Neighborhood Traffic Monitoring Toolkit released by Transportation Alternatives

From the Transportation Alternatives e-letter:

It is a little known fact that T.A. pioneered New York's local trend. Before you could buy eggs from Bushwick chickens or take your kayak vacation on the Harlem River, you could find Transportation Alternatives representing safer streets at your local Community Board.

And while T.A. will always advocate for you in your neighborhood, we understand it is local voices and community opinions that are most likely to affect change. To amplify those voices, T.A. is handing over our most powerful tool: 100 percent fresh-out-the-box original scientific data.

Transportation Alternatives is proud to introduce the Neighborhood Traffic Monitoring Toolkit, an easy-to-use guide to documenting the dangers of neighborhood traffic. With the Toolkit, you can collect data on lawless driving in your neighborhood and use your findings to make real change in your community. Modeled on the science of T.A.'s first-class studies, this all-inclusive online publication covers every step of the process:

• Set a study location and parameters that will define data
• Collect scientific data
• Transform raw data into compelling statistics
• Use statistics to mount a local campaign for real change

Before, concerned community members could only report anecdotal evidence of an unsafe street; now they can now document irrefutable proof, and wholly understand their neighborhood traffic:

• How often New York City and State traffic laws are broken
• Which moving violations are most pervasive
• What percentage of community members feel unsafe while walking and biking

We have been testing the Neighborhood Traffic Monitoring Toolkit with eager-to-advocate T.A. Volunteer Committees and traffic law compliance studies are ready to launch in Greenpoint, Midwood, Rego Park and Bedford-Stuyvesant. As their data begins to pour in, you'll hear it here first.

(Transportation Alternatives is the pro-biking advocacy group for New York City.)