With Vision Zero, NYC DOT Improves Transportation Safety for All

New York City’s Vision Zero program, passed into law by Mayor Bill DeBlasio in 2014, aims to achieve zero traffic deaths or serious injuries by investing in data-driven and comprehensive engineering, enforcement, and education strategies aimed to improve pedestrian, cyclist, and motorists safety throughout the city. Data from agencies across the city is incorporated by the Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) in order to implement data-informed improvements to city infrastructure. 

Spearheaded by NYC DOT, the Vision Zero Task Force includes the New York City Police Department (NYPD), the Department of Education (DOE), and the Department of Health & Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), explained NYC DOT Commissioner, Ydanis Rodriguez. “Those agencies share information, they share data and we plan together on how we can take the city further than what we have today,” said Commissioner Rodriguez.

Since its inception, the program – which continues under the administration of Mayor Eric Adams and Commissioner Rodriguez – has drastically reduced the number of fatalities and injuries of pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists (including operators of motorized two-wheelers) across the board. In April, Mayor Adams announced that traffic deaths reached a historic low in the first quarter of  2025 (the most recent data available) –  41 traffic fatalities in the first three months of 2025 compared to 65 traffic fatalities in the first three months of 2024. According to NYC DOT data, during the first quarter of 1990 (when NYC DOT began collecting traffic data), there were 166 traffic fatalities – a 290 percent increase compared to 2025.

“Even though we want to continue bringing the number of cyclists and pedestrians fatalities to zero,” said Commissioner Rodriguez, “the ability to analyze the numbers by year, be able to use our own data, and also compare data from academic and private institutions, allow us to [incorporate] more accurate information and be able to see how much we have advanced, but also where we have to do better.”

Data Collection & Visualization

One of the more prominent ways NYC DOT is utilizing data to address safety is by identifying areas where the most crashes are happening based on NYPD crash data, which feeds into NYC DOT’s geospatial databases.  

“We have systematic ways of using the data in a variety of reports and products that move us towards addressing safety issues,” said Rob Viola, the director of Safety Policy and Research in the Research/Implementation and Safety at NYC DOT. For example, the agency’s Vision Zero Priority Geographies uses data to indicate which corridors, intersections, and areas in the city have the most concentrated pedestrian and traffic serious injuries and fatalities.

According to Viola, that long-term data is useful and becomes the base planning information for safety on upcoming projects. “We’re also always tracking trends. If we see something rising – like the rise of micro mobility that’s happening right now – we start zooming in on fatality trends,” said Viola. From there, NYC DOT would collect more data and from that spatial database, the agency would map the injuries and create a heat map to hone in on areas in need of safety enhancements. “Everything we do around safety is very, very focused on targeting with the crash data,” said Viola.

To analyze the extensive amount of data, NYC DOT utilizes the Serious Injury Response, Tracking & Analysis Program (SIRTA), which can be found on NYC Open Data. The SIRTA program is an automated system that looks at every severe vehicular crash in the city to analyze the crash report and review street design, infrastructure, and driver behavior at each crash location to determine whether there is a pattern to any specific crash. If the answer is yes, the NYC DOT program makes recommendations for a safer street infrastructure design. 

A prime example of this is the development of NYC DOT’s Turn Calming Program based on findings in a Left Turn Pedestrian and Bicycle Crash Study, which found that “pedestrians and bicyclists are killed or severely injured (KSI) by a left-turning vehicle at over three times the rate (19%) of pedestrian and bicyclist KSI by a right-turning vehicle (6%)” from citywide analysis of driver behavior. NYC DOT then designed turn calming treatments and implemented them on 1,101 intersections that had the highest concentration of accidents citywide, resulting in a 33 percent decrease in pedestrian severe injuries from vehicle crashes.

The Importance of Data Validation

Another way in which NYC DOT is letting data lead their decision making is using it to test assumptions; in this case, about the increasingly popular concept in daylighting. Increasingly popular among transportation advocates across the country, this is a method for increasing visibility (and potentially safety) at intersections by prohibiting parking adjacent to a crosswalk. According to Viola, there was both internal and external interest in having NYC DOT implement daylighting.  

“We had a mandated study to look at the issue,” said Viola, “We actually found that just clearing parking without putting something in the spot like a bike corral or a planter or something in the space seems to either have no safety effect or actually makes things worse at the intersection – [the cleared space] increases injuries.”

With these results, Viola says NYC DOT is now trying to influence the rest of the country on the nuances of daylighting through the results of their novel data study technique. In order to test the daylighting hypothesis, NYC DOT completed a hydrant zone analysis: they identified where in the city fire hydrants were adjacent to intersections with crosswalks, and compared those to intersections without the parking prohibitions due to fire hydrants. The intersections with hydrants were “associated with a 30% higher normalized rate of pedestrian and total injuries” than intersections that allowed parking up to the intersection. 

Backed by this data, NYC DOT is a proponent of “hardened daylighting,” in which a physical barrier such as granite blocks, planters, bike corrals, or safety bollards are put in place in the prohibited parking spaces adjacent to crosswalks and have implemented hardened daylighting in approximately 300 locations as of 2024. 

A Commissioner for the Community

For Commissioner Rodriguez, changes to the city’s transportation infrastructure are focused on the needs of the city’s residents, which can be a challenge in such a geographically large and socioeconomically diverse city such as NYC – from working class neighborhoods like Inwood in northern Manhattan, to middle-class neighborhoods in Brooklyn, to ultra-wealthy areas in Manhattan.

“For me, one [challenge] is understanding that some projects we are bringing to some communities are not welcome – some communities believe that we are imposing those projects [in their communities],” said Rodriguez. “If we compare another [city] with the level of density, with the level of socioeconomic and ethnic composition that New York City has, we are leading the nation and probably the globe when it comes to dining outdoors in the nation. We have the lowest numbers of pedestrian fatalities for the last 113 years [as of 2023]. What are the challenges that we have in front of us? Changing the culture.”

Yet in this challenge, Rodriguez also sees an opportunity to both educate and engage with all NYC residents by making the community part of the process to identify pain points and explain the benefits of data-informed infrastructure changes. 

“I established something called ‘Commissioner in Your Borough,’ where once a month I spend the whole day in each borough,” said Rodriguez. “I go back to the same borough every five months and spend an entire day meeting with interfaith leaders, PTA leaders, CBOs, elected officials, community boards and I’m not afraid if they have a challenging question.”

Despite an increase in bike usage in metropolitan cities since the COVID-19 pandemic, there were several factions in NYC opposed to creating more bike lanes and open sidewalk space for pedestrians and outdoor dining, arguing those changes remove driving lanes and parking in the city or hurt local businesses. 

In recent years, Commissioner Rodriguez and NYC DOT have seen a considerable increase in bike usage in the city, from 98 million bike trips in 2009 to a whopping 226 million bike trips annually. The data is collected from multiple streams – automatic counters on the four East River Bridges, Citi Bike data, and bike use surveys – leading them to build 85 miles of protected bike lanes throughout NYC, the largest amount of protected bike lanes built by any administration in a three year period. 

“We can see from the data how many bike trips [there are] and how many of those are produced by those who use Citi Bikes, but also essential workers who work and deliver for food app companies – Doordash, Uber, and others that are billion dollar companies [that expanded in popularity since the pandemic],” explained Rodriguez. “We are responsible to guarantee a safe and efficient movement of people and vehicles.”

Using the cyclist data and data from the Department of Finance gathered from working with the Bloomberg Associates on a study, Streets for Recovery, analyzing the open streets NYC DOT built around Chinatown, Rodriguez and his team were able to see that there was an increase of sales in local businesses in areas open streets – increased pedestrian area and outdoor dining – were created.

“The property owners on Fifth Avenue said [that] during the holidays when we closed Fifth Avenue for three Sundays, they were able to see the difference of higher sales when Fifth Avenue was closed [to cars] compared to when it was open,” said Rodriguez. Using this data-driven insight, NYC DOT is able to make the case for envisioning Fifth Avenue as a more pedestrian and cycle friendly pathway from 42nd Street to Central Park.

“We make these decisions because we are a data-driven institution that is able to analyze the benefit of making the city more pedestrian and cycle friendly,” said Rodriguez, “which is better for the economy, for the hope and for the future of our city.”