Racial and class disparities persisted last year in the city’s traffic deaths, despite marked improvements under the decade-old Vision Zero program. That was the finding in the annual report from nonprofit Transportation Alternatives (TransAlt). Fatalities rose by 12% last year in neighborhoods with the most Black residents and 34% in those with the most Hispanic residents. Meanwhile, traffic deaths decreased in primarily white neighborhoods.
“There’s a couple different factors for that, but the one that we find that the data points the most toward is, of course, the lack of design and infrastructure, [and a] slow patchwork approach towards investing in these communities,” said Shawn Garcia, TransAlt’s director of advocacy. “The city has, especially in the last few years, really tried to lean more into goals around equity. For instance, we saw one of the biggest increases of bike lane infrastructure in the Bronx over the past three to four years.”
An NYC Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) report released on Jan. 15 found neighborhoods with populations of 80% or more Black, Brown, and/or Asian saw the biggest decline in traffic deaths over the decade since then-Mayor Bill de Blasio implemented Vision Zero, which aspired to eliminate traffic-related deaths entirely.
The NYC DOT’s equity report examined Street Improvement Project (SIP) miles to the overall street miles based on the racial demographic of each neighborhood for such findings. An agency spokesperson also pointed to specific projects in communities of color, including new bike lanes for the Bronx’s Soundview Avenue and in Brooklyn’s East New York neighborhood.
“Since the advent of the highway, many urban planning practices have left low-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color in New York City at a higher risk of traffic fatalities and childhood asthma,” said TransAlt executive director Ben Furnas after the report’s release. “We commend DOT on working to right these historic wrongs and prioritizing investment in every corner of the five boroughs. It’s fantastic to see an emphasis on work in every neighborhood.
Garcia said that, despite these improvements, further investment is needed for communities of color. He pointed to the city’s exemption to a statewide law for universal daylighting — removing parking spots in front of intersections to create visibility — as a starting point.
“Around senior centers, there’s been a lot of this investment [in] daylighting and other traffic-calming measures, narrowing car lanes so that cars are less likely to speed, creating more physical foundations at intersections and at corners,” said Garcia. “All these things have seen a lot of improvement, so we know that the infrastructure solutions are there. They’re proven. They’ve worked in cities of the same scale all over the world. They are working here. We just need more of them.”
Last year, 253 people died overall from traffic crashes in New York City, according to the TransAlt report, which uses NYC DOT data.
Children killed in traffic-related incidents tied record highs in the decade of Vision Zero, with 16 (matching 2022), according to the TransAlt report. For reference, 11 children were killed during the program’s first year of implementation.
“Last June, a truck driver ran over my daughters Jael and Leslie as they walked home from their last day of school,” said Woodside mother Maria Sumba in a statement. “Our 16-year-old Jael was killed, and our 8-year-old Leslie survived with serious physical injuries and the psychological trauma of watching her beloved older sister die in front of her. My family will live with this horrific, previously unthinkable loss and pain for the rest of our lives.”
The report also pointed to excessive traffic violation offenders, with 132 vehicles receiving 100 or more speed-camera tickets last year. Two vehicles received more than 500, meaning their owners probably incurred at least one traffic violation a day.
Garcia pointed to last year’s implementation of Sammy’s Law, which reduces speed limits in select areas. He said public safety concerns often prevail the most over violence on public transportation because people see traffic fatalities as isolated accidents.
“These are preventable deaths,” he said. “If people think it’s an accident, they’re like, ‘This is a shame that this happened.’ [They] wish that this didn’t happen to this family, but no one thinks there was something systematically [or] structurally that could have been changed in this intersection corridor that would have prevented this life being taken.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.