Three wins – a recap on today’s #SafeStreetsMap hearing

Long story short, NYPD said that NYC shouldn’t have a crime and crash map because the data would be confusing. When CM Dan Garodnick pushed if NYPD would improve their data collection, NYPD said that the state doesn’t ask for this data so not sure if NYPD should… Eventually, CM Garodnick pushed hard and the NYPD said they would work with the City Council to improve data collection on traffic crashes. (WIN ONE!)

Then, A. Scott Faulk – Community Board Member, Juan – Transportation Alternatives – General Council, AAA – an infrequent ally of street safety advocates, the founder of chekpeds, and three BetaNYC brigade members – Nathan Storey from Ontodia, John Krauss and I presented testimony. In general, we supported the bill. More importantly, we were in support of a disaggregated, raw, geolocated, and frequently updated crime and crash data. 

The City Council members were blown away that the “tech community” was so passionate about the bill and wanted to work with us to improve the bill (WIN TWO) and spend the next four years getting the DOT and NYPD to be more data transparent (WIN THREE)!!!!!

Streetsblog wrote up a great piece on the absurdity that we find ourself in.

Additionally, Frank Hebbert wrote up a great blog post asking City Councils to not legislate user interfaces, but to free the data

You can read about Noel’s testimony on his blog.

All in all, it was a great morning! Super f’ing great morning!

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