Hoboken, New Jersey, recently marked seven consecutive years without a traffic death. Officials there credit their decision to take away some street parking, a change that increases visibility for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.
For seven years now, the city of nearly 60,000 people has reported resounding success: Not a single automobile occupant, bicyclist or pedestrian has died in a traffic crash since January 2017, elevating Hoboken as a national model for roadway safety.
While Hoboken’s plan has numerous components, including lower speed limits and staggered traffic lights, daylighting is often credited as one of the biggest reasons its fatalities have dropped to zero.
Ryan Sharp, the city’s transportation director, said when roads need to be repaved, Hoboken takes the additional step of cordoning off the street corners to widen curbs and shorten crosswalks. It’s already illegal to park at an intersection in Hoboken, but drivers often do anyway if there aren’t physical barriers.
I used to live so close to Hoboken that I may as well have lived in it. This cannot be taken at face value as a recipe for success. Hoboken is only one square mile, and they flaunt this fact all over the city. There's one main street that contains basically all of the city's traffic, and they did do all the right stuff on this street, but it's not exactly the most replicable thing for other cities to follow, given how straight forward and affordable the solution is for Hoboken and Hoboken alone.
Not many cities have 60,000 taxpayers (many in high income brackets) to be able to draw from to solve a problem by applying it to only a single street.
Daylighting is defined the first time it's used. I think it's useful to define and use a term when you're going to use it 6 more times in one article.
Hoboken’s traffic fatalities were low before it ever implemented Vision Zero — it had one road death a year between 2015 and 2017, the last year there was a road fatality.
This made me realize where some cops park their car in Prospect Park in brooklyn is basically the worst: they park right before the intersection. If I'm on a bike trying to exit the park, I can't see anyone where I need to turn because the cops have their damn car right there. Someone's going to get hurt because the pigs can't be bothered to park 20' further up, or even better just don't bring the damn car into the park.
Don't know about America, but in the EU parking less than 5 meters from an intersection is illegal. But of course, the police always thinks they are above the law even when it's not an emergency.