Deadly weekend on Queens’ streets makes 2024 one of the worst, safety advocates say

Transportation advocates say 2024 is one of the deadliest years for Queens streets in the Vision Zero era after five people were killed by cars over the weekend.

Traffic deaths are 43% higher than average in Queens this year and on track to tie as the deadliest year in the borough, according to data collected and analyzed by street safety group Transportation Alternatives. Citywide, traffic deaths are 17% higher than average this year.

“Five people being killed in a single weekend should be completely unacceptable for everyone in city government,” Elizabeth Adams, deputy executive director for Transportation Alternatives, said in a phone interview. “We have the tools to change it, and to throw our hands up is callous and cruel.”

Transportation Alternatives tracks injuries and fatalities from cars by compiling press reports, which it says is faster and often more accurate than official data from the city. The NYPD recorded the following incidents this weekend:

• An SUV killed a 5-year-old boy who crossed mid-street while leaving the Poppenhusen Playground.
• A NYPD vehicle killed a 22-year-old man crossing the Van Wyck Expressway.
• A hit-and-run driver killed two men riding a moped.
• An overturned driver killed one person on the Grand Central Parkway.

The Department of Transportation didn’t dispute the deaths, but only has records from earlier this month. It said it was grieving with the families of those who died.

“Traffic fatalities are preventable,” spokesperson Vincent Barone wrote in an email. “This administration is using every available tool to implement transformative street safety projects that reduce speeding, improve visibility, and provide more protected space for cyclists and pedestrians.”

In a city where heavy and fast cars perpetually interact within inches of comparatively fragile pedestrians and cyclists, Adams said the city is failing to meet its legal obligations to make streets safer under a 2019 law requiring the construction of more pedestrian space and bike and bus lanes.

The NYC Streets Plan requires the city to build 50 miles of protected bike lanes and 30 miles of bus lanes each year. The city has largely failed these requirements. According to the most recent update from the Department of Transportation, the city has only built 72% of required bike lanes and 19% of required bus lanes.

In his email, Barone did not respond to the administration’s struggles to meet the NYC Streets Plan law, but instead identified other safer street metrics.

“This year we are undertaking an ambitious effort to make safety improvements at over 2,000 intersections, including improving visibility at 1,000 locations,” Barone wrote.

The city has sought, and recently won, the ability to lower speed limits across the city which City Hall said will make streets safer.

However, some obstacles to building safer streets come from local communities, either the community board or elected officials who stall projects.

Some elected officials in College Point, where the 5-year-old was killed over the weekend, have been antagonistic toward efforts to open roadways beyond just cars, calling groups like Transportation Alternatives “a tiny niche of radical bicycle activists”.

Republican Councilmember Vickie Paladino criticized DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez in a string of 2022 social media posts as catering to “misanthropic radicals on the fringe of the conversation” when he suggested that New York will have fewer cars in the future.

“There must be a robust, inclusive debate on the [sic] this issue, and it must consist of more than just weirdo activists bullying everyone else into submission on behalf of captured city bureaucracies and special interests,” she wrote.

Paladino did not return messages seeking comment on this weekend’s deaths.

Overall the city has made strides in reducing traffic injuries and deaths since the creation of Vision Zero. However, recent years have seen more deaths compared to the years immediately after following the start of the safety initiative. The first three years of the initiative, for example, saw 751 deaths while the last three years saw 860, according to city data.

A large contributor, Adams said, are SUVs which make visibility more difficult.

“We have seen an increase in crashes from large vehicles and SUVs in New York,” Adams said. “A disproportionate number of children are killed by large SUVs and in crashes.”