Boerum Hill/Gowanus catch phrase: Go slo mo! It’s the law!
A rectangular grid of streets in Boerum Hill and Gowanus has been designated Brooklyn’s first Neighborhood Slow Zone by the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT). If all goes as planned, signage and street markings will soon be added to the already installed speed bumps and painted street grids to indicate that in this neighborhood the speed limit has been reduced from 30 m.p.h. to 20.
Howard Kolins, president of the Boerum Hill Association, explained that the Boerum Hill citizens’ group had been concerned about the number of accidents, sometimes resulting in fatalities, for a number of years. Researching how other cities dealt with the problem, board members focused on slow zone programs in Western Europe, the implementation of which resulted in a 46 percent reduction in fatal and severe injury crashes in London compared to untreated areas. In the Netherlands the average decrease in injuries was 25 percent, and Barcelona boasted a 27 percent drop. Similar programs have also been adopted in Berlin, Zurich, Dublin, Stockholm, and Helsinki.
And the positive side effects of the programs are nothing to sniff at either. The implementation of slow zones in Europe has led to reductions in cut-through traffic and to less traffic noise in residential neighborhoods. After all, what kind of dedicated speed demon wants to slow down to five m.p.h. when approaching a speed bump? What’s more, the London study concluded that crashes did not increase in adjacent non-slow zone areas.