Vision Zero Takes a Dip: Traffic Fatalities Rise in NYC in 2019

New York – Traffic fatalities are up for the year 2019, the first time since Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Vision Zero campaign began six years ago that there were more deaths on the roads than the year before.
The saddest statistic in the report released Monday shows a dramatic 850 percent rise in bicyclists’ death in Brooklyn. Overall, the city had the most people die riding a bike in 20 years.

Traffic fatalities increased for first time since Vision Zero, a campaign based on a Swedish program aiming to reduce traffic deaths to zero, began in 2014. As of Sunday, there were 215 people dying on the city’s roads, more than the 203 recorded in all of 2018, New York City’s safest-ever year.

The sharpest increase came in Brooklyn. Of the 28 cyclist deaths in 2019, 17 happened in Brooklyn. In 2018, Brooklyn saw only 2 cyclist fatalities.

Administration officials on Monday announced that in order to reduce traffic deaths in Brooklyn, the city will lower the speed limit from 30 MPH to 25 MPH along Third and Hamilton avenues starting next month. The mayor called those Brooklyn’s “busiest” streets.
Drivers on Third Ave., which saw six fatalities in 2019, will have to drive slower from Prospect Ave. to 62nd Street, a stretch of 2.3 miles. On Hamilton Ave., the new limit stretches from Luquer Street to 18th Street, a length of 1.9 miles.
The new speed limits take effect in January.

Pedestrian deaths in NYC continue to hold steady, with 117 people killed while crossing streets as of Sunday compared to 115 in all of 2018.

The Bronx saw the safest year in its recorded history, with 27 fatalities thus far in 2019, compared to 38 last year. Staten Island, which had seven fatalities last year, saw it rise one to eight. In Manhattan and Queens, fatality trends were largely unchanged.

“While we’ve made tremendous progress over the past six years with Vision Zero,” de Blasio said in a statement, “there is still undoubtedly more work to do to make our streets safer. The recent traffic fatalities have made us even more determined to keep Vision Zero moving forward.”