinai Beth Israel, Hoylman-Sigal fears outcomes will worsen.
He said there are two easy ways to start fixing the problem, congestion pricing and capping the number of for-hire vehicles.