New York City’s crime map can tell you where a burglary or assault occurred, but a bill being introduced today would make the city plot traffic tickets and summonses as well, the legislation’s author, Councilmen Ben Kallos told amNY.
Kallos’ bill requires noncriminal violations to be posted on the city’s crime map along with dates, times and location information down to the longitude and latitude coordinates, if possible.
He said this level of detail would bolster the city’s Vision Zero pedestrian safety effort by providing more exact locations of incidents and traffic violations.
“If we’re going to meaningfully engage in Vision Zero, we will need the information tools to study what’s happening with our traffic,” Kallos said. “It’s one thing to tell somebody this intersection is dangerous go fix it, versus being able to say three people were hurt or injured three feet into this crosswalk when somebody was making a left turn here.”
The NYPD and the de Blasio administration said they will review the legislation once it’s introduced.
The bill will be introduced alongside legislation to require public data sets used in the city’s interactive maps to be open to independent developers and civic-minded data whizzes.
“Some members of the public are urban planners and traffic designers,” Kallos said. “They should be empowered to have a larger role in what happens in their community.”
