Crash Injuries Rise On Upper East Side This Year, Data Shows

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Traffic injuries on the Upper East Side are on pace to exceed last year's total, according to city data, lending support to concerns that New York's streets have grown less safe despite the city's efforts.

So far in 2021, 232 people have been injured in crashes on the Upper East Side — a total that will easily exceed last year's figure of 248 if the trend holds. At least two people have been killed: a 64-year-old woman who was hit by a delivery van as she crossed Madison Avenue in March, and an 81-year-old woman who was struck by a school bus driver at East 72nd Street last week.

Across the five boroughs, traffic deaths have surged this year to nearly 200 people — their highest level since 2013. Safe-streets advocates have pinned blame on Mayor Bill de Blasio, saying his ambitious Vision Zero program has come nowhere close to achieving its goal of ending all traffic fatalities.

On the Upper East Side, most of those injured in crashes this year have been drivers, who made up 53 percent of the total. They are followed by pedestrians and cyclists, tied at 48 injuries each, or about 20 percent of the overall figure.

A number of explanations have been floated for the troubling trends, including the addition of more than 120,000 new vehicles to New York City's streets as car purchases spiked during the pandemic. Reckless driving has also risen, authorities note, while advocates say the city has done a poor job expanding its network of bike lanes and pedestrian spaces.

Some Upper East Side trends are more encouraging: the number of pedestrian injuries is on pace to be lower than last year's total of 81, and far lower than the totals in 2019 and 2018, when well over 100 walkers were hurt.

Police enforcement of traffic violations, meanwhile, has dropped precipitously. Through August, when this year's most recent data was available, the Upper East Side's 19th Precinct had issued just over 3,000 moving violations. By contrast, in 2019 and 2018, the precinct had given out over 8,900 and 7,200 traffic tickets, respectively, through the same rough period.

Categories seeing marked declines include red-light violations (438 this year compared to 931 in 2019), improper turns (753 in 2021, 3,929 in 2019) and failure to yield to pedestrians (370 in 2021, 611 in 2019).

At a recent Upper West Side community meeting, residents sounded off on similar trends seen in that neighborhood, pleading with a local precinct to step up enforcement.

"We are scared to be in the street," said Steve Anderson, chairman of a local block association coalition, according to West Side Rag. "We need not to wait years before changes are made."