New York City emergency response teams set record-slow response times due to congestion: report
MIDTOWN, Manhattan (WABC) -- The difference between life and death could come down to crucial minutes, which makes a new report on emergency response times in New York City so alarming.
According to the report, the city has set records for how slow they are, and it's due to increased congestion.
The traffic nightmare that is Midtown and Lower Manhattan is nothing new to New Yorkers, and with the United Nations General Assembly on deck next week, it's expected to get worse.
But the new report says that even the daily crawl has gotten a lot worse.
Former New York City Traffic Commissioner Sam Schwartz found the average speed in Midtown is the slowest in over half a century, at 4.8 mph.
He says those waiting for an ambulance are suffering the most.
"The way I got involved was a phone call from Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigel," Schwartz said. "He had just spent 37 minutes with a man who was writhing in pain in Chelsea and he called me and said, 'what's going on? Is it the traffic?"
According to their report, 10 years ago, it took EMS 9.6 minutes on average to get to a life-threatening call. The response time now is 12.4 minutes. The FDNY's response to medical emergencies has nearly doubled, and it's taking the NYPD almost two minutes longer to get to shootings, robberies and burglaries.
"People will die because of this traffic issue," said EMS Union President Oren Barzilay.
Barzilay says delivery trucks and bike planes are part of the problem, but congestion tops them all.
"You go into biological death after six minutes," he said. "If the response time is over 10 minutes for those types of calls, your next option for our crews is probably you take them to the morgue."
Ambulances sat in traffic Friday afternoon below 60th Street where congestion pricing was supposed to help, but that was before that plan was put on indefinite pause.
Drivers like Mike Duke are content dealing with the jam up until the MTA finds a better way.
"The folks at the MTA should have figured out their own budget problems without coming into the pockets of people trying to make a living," Duke said.
Congestion pricing is not the only savior, according to the new report, which also recommends the city reinstates a limit on the number of Uber and Lyft drivers allowed to operate across the five boroughs.
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