By Gabriela Resto-Montero
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — New York City still ranked among the country's safest traffic cities despite a small increase in the number of traffic-related deaths in 2010, according to reports.
The Department of Transportation recorded 269 traffic-related deaths in 2010, up from 256 in 2009, the New York Times reported.
But, according to a new report from the department, the last two years have recorded the lowest number of traffic fatalities since the city first began keeping track 100 years ago, the paper said.
"It goes against the common perception that this is a big, bad dangerous city," Janette Sadik-Kahn, the city's transportation commissioner, told the Times. "We have come a long way on safety."
Sadik-Kahn pointed to the city's efforts to provide pedestrian plazas, bike lanes and public safety campaigns.
New York City's traffic is comparatively safer than that of Dallas, Los Angeles and Chicago, according to data available from 2008, but is still more dangerous than Paris, Tokyo and Stockholm, the Times reported.
Pedestrian deaths dropped during the reporting period to 151 from 156 in 2009, the paper reported.
Motorcyclists made up a disproportionately large number of traffic deaths, accounting for 14 percent of the traffic death total despite making up just two percent of registered vehicles, the Times reported.
In Manhattan, the approach to the Queensboro Bridge remained among the city's troubled roads.
