'Traffic Violence Crisis:' February Was NYC's Deadliest Month

NEW YORK CITY — More drivers are running red lights in New York as the high number of traffic deaths break city records, a new analysis of city data shows.

Red light violations spiked by 50 percent in the second half of 2021, as compared to the same period in 2019, and this year traffic crashes have killed at least 42 people, which represents a 58 percent increase from the same period last year, the Transportation Alternatives report said.

The last twelve months have been the city’s deadliest since Mayor Bill de Blasio’s traffic safety initiative Vision Zero launched in 2014, Transportation Alternatives found.

Last month was the deadliest February in the city since 2008, when New York began publishing the data, with 23 pedestrians, cyclist and vehicle users losing their lives in crashes, the analysis said.

Four people died in crashes over a single weekend, a 10-year-old girl was killed on a city sidewalk and a Barnard student escaped with her life after an SUV jumped the curb and smashed through the front of a Manhattan Trader Joe's.

Transportation Alternatives argues the spike in red-light running — it reached an all-time monthly high of more than 60,000 in June 2021 — is evidence that Albany lawmakers need to loosen restrictions on the city’s traffic camera programs.

“State lawmakers from hundreds of miles away shouldn’t be stopping us from saving lives on streets in the five boroughs,” said Executive Director Danny Harris.

“We are in a crisis of traffic violence and New York City must be able to use every tool available to save lives now.”

New York State law currently restricts the city from installing speed cameras outside of school zones and mandates they turn off at night.

It also caps the number of red light cameras in New York City to 150, which Sandra Voss of Families for Safe Streets called “woefully inadequate.”

Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez threw his support behind Transportation Alternatives’ plea to transfer control of automated traffic law enforcement to city government.

“Data shows traffic injuries drop where we install these cameras,” said Rodriguez. “We deserve to determine how we keep New Yorkers safe on our streets.”

State Legislature remained in Albany’s control under Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but his predecessor has said she’d be willing to consider localizing the law.

“Why does the state legislature and the governor have to weigh in on whether or not a school district in the city of New York has speed cameras in school zones?” Gov. Kathy Hochul said in November, according to a Streetsblog report. “I don’t want to govern that way.”

Correction: The original version of this story referred to Transportation Alternatives as TransAlt, a shorthand name the organization no longer uses.