Contact: Jack Deacy (212) 788-2958 or Brice Peyre (212) 442-7033
The Safety City program, which will be in operation in mid-September, will educate school children on how to make safe choices when crossing streets, riding in cars, and driving bicycles, in a specially designed center with an indoor and an outdoor simulated environment. The program has proved extremely successful at P.S. 92 in Harlem, where trauma injury rates at Harlem Hospital for the targeted age group have plummeted by over 50% since its inception.
"Every year, children on their way to school are seriously injured or killed in avoidable accidents involving automobiles," Mayor Giuliani said. "The expansion of the 'Safety City' program into every borough of the City, will give our schoolchildren the knowledge and tools needed to travel safely. Our children cannot do everything. I urge all motorists to keep a cautious eye open for children and maintain a safe and reasonable level of speed when driving near schools or playgrounds."
Chancellor Crew said, "'Safety City' is the latest example of our working to educate our children beyond the classroom. This program will heighten children's knowledge of how to travel and play safely on urban streets that often expose them to traffic dangers of which they might otherwise never be aware. It is particularly appropriate that this 'Safety City' be located adjacent to an education complex named for Michael Petrides, an educator whose professional and personal lives centered on the care and development of all children."
Christopher Lynn, Commissioner of the City Department of Transportation, which oversees the Safety City initiative, noted the effectiveness of the program. "Early intervention fosters a safer behavioral pattern for children for the rest of their lives," Commissioner Lynn said, while also noting that 38% of pedestrians injured or killed by traffic accidents on Staten Island are children and teens aged 5 to 19, and that over half of pedestrians killed or injured while emerging from parked cars are children in the 5 to 9 year-old age group targeted by Safety City.
Safety City contains a simulated outdoor streetscape that encompasses ten different traffic scenarios, including a traffic signals, a four-way stop, a one-way street, a shopping mall entrance, and a bike lane. The focus of the Safety City program is to train third grade students through "learning by doing," enabling them to develop better decision-making ability in a variety of traffic environments. The indoor educational component will employ specially trained traffic safety experts who will introduce and explore safety concepts with students.
Staten Island Safety City is DOT's second Safety City facility. The first Safety City is located at P.S. 92 in Manhattan, and has targeted a total of approximately 15,000 children. DOT will expand the program to open a Safety City in each borough over the next year. The Board of Education has committed to provide funding for two staff members for each borough.
With the participation of the Board of Education, the Staten Island Safety City team has been loaned the use of indoor and outdoor facilities at the Michael J. Petrides Educational Complex, which was named in tribute to Michael J. Petrides, who was chosen as Staten Island's representative to the New York City Board of Education by Borough President Guy Molinari. Mr. Petrides passed away in June of 1994.
Staten Island Safety City is scheduled to open in September 1996 for the start of the 1996-97 school year, when 140 third grade classes will be targeted for participation. An opening ceremony is scheduled for mid-September.