Secure streets advocates unveil a knowledge evaluation highlighting the town’s deadliest intersections. Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025.
Photograph by Ethan Stark-Miller
A coalition of secure streets advocates launched a brand new evaluation of Division of Transportation (DOT) information on Tuesday, highlighting the town’s most harmful intersections. The group is pushing the Metropolis Council to vote on a invoice that will eradicate parking close to intersections throughout the 5 boroughs, with the purpose of creating them safer.
The collective — comprised of advocates with Transportation Options, Households for Secure Streets, and Open Plans — discovered that 12,261 New Yorkers have been killed or severely injured since Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams was elevated to her put up in early 2022.
In addition they discovered that there are 118 intersections throughout the town the place 5 or extra New Yorkers have both been killed or severely injured over the identical interval and that just about three million New Yorkers dwell inside a half-mile of a kind of intersections.
Elizabeth Adams, Transportation Options’ deputy director of public affairs (who isn’t associated to the outgoing council speaker), stated the info exhibits that harmful intersections are a scourge citywide.
“That impacts us, our loved ones, our families, our neighborhoods and our city has an urgent issue to act now,” she added.
The report additionally recognized probably the most harmful intersections, the place it says clearing parking spots round crosswalks would make drivers and pedestrians safer — a observe referred to as “daylighting.” These embody:
West a hundred and twentieth Avenue and Lenox Avenue in Manhattan;
Northern Boulevard and forty eighth Avenue in Queens;
Flatbush Avenue and Avenue H in Brooklyn;
Bruckner Boulevard and St. Ann’s Avenue within the Bronx; and
Hunton Avenue and Richmond Street on Staten Island.
Shedding ‘daylighting’ on avenue security
Adams stated the evaluation underscores the urgent have to go Intro. 1138 — a measure sponsored by Metropolis Council Member Julie Gained (D-Queens) — which might ban parking or idling inside 20 ft of any intersection. At present, the town permits parking proper as much as the crosswalk.
The invoice, which might implement what is named common daylighting, additionally requires DOT to put in arduous obstacles at 1,000 intersections a 12 months.
Daylighting, is aimed toward boosting visibility for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers round intersections to lower the chance of deaths or accidents at site visitors crossings.
“Daylighting is the practice of removing curb space at the intersection to create visibility for everyone,” Adams stated. “So, whether you are a driver, a pedestrian, or a cyclist, you have the sight lines you need to see everyone who’s turning the corner, who’s coming around the bend.”
A DOT spokesperson responded with a press release saying: “One traffic death is one too many, and that is why under Vision Zero we have taken a data-driven approach to street safety that has helped reduce fatalities to historic lows. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all quick fix, but we will continue to use every tool available – including targeted daylighting – to make our streets safer.”
They added that there was some quantity of daylighting on the high intersections in every borough recognized within the report.
The DOT additionally cited a research the company launched earlier this 12 months that argued common daylighting with out arduous infrastructure doesn’t make intersections safer and should trigger as many as 15,000 extra site visitors accidents per 12 months. The report additional concluded that daylighting ought to solely be utilized in sure situations.
Nevertheless, Streetsblog reported final month on inner paperwork it obtained from the Metropolis Council’s information workforce that discovered DOT’s research was based mostly on defective information.
The advocates launched the evaluation as a part of their push for Speaker Adams to schedule the invoice for a vote within the final Metropolis Council assembly of the session, subsequent Thursday.
The invoice presently has majority assist — 27 co-sponsors within the 51-member council. However it wants at the very least 34 votes in favor to override a probable veto from outgoing Mayor Eric Adams.
Elizabeth Adams charged that if the speaker doesn’t schedule the invoice for a vote subsequent week, it’s “a failure of this council and of this speaker’s leadership.”
Council spokesperson Julia Agos, in a press release, responded that “The safety of pedestrians and all street users remains a top priority for Speaker Adams and the council.”
In response to stories from Streetsblog and Gothamist, the DOT despatched the council a counterproposal that will mandate the town to sunlight 100 places per 12 months, with no requirement so as to add arduous obstacles. That’s far under what the invoice’s proponents are pushing for, however the shops reported that the speaker has embraced it.
On the identical time, each shops reported that Council Member Gained has been contemplating amendments to the invoice to assist safe supermajority assist for it. The modifications would reportedly outcome within the invoice requiring daylighting at three-quarters of metropolis intersections, moderately than all of them.
Agos stated the invoice continues to be being negotiated.
“Introduction 1138 continues to be actively worked on and negotiated as part of the council’s legislative process, which includes consideration of public input, ahead of the Council’s final Stated Meeting,” she stated.
