New Study: NYC’s Vision Zero Improves Street Safety

Lower-income neighborhoods remain disproportionately unsafe, but DOT plans to target them in proportion to risk.

NEW YORK, NY — While work remains to be done in low-income neighborhoods, New York City’s Vision Zero is working, according to a new study by the Manhattan Institute’s Alex Armlovich. By reengineering intersections and streets with pedestrians and cyclists in mind, the city’s Department of Transportation has reduced deaths at targeted intersections by 34 percent. Unfortunately, lower-income neighborhoods have received less Vision Zero treatment relative to their risk, in part due to community board resistance, and thus continue to suffer higher injury and death rates. Moving forward, however, the DOT plans to appropriately target lower-income neighborhoods in proportion to risk.

While Vision Zero is (and, given the size of New York City, will probably always be) a work in progress, the evidence is clear that it has improved street safety. The study finds:

1. Between 2009 and 2016, pedestrian and bicycle deaths at roughly 4,600 intersections receiving at least one safety treatment during Vision Zero declined by 34 percent. By contrast, about 25,700 untreated intersections saw a 3 percent increase.
2. The more city engineers have redesigned a particular neighborhood’s streets and sidewalks, the more that neighborhood has experienced reduced traffic injuries and deaths.
3. Mapped pedestrian deaths actually increased slightly in 2016, from 126 to 128, but only at intersections that had not received Vision Zero treatment.

In light of the mayor’s “tale of two cities,” there are two additional, noteworthy findings:

1. The Vision Zero treatments implemented through 2016 have slightly favored higher-income neighborhoods, especially in Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Upper West Side.
2. Lower-income residential neighborhoods have not received intensive Vision Zero treatment relative to their risk, and continue to suffer higher pedestrian-crash rates.

Click here to read the full report.