NEW YORK: Many New Yorkers believe the city is best appreciated on foot. But the teeming streets – packed with cars, bikes and a growing number of other vehicles – became increasingly hostile to pedestrians in 2024, city statistics show.
In July, a 51-year-old man was killed by a driver who ran a red light in Harlem. In Oct, Felix Mendez, a 49-year-old Mexican immigrant, was killed by a driver while he waited at an intersection in Brooklyn at 3am. On Christmas Day, a taxi driver hit six pedestrians, including a 9-year-old boy, in Manhattan.
Overall, in 2024 there was a nearly 18% surge in pedestrian deaths, which jumped to 119 through Dec. 30 from 101 during the same time period in 2023.
“Every single New Yorker is a pedestrian; we are the most walkable city in the US and the overwhelming number of any New Yorkers’ trips are on foot,” said Philip Miatkowski, the interim deputy executive director of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group that tracks traffic fatalities. “So, to see any increase like that is definitely alarming and something we need to take seriously.”
Leaders in New York have been searching for ways to improve pedestrian safety. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, signed legislation this year known as “Sammy’s Law,” which gave the city the authority to lower the speed limit to 20 miles per hour on almost all streets. It was named after Sammy Cohen Eckstein, a boy who died after he was hit by a van in Brooklyn in 2013. The city added 51km of protected bike lanes in 2023 and more in 2024, and has widened existing bike lanes, the Transportation Department said. The city has also installed more than 1.4 million square feet of pedestrian space over the last three years and has redesigned streets, including Queens Boulevard and 96th Street in Manhattan.
Danny Pearlstein, policy and communications director for Riders Alliance, a transit advocacy organization, said the city needed to more rapidly deploy solutions, such as bus lanes; curb extensions; raised crosswalks; concrete dividers that narrow driving lanes and make it harder to take wide turns; and other “three-dimensional obstacles”. “Clearly, as New Yorkers are getting out more and more, we’re not as safe on the streets as we should be,” Pearlstein said.
