12 COMMISSION ON BUILDING DISTRICTS 



children while playing in the streets is very large. By preventing stores, 

 garages and factories from locating on the residence streets the vehicular 

 traffic o'n such streets is reduced and as a direct result the number of 

 accidents to children. Of the persons killed by being struck by vehicles 

 in 1915 over half were children. 



Ernest P. Goodrich, consulting engineer and city planning expert, 

 testified to the importance of the proposed plan in effecting a segregation of 

 kinds of traffic and thus reducing street accidents. Edmund Dwight, resi- 

 dent manager of the Employers Liability and Assurance Corporation of 

 London, stated his experience as follows : " My experience has indicated 

 that accidents increase as congestion increases, and any plan which will 

 reduce congestion of population in buildings or in areas of the city will 

 reduce the number of accidents. The proposed limitation of heights of 

 buildings will reduce congestion in elevators, which is one of the prolific 

 causes of elevator accidents. Elevator accidents are due in far larger 

 proportion to crowding and to carelessness on the part of passengers, and 

 to unskillful handling, which is itself frequently caused by crowded cars, 

 than to defects in mechanical appliances. The number of street accidents 

 also, in large measure follow increase in density of population and it is 

 strikingly the case that the proximity of manufacturing operations to 

 crowded residential districts constitutes a peril, because heavy trucking, 

 express and similar traffic has to be conducted through streets which are 

 crowded with children. There is no question in my mind that limitation 

 of building heights and districting for classes of use, so that manufacturing 

 operations would be carried on in zones, with a minimum residential use, 

 would each tend, in large measure, to the reduction of accidents and to the 

 safety, as well as to the health of the people of New York." 



Heretofore we have attacked the problems of public health and safety 

 as related to building development in a piecemeal way. Special regula- 

 tions have from time to time been provided with relation to tenement 

 houses, factories, garages, theatres and other classes of buildings. Such 

 regulations are often rendered wholly or partially ineffective by failure to 

 control the environment of the building. The Tenement House Law 

 provides for minimum size yards and outer courts which really depend 

 for their adequacy on their being supplemented by similar yards and 

 courts on adjoining lots. If, however, a towering loft building or ware- 

 house is built next to a tenement, the standards of light and air aimed at 

 in the Tenement House Law are impaired. The districting plan makes it 

 possible to provide suitable and reasonable regulations for each class of 

 buildings and at the same time preserve the advantage of substantially 

 uniform regulations as to building height and yard depth for all structures 

 within the block. 



Every city becomes divided into more or less clearly defined districts 

 of different occupation use and type of building construction. We have 

 the central office and financial district, loft districts, waterfront and indus- 



