Jaywalkers 50% More Likely On Construction Shed Streets: Study

FORT GREENE, BROOKLYN — The development boom in Downtown Brooklyn has certainly increased the number of residents and buildings in the area, but new data suggests it has also upped something a little harder to notice — jaywalkers.

The Brooklyn Navy Yard's startup hub New Lab has released a new data dashboard that reveals, among other discoveries, that pedestrians are 50 percent more likely to jaywalk when faced with a construction shed. Meaning, Downtown Brooklyn's huge uptick in development has probably spiked the number of people crossing the street without a crosswalk.

The new data — collected through the New Lab Circular City program featuring three of its start-ups — explored pedestrian patterns throughout the neighborhood, how different modes of transit flow down the Fulton St. Mall at different times of day, where 311 complaints are coming from and data about the "living lab" that is Downtown Brooklyn.

Those that helped with the project say the new data can let residents and the government glean important trends that might be used to solve urban challenges facing the flourishing neighborhood.

"Thanks to this unique partnership convened by New Lab, we now have access to information that enables us to deliver smart, data-driven solutions to operational and quality of life issues facing a booming downtown,” said Regina Myer, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, which partnered with the New Lab. “We look forward to the expansion of the program...to continually improve our understanding of how Downtown Brooklyn functions, and how we can develop innovative solutions to enhance life for residents, businesses and visitors.”

Navy Yard start-up leaders said their "own backyard" of Downtown Brooklyn seemed like the perfect neighborhood to test out these data tools given its growth. The neighborhood has seen 31 percent growth in residents and 26th percent job growth since 2010, according to New Lab.

The jaywalking statistic comes from start-up Numina IoT, which used sensors to map out how pedestrian flow is impacted by construction sites and scaffolding. The data explores how the behavior of unloading trucks can cause bicycles, pedestrians and vehicles to become unsafely close to one another.

The data could help understand how to make construction sites not only safer for pedestrians, but opportunities for the city.

"There are nearly 300 miles of scaffolding up in New York City," said Tara Pham, CEO of Numina. “This daunting street safety risk could actually be a massive opportunity for new experiments in temporary pedestrian infrastructure, inviting placemaking installations, and cost savings for the city."

That data also examined traffic in the bus-only Fulton Street corridor, finding that 84 percent of its car traffic came for Flatbush Avenue instead of side streets as some suspected.

Another start-up, CARMERA, also tracked pedestrian data using "machine-vision software" that shows block-by-block pedestrian density scores.

Start-up Citiesense brought together the data into a single platform.

“Cities today are more reliant than ever on data to inform urban design and engagement and at Citiesense we see a governing framework for neighborhood-level data as foundational to the technology that all cities will need in order to enable greater innovation and quality of life to flourish," aid Starling Childs, CEO & Co-Founder of Citiesense.

Check out all the data here.