The most recent Mayor’s Management Report showed speeds in the Central Business District (CBD) of New York City clocking in at just 6.9 miles an hour – the slowest it’s been since the city started keeping records.
This can be terrifying for someone who needs an ambulance or is on the way to the hospital in need of medical attention. Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal said he has seen the effects first-hand: “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. That ambulance didn’t show up for 37 minutes. When cardiac arrest patients face delays in treatment, the odds of survival drop 10% for each minute of delay.”
That episode this past June was the impetus behind a report he and former city Traffic Commissioner Sam Schwartz released in Sept. called, “Congestion Kills.” It shows that – except for the pandemic years – there has been a steady slowdown in the CBD, 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 8:00am to 6:00pm weekdays speeds averaged 4.8 miles an hour.
According to the report, over the past decade, EMS life-threatening response times increased 29% – from 9.6 minutes to 12.4 minutes. Non-life-threatening response times nearly tripled: from 8.3 minutes to 23.3 minutes. FDNY response times jumped 70% – from 8.3 minutes to 14.3 minutes., NYPD response times to serious events like shootings rose nearly 2 minutes.
Hoylman-Sigal said there are two easy ways to start fixing the problem: congestion pricing and capping the number of for-hire vehicles.
Source: NY1
