Record number of traffic deaths in NYC through June

WILLIAMSBURG, Brooklyn (PIX11) -- Although it's been a decade since the city implemented its Vision Zero traffic safety plan, new information indicates that the city's streets are more hazardous than ever.

The five boroughs had more traffic deaths in the first six months of this year than in any other first-six-month period since Vision Zero began. This has led to traffic safety activists and everyday New Yorkers alike calling for changes to make streets safer. 

It's all the result of an analysis by the advocacy groups Transportation Alternatives and Families for Safer Streets. Their research, based on city Dept. of Transportation data, draws a tragic conclusion, according to Alexa Sledge, the director of communications for the organization. 

"We're at record levels of fatalities this year," she said in an interview, "which is horrible."

Transportation Alternatives analysis showed that in the first six months of this year, 127 people died in traffic deaths in New York City.  

At the corner of Graham and Metropolitan Avenues, an intersection that Transportation Alternatives, or TransAlt, has determined is one of the city's most hazardous, PIX11 News encountered various people who spoke with us about the new analysis. 

Joe Anderson and his wife, Dré, live on the Metropolitan Avenue corridor and experience its high traffic volume firsthand. 

“We hear the trucks all night,” he said. “I mean, they're going fast.”

The TransAlt report showed that of the 127 people killed in traffic-related incidents between Jan. 1 and June 30 of this year, pedestrians made up the highest number of fatalities, at 61. Not at all far behind that number were deaths of motorists -- people driving cars and trucks. At 51, that number was the highest for motorists in the 10 years since Vision Zero began.

Cyclists have also suffered in traffic deaths, with 12 of them having lost their lives in the first six months of this year. Three other people were killed in traffic fatalities in the city during that period. 

One cyclist at the Graham and Metropolitan intersection said, just before riding into traffic, that one thing would make his time on the road safer. 

"Maybe more cyclist paths," he said without giving his name. "More bike lanes."

Leo Parra, who said he lives two blocks from the intersection, said there's clearly more that needs to be done to improve safety for pedestrians like him. 

"I think New York, in general, has to figure out what it's going to do with cars," he said just before crossing the street. "I think we've reached the point where we're at maximum capacity."

Advocates at Transportation Alternatives and other transportation safety groups agree. They said that adding bike lanes, as the cyclist suggested, and increasing efforts to daylight intersections are among the easiest solutions to implement. 

That's a term for the practice of setting up buffer zones —no-parking zones that keep cars at least 20 feet away from crosswalks. 

Measures like this and adding bike lanes would help by working to lower speeds and increase driver awareness, said Sledge from TransAlt. 

"The narrower your streets are, and people are actively paying attention, and [when] driving is an active activity," she said in an interview, "the safer it is on that street." 

The city's Department of Transportation said it's working to improve safety for everyone using city streets. 

"We’ve installed a record amount of pedestrian space and protected bike lanes," a DOT spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the agency has "dramatically expanded automated enforcement programs targeting reckless driving and launched new educational campaigns around the most dangerous behaviors on our streets. This year, we’re improving visibility at 1,000 intersections citywide while also reducing speed limits on hundreds of streets through the implementation of Sammy’s Law.”

The DOT referenced a law named in honor of Sammy Cohen Eckstein, 12, who was killed by a driver in Brooklyn in 2013.

Activists, however, criticized the city for not doing enough. Sledge acknowledged that the city is taking measures, like "improving visibility" at 1,000 intersections. However, the city has 13,500 intersections with traffic lights, according to the DOT's records.